MORE STRONG THAN TIME

by: Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

INCE I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,

Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,

Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,

And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;

Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,

A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,

Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream,

Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;

I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,

Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,

Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,

One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.

Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill

The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;

My heart has far more fire than you can frost to chill,

My soul more love than you can make my soul forget



TO THE DISTANT ONE

by: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ND have I lost thee evermore,

Hast thou, oh, fair one, from me flown?

Still in mine ear sounds, as of yore,

Thine every word, thine every tone.



As when at morn the wanderer's eye

Attempts to pierce the air in vain,

When, hidden in the azure sky,

The lark high o'er him chants his strain:



So do I cast my troubled gaze

Through bush, through forest, o'er the lea;

Thou art invoked by all my lays;

Oh, come then, loved one, back to me!



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