Summer

SUMMER

Heaven You’ve made blue and clear,
I thought and breathed in great relief:
Now has the splendid time arrived
of evening of day and night.
Rest will my weary soul now find,
a long and silent summertime,
and roses will revive my heart,
down in the valley, where Tou art.

Heaven was so set and blue;
the hard sun was so fierce and cruel,
but where wert Thou? Cleft was the earth;
as dry the air as was the well: a dearth
of water, but abundant hostile, stingy
thorns were all around; with sickly
glow beat in my body and my head
my feverish blood.

Then, from the wind-calm heat, I called:
“Wish that the wind howled and it stormed!”
And suddenly the sky was overcast and torn
apart by lightnings from a hidden thunderstorm.
A timeless, deadlike interval descends… and here
the fire is blazing through the atmosphere:
heaven-wide lightning
and claps, heavily crashing.

The rain pours down; the softened ground
spills generous and reckless founts
and suddenly expanded stood
Thou in the valley like a rose in bloom.
Instead of for a wilting peace
my soul now pleads
for storm, oh Lord,
although it may destroy, Your thunderstorm.