free-verse37 lines
Guano Song.
by Joseph Victor von ScheffelIch weiss eine friedliche Stelle
Im schweigenden Ocean,
Krystallhell sch'umet die Welle
Zum Felsengestade hinan.
I know of a peaceful island
Afar in the silent sea,
Where around the rocky highland
Pure billows are foaming free.
In the harbour no ship is resting,
No sailor is on the strand;
And thousands of white birds nesting,
Are the guards of the lonely land.
Ever pondering pious questions,
They labour right faithfully,
For blessed are their digestions,
And flowing like poetry.
For the birds are all 'Philosophen,'
To the principal precept inclined;
If the body be properly open,
Then all will go well with the mind.
And the children pursue more enlightened
What their fathers in silence begun.
To a mountain it rises, and whitened
By rays of a tropical sun.
In the rosiest light these sages
Look down at the future and say,
In the course of historical ages
We shall fill up the ocean some day.
And the recognition of merit
Is theirs in these later days,
For in Suabian land we hear it
When the B'blinger Rapsbauer[1] says:
'God bless you - guano sea-gull,
Of the far away coast of the west:
In spite of my countryman Hegel,
The stuff which you make is the best.'
Translated From The German Of Joseph Victor Scheffel By Charles G. Leland.