AGES OF LIFE
Friedrich HölderlinYou cities of Euphrates!
You lanes of Palmyra
You forest of column in the plain of the desert,
What are you??
From you has the crowns,
the while you across the limit
of the breathing have walked,
by heavenly (beings) the steam of smoke and
away has taken the fire;
Now though sit I beneath clouds, wherein
each has a calmness to own, beneath
well furnished oaks, upon
the heath of the doe, and strange
appear and died to me
The blessed ones spirits.
Translation Anthony Howell, 2006