He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
and like a thunderbolt he falls.
1851
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
and stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare.
There once was a woman of water
Refused a wizard her hand,
So he took the tears from a statue
And the weight from a grain of sand,
And he drained the dark from midnight,
And the height from a cypress tree,
And he squeezed the sap from a comet,
And he charmed the brains from a bee.
And he soured the mixture with thunder
And he stirred it with ice from hell,
And the woman of water drank it down
And she changed into a well.
There once was a woman of water
Who was changed into a well,
And the well smiled up at the wizard
And down down down that old wizard fell...