| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | Hope Repulsed | | By Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793–1823) |
| | Translated by Edmund Gosse
UP through the ruins of my earthly dreams | |
| I catch the stars of immortality; | |
| What store of joy can hide in heaven for me? | |
| What other hope feed those celestial gleams? | |
| Can there be other grapes whose nectar streams | 5 |
| For me, whom earth’s vine fails? oh! can it be | |
| That this abandoned heart again may see | |
| A forehead garlanded, an eye that beams? | |
| Alas! ’tis childhood’s dream that vanisheth! | |
| The heaven-born soul that feigns it can return, | 10 |
| And end in peace this hopeless strife with fate! | |
| There is no backward step; ’tis only death | |
| Can quench at last these wasting fires that burn, | |
| Can break the chain, the captive liberate. | | | | |
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