On Swans

Still reading Yeats, I wanted to post his "Wild Swans at Coole" today, and remembered Friedrich Hoelderlin's "Haelfte des Lebens" (which my friend gave to me towards the end of the summer in 2011).  Here are both poems:
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The Wild Swans at Coole

By W.B.Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,  

The woodland paths are dry,  

Under the October twilight the water  

Mirrors a still sky;  

Upon the brimming water among the stones         

Are nine and fifty swans.  

  

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me  

Since I first made my count;  

I saw, before I had well finished,  

All suddenly mount  

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings  

Upon their clamorous wings.  

  

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,  

And now my heart is sore.  

All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,  

The first time on this shore,  

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,  

Trod with a lighter tread.  

  

Unwearied still, lover by lover,  

They paddle in the cold,  

Companionable streams or climb the air;  

Their hearts have not grown old;  

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,  

Attend upon them still.  

  

But now they drift on the still water  

Mysterious, beautiful;  

Among what rushes will they build,  

By what lake’s edge or pool  

Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day  

To find they have flown away?

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Hälfte des Lebens

Von Friedrich Hölderlin

Mit gelben Birnen hänget

Und voll mit wilden Rosen

Das Land in den See,

Ihr holden Schwäne,

Und trunken von Küssen

Tunkt ihr das Haupt

Ins heilignüchterne Wasser.

Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn

Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo

Den Sonnenschein,

Und Schatten der Erde?

Die Mauern stehn

Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde

Klirren die Fahnen.