Mellow are the July nights

when the sunset’s reddish fading

and the early morning lights

dawning blur and blend together. 

 

When summer with red roses

bleeds to death so rapidly, 

cawing ravens mourn the dead,

the blackbird has not sung

its last song yet.

 

Warm rays from the sunset

make distant peaks glow red,

the scream of the wild eagle

sounds over the forest silhouette,

while pale-cold falls the mist

into the closing day.

 

Under lime trees, under elms,

under thatched roof’s hanging wings

overgrown with moss and weeds,

stretching wide and shielding.

 

I want to put into a song 

what on moonlit village green

I heard the fairies lisping.

What grey stone’s mossy green 

inscription said to me.  

 

Fog pictures rise in twilight, 

from the dark days ‘past.

I hear faint voices whisp’ring,

sounds of pleasure, lament, anger. 

A last farewell, so distant.

 

Silent night in the deep forest

around the birches’ black white bark; 

around the alder’s trunks so dark,

flows the moonlight soft and mild.