Die schone Sonne

The splendid sun
Has slipped quietly into the sea;
The waving waters are already clouded
With the shadows of night;
Only the afterglow
Stretches a web of gold and rosy lights over them.
The restless tide
Urges the billows toward the shore,
And the white waves leap and gambol
Like a flock of woolly lambkins
At evening, when a singing herd-boy
Drives them home.
" How splendid is the Sun! "
Thus, after a long silence, spoke my friend
Who had been walking with me on the beach.
And, half in fun and half in earnest,
He assured me that the sun was a lovely woman
Who had married the old sea-god for convenience
All day long she wanders happily
Through the high heavens, robed in red and purple,
Blazing with diamonds;
Beloved and worshiped
By every creature in the world;
And all creation is made happy
With the light and warmth of her glance.
But at evening she is forced ruthlessly
To turn back again
To the damp house and the sterile embraces
Of her senile spouse.

" Believe me, " my friend continued,
And laughed and sighed and laughed again,
" They live in a sweet wedlock there below!
Either they sleep or else they quarrel
Till the sea above them towers and storms,
And the sailor hears, in the roar of the billows,
How the old one scolds at his wife:
" Whore of the heavens!
Radiant harlot!
All day long you glow for others,
And at night, for me, you are tired and frosty!"
After such curtain-lectures
It's no wonder that the proud sun
Breaks into tears and bewails her lot,
And weeps so long and bitterly, that the sea-god
Springs from his bed in sheer desperation
And swims swiftly up to the surface of the sea
To recover his wind and his wits.

So it was I saw him, a few nights ago,
Looming up, breast-high, above the waves.
He wore a yellow flannel jacket,
And a lily-white nightcap,
And a lined and withered face. "