Evening Landscape by Friedrich von Matthisson

Golden light
Bedecks the grove.
An enchanting twilight gently illuminates
The castle’s o’ergrown ruins.

Still and sublime,
The ocean gleams;
Homeward there glide, gentle as swans,
Fisher-boats near the far-off isle.

Silvery sand
Glitters on shore;
Redder here, paler there,
Cloud-images float upon the waves.

Fluttering, rustling,
Crown’d with gold,
The reeds encircle the foreland-hillock,
Wildly swarming with sea-fowl.

Picturesquely,
From the thicket,
There beckons, with garden, foliage, spring,
The hermit’s moss-grown shanty.

On the water
The glow dies out;
Already, the evening glimmer grows pale
Across the lofty castle’s ruins.

Light of the full moon
Bedecks the grove;
In the valley float lisping spirit-voices
‘Round fallen heroes’ crumbled monuments.

From: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/transl/Schiller_essays/matthison_poetry.html

Date: 1787 (original in German); 2005 (translation in English)

By: Friedrich von Matthisson (1761-1831)

Translated by: John Sigerson (19??- )