Parerga/My Soul Was Dark and Desolate

MY SOUL WAS DARK AND DESOLATE.

Ἀκτῖνας ὄσσων μαρμαραζοίσας
δρακεὶς ὃς μὴ πόθῳ κυμαίνεται
ἐξ ἀδάμαντος ἠὲ σιδάρου κεχάλκευται
μέλαιναν καρδίαν ψυχρᾷ φλογὶ
πρός τ' Ἁφροδίτας ἀτιμασθεὶς ἑλικοβλεφάρου.
Pind. Scol. Fragm.

My soul was dark and desolate,
Sorrowing from thee afar;
Rayless and inanimate,
Like a night without a star,
When the interlunar sky
Mourns the moon's inconstancy.

At the dawn of thy return
Vital altars throb and burn;
All the heaven of love is glowing
In thine eye's unfolded blue;
Light and life around thee flowing
Waken hearts beneath thy view,
As the daybreak's gleams and showers
Call from sleep the shrouded flowers.

Though my spirit, at the glance
Of thy radiant countenance,
Droops with dazzled aching sight,
Overladen with delight;
Still I feel thee gazing on me,
And the thrilling influence
And the soul-dissolving sense
Of thy presence float upon me,
Clasping the breast in a stifling zone,
Filling the ears with a silver tone
Sent from the heart—and the heart alone.

The cold clay-fetters are unloosed;
My whole existence is transfused
By the Great Passion's Alchemy
Into one quivering flame for thee.
As th' expanding flashing rays
Of the summer noontide's blaze
Melt the morning's mask of haze,
And the atmosphere is kindled
Into one glow of liquid light
By the sun, that dim and dwindled
Lour'd forth on the orient height;
But now in majesty of might
Gladdens all around, above,
Intense, omnipresent as Love.