love song

A Love Song by Else Lasker-Schüler

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Come to me in the night—we shall sleep closely together.
I am so tired, lonely from being awake.
A strange bird already sang in the dark early morning,
As my dream still wrestled with itself and me.

Flowers open before all the springs
Taking on the color of your eyes. . .

Come to me in the night on seven-starred shoes
And love shall be wrapped up until late in my tent.
Moons rise from the dusty trunk of heaven.

We shall make love quietly like two rare animals
In the high reeds behind this world.

translated by Michael Gillespie

from a song by Bernart De Ventadorn

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It is worthless to write a line
if the song proceed not from the heart
nor can the song come from the heart
if there is no love in it.

Maligning fools, failing all else, brag,
but love does not spoil,
but countered by love, fills,
fulfilling grows firm.
A fool’s love is like verse poor in the making,
only appearances and the name having,
for it loves nothing except itself, can
take nothing of good,
corrupts the rhyme.

And their singing is not worth a dime
whose song comes not from the heart.
If love has not set his roots there
the song cannot put forth shoots there: so
my song is superior, for I turn to it
mouth eyes mind heart
and there is the joy of love in it.
And the binding glance is food for it
and the barter of sighs is food for it
and if desire is not equal between them
there is no good in it.

translated by Paul Blackburn