Morningside

Marianne Stokes, Aucassin and Nicolette

On the eastern fields
the Sun has risen.
We await in arid darkness
you expectant,
me despairing.
Why so impatient
when the first timid rays
can already be seen by the meadows?

Life must become beautiful yet.
Once the noisy caravans have gone
all the windows will be open in our house
with the scent of northern rain
subtly pouring in

There we will meet
the sickly lady from the North
the uncomplicated man of the South
the cold of her touch
warmed by his gentle burning
the sadness in his gaze
dissolved by the light of her laughter

There we will meet
by the ancient fig tree
no shadows between us
no fearful thoughts
or the curse of not knowing

Let not my love or my needs

Bind him;

But let me become a sacred fire

Always kept aflame for him

Upon his every return;

Let not any evil intention

Part from my lips

Lest it darken his soul;

But let the light that speaks to me

Speak through me

So that he can hear it also;

Let not my demands or my expectations

Be a weight upon us;

But let my gratitude, like the myrtle

Growing within my soul

Fragrance his dark and lonely path.

For it is not my thought that I left with him

But my whole heart;

So protect him from my weakness

If my heart ever wanders astray

And let me become a tree

Upon which he can lean,

An ocean

To whose song he can sleep to,

A soothing balm to heal all his sorrows;

Let my each day

Become a pilgrimage to the sacred altar

To joyfully sacrifice

The self-consideration and fear

The unfairness and pain

Please mold me

Fit to hold a Divine hope, a love and a wisdom

To be a light for him

Should he ever get lost.

Love is a promise

to stay awake with you for ten thousand nights

or until your nightmares no longer frighten you;

To wait for you for a hundred years

or until the love of others

no longer lifts you up;

To plant trees for you

that the birds may come

and lighten your heart with their songs;

Love is to walk through thunderstorms

and cross dark oceans

only to be there to hold your hand

and sit in silence with you

under the starry sky

To tend your fire

through the deep infinite winter

even when frost covers my trembling soul,

Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow,
detail of The Parable of the
Wise and Foolish Virgins

to catch a glimpse of you,

or even to hear your name

is like the morning breeze in the spring;

Love is to have my heart close to bursting

because the one I love is so deeply and powerfully,

magically, mystically, inexplicably

beautiful

radiant

This is the kind of love

I want to give to you

I may not have much

but the very little imperfect love I have

I want to lay at your feet

I want to devote myself to you

and to dedicate my every effort to you

because my life has worth

when I can sacrifice it for you.

Catrin Welz-Stein, Ice Princess

I have dreamt
of endless white frosty plains
it is the same as the dreams
of my life
where to see is hateful
where to hear and breathe is hateful

Then you return
and the winter of a hundred years
comes to an end.
Now I remember
that I have seen the place too
where the sun shines on white lilies
in complete silence;
it was you who brought me to that place

I do not need anything now
may I just carry
the difficult things which will not let you