Translated as "Stanzas Written in Dejection" by Francis Hastings Doyle

The sun of yesterday which leaves me,
⁠No earthly skill can woo to stay,
To-day’s pale gloom which chills and grieves me,
⁠No human arm can hold away:
The birds of passage, ever flying past,
In countless flocks stream down the autumn blast,
I mount my tower to gaze far off, and fast
⁠Fill wine-cups from the waning jar.

The mighty bards, long dead, seem rising
⁠Around me in this lonely place,
I murmur through the old songs, prizing
⁠Their matchless vigour, truth, and grace—
I too feel powers that will not be controlled,
But cannot rival here the great of old,
Till to pure skies up-soaring, I behold,
⁠More closely, each unclouded star.

Vainly our swords would cleave the river:
⁠It keeps its ever-living flow;
Vainly in wine-cups, mantling ever,
⁠We strive to drown the sense of woe—
Man, in this life, when stormy fate grows dark,
Must let her billows rock his wandering bark,
Give the wild waves their will, nor pause to mark
⁠Too keenly how they foam afar.