Explore "Song: Translated from the German" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ah! grasp the dire dagger and couch the fell spear, / If vengeance and death to thy bosom be dear, / The dastard shall perish, death's torment shall prove, / For fate and revenge are decreed from above.
Ah! where is the hero, whose nerves strung by youth, / Will defend the firm cause of justice and truth; / With insatiate desire whose bosom shall swell, / To give up the oppressor to judgement and Hell-
For him shall the fair one twine chaplets of bays, / To him shall each warrior give merited praise, / And triumphant returned from the clangour of arms, / He shall find his reward in his loved maiden's charms.
In ecstatic confusion the warrior shall sip, / The kisses that glow on his love's dewy lip, / And mutual, eternal, embraces shall prove, / The rewards of the brave are the transports of love.
OCTOBER, 1809.