Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NATURE MORE THAN SCIENCE, by FRIEDRICH RUCKERT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NATURE MORE THAN SCIENCE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have a thousand thousand lays
Last Line: And sleepily wore on the stilly summer day.
Alternate Author Name(s): Raimar, Freidmund
Subject(s): Nature; Science; Scientists


I have a thousand thousand lays,
Compact of myriad myriad words,
And so can sing a million ways.
Can play at pleasure on the chords
Of tuned harp or heart,
Yet is there one sweet song
For which in vain I pine and long;
I cannot reach that song, with all my minstrel art.

A shepherd sits within a dell
O'er-canopied from rain and heat;
A shallow but pellucid well
Doth bubble at his feet.
His pipe is but a leaf,
Yet there, above that stream
He plays and plays, as in a dream
One air that steals away the senses like a thief.

A simple air it seems, in truth,
And who begins will end it soon.
Yet when that hidden shepherd-youth
So pours it in the ear of noon
Tears flow from those anear.
All songs of yours and mine
Condensed in one were less divine
Than that sweet air to sing, that sweet, sweet air to hear!

'Twas yesternoon he played it last,
The hummings of a hundred bees
Were in mine ears, yet as I passed
I heard him through the myrtle-trees
Stretched all along he lay
'Mid foliage half decayed;
His lambs were feeding while he played,
And sleepily wore on the stilly summer day.






Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net