Empedocles (Empedokles)           

You search and search for life, and it rises gleaming,

     A god’s fire from deep in the earth.

          Shuddering with desire,

  You plunge into the flames.

So the queen in her excitement dissolved

    Rare pearls in wine, and why not!  And haven’t

         You, poet, reduced your own wealth

  To a cup of wine gone bad?

Yet you are as holy to me as the power of earth

     That lured you to the boldest of deaths.

          Deep as any hero I’d plunge, too,

               If love didn't keep me here.

Look, Nature, your most loved one suffers and sleeps,

     And you hesitate, healer of all?  Have you disappeared,

          Sweet breath of the upper air,

               And your well-springs of morning light?

All the flowers of earth, all the golden

     Happy fruits of the orchards, how can all this

          Fail to heal her life, which you gods

               Created as your own?

Ah, already the sacred will to live

     Breathes and sounds again in her excited conversation. 

          How lovely as before the tender

               Young flowers shine at you once again.

Holy Nature, you who too often, too often,

     When I sank into sorrow, smiled as you

          Would garland my head with gifts,

               Youthful one, now also as before!

One day when I am old, remember how each day

     You made me young again, alchemist of all things,

          Therefore, I’ll give to your flame my own

               Dying embers and live again as a different man.