The Swifts (1)

The swifts have no strength any more to retain,

To check the light-blue evening coolness.

It burst from their breasts, from their throats, under strain

And flows out of hand in its fullness.

There is not a thing that could stop them, up there,

From shrilly, exultedly crying,

Exclaiming: The earth has made off to nowhere,

O look! It has vanished - O triumph!

As cauldrons of water are ended in steam

When quarrelsome bubbles are rising -

Look - there is no room for the earth - from the seam

Of the gorge to the drawn-out horizon!