Hyperion to Diotima
It’s as well for me I’m wholly busy with my work. Id surely tumble from one folly to another, so full is my soul, so fuddled am I by this man, wonderful and proud, who loves nothing but me and heaps on me alone all the humility that’s in him. O Diotima! this Alabanda has wept before me, has begged me like a child to forgive him what he did to me in Smyrna.
Who am I then, you dear ones, that I call you mine, that I may say, ‘they are mine own,’ that I stand between you like a conqueror and embrace you as my booty.
O Diotima! O Alabanda! noble beings, grand, serene! how must I achieve if I’m not to flee before my happiness, before you?
Just as I was writing I received your letter, dearest.
Do not grieve, lovely being, do not grieve! Save yourself, unscathed by sorrow, for the future festivals of the fatherland! Diotima! for the glowing festal day of nature save yourself, and for all the blithe days in honour of the gods!
Can you not see Greece already?
Oh, can you not see how the eternal stars, glad of their new neighbours, smile above our towns and groves, how the ancient ocean, when it sees our people stroll along the shore, is minded again of the beautiful Athenians and again brings us fortune, just as then for its darlings, on joyful waves?
Soulful maiden! you're already so beautiful now! how shall you blossom then, in ravishing glory, when the right climate nourishes you!