Golden light of love, do you then shine even for the dead? Visions of brighter days, do you illumine my night? Lovely gardens and mountains tinged with the sundown's red, welcome, and you, silent paths of the orchard, you that witnessed heavenly bliss; and you, high-gazing stars that so often granted me blessing glances. And you lovers too, the May day's beautiful children, tranquil roses, and you, lilies, still often I name. Springs, it is true, go by, one year supplants the other, changing and warring Time roars up above, beyond the heads of us mortals, yet not to the eyes of the blessed; and to lovers too a different life has been given. For all these, Diotima, the days and years of the stars, were at one with us then, closely, eternally.
Menon's Lament for Diotima, Hölderlin
