EGO FLOS Poem by Guido Gezelle

Canto II, 1
I am a flower
and bloom before your eyes,
o mighty blazing sun,
steadfast eternally,
who'll spare me, creature, in
my little earthly life,
and will hereafter grant me
life in eternity.

I am a flower,
and in the morning open,
at eve I close my leaf,
so that alternately,
whenever you, o sun,
will rise again and stir me,
I may awake once more
or yield my head to sleep.

My life is in
your light: my work, my wanting,
my hope, my happiness,
my only and my all;
what is there without you,
but ever, ever dying,
what have I without you
to love with all my soul?

I'm far from you,
although you, sweetest spring
of everything that lives
or from which life does flow,
yet come so close to me
and send, o dearest sun,
into my deepest deep
your all-pervading glow.

Lift, undo! . . .
untie my earthly fetters;
uproot me, and unearth me! . . .
hence, o let me, there
where always summer reigns
and sunlight let me hasten,
and where, eternal, one,
all-fairest flower you stand.

Let all the things
be past, and gone, departed,
that still divide us now,
like chasms between us stand;
let morning, evening, all
that's fleeting, flee now from me,
let me your endless light
behold, in Heaven's land!

Then I'll before . . .
o, not before your eyes,
but by you, near to you,
but in you blossom soon;
if in that life you'll let
me, creature, have my being,
if your eternal light
you'll let me enter then.