Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

FREILIGRATH.

Where the old Rhine most proudly shows
His beauties and his grandeurs mild,
As by St. Goar's walls he flows,
And 'neath broad Rheinfels' wreck uppiled,—
'T was there the poet simply dwelt,
And simply sang of what he felt.

I knew him there, and that sweet spot
Lay after in my memory's folds
More fragrantly, that 't was my lot
To meet there what one glad beholds,—
A gentle, modest man, God-gifted,
In world's wares low, by worth uplifted.

A frugal pension from his king,
Enough his bounded wants to sate,
Left him all free to roam and sing,
Thus duly honored by the state.
Thought-breeding spirits, in that land,
Are nourished from the public hand.

His image lived within my mind,
As drew him there his verse and mien;
A man, kind, gentle, and refined,
A poet, whom 't were hard to wean
From quiet thought, and the calm moods
Mild natures love in fields and woods.

A few years passed;—I was at home.
One day, as o'er some British leaves
My eye all listlessly did roam,
Suddenly to the page it cleaves,
Fixed by the poet's name, and reads
The story of his Muse and deeds.

At first the picture was the same
That I had laid within my breast;
But soon, strange, startling words there came
Of flight, imprisonment, arrest.
By dread and wonder overpowered,
The tale I tremblingly devoured.

With beautiful dilation swelled
That stored-up image, as I learned
How he his wrath for years had quelled,
Had hushed the love wherewith he yearned;
Hoping, with loyal, Christian trust,
That Prussia's king would yet be just.

That tranquil mien, that abstinence
From smiting words, from song-winged blows,
Was a pure soul's compelled defence.
Beneath, a patriot spirit glows,
That for one's country all would dare;
The stronger, that it could forbear.

But when at last, by patient trial,
That vulgar king's low mind he knew,
That of sweet freedom the denial
The king from slavish instincts drew,
In stormy verse his ire he sped,
And from his home and pension fled.

In England now his bread he earns,
By daily, common, mindless toil;
And sad, and silent, tearful turns
His eyes towards his far German soil;
Yet thankful, too, that he is saved
From those hard tyrants whom he braved.

And faded now 's that image meek,
Dimmed by the splendors stern, that shine
Around the martyr's pallid cheek.
The gentle poet of the Rhine
His deeds a hero-bard avow;
Whom then I loved, I reverence now.

Woe to the country such must fly!
Its core is foul with cankering blight;
Its throne 's a gilded, brazen lie.
The poets are a people's light;
As were a sunless firmament,
Is the cursed land whence they are sent.