 | Rhymes of travel, ballads and poems |  |
20
TO ONE AFAR.
I.
The glorious landscape lay below,No more in Fancy's dreaming seen—
But, basking in the Autumn glow
Stood town and tower and forest green;
Beneath, the sounding Neckar rolled
Through hills which bore him purple wine,
And glimmered like a chain of gold,
Through the dim haze, the winding Rhine!
In breezeless rest, the fisher's sail
Gleamed idly downward with the tide,
And songs of peasants in the vale
Came faintly up the mountain side:
In the blue dimness of the air,
A vague, sweet sense of lingering sound,
Like echoes of the chimes of prayer,
Hallowed the beauty-haunted ground—
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Lulled by that faint, ethereal strain,
I lay amid the heather flowers
Listening its echoes in my brain;
While, as the slow vibrations died,
My soul went back the Past on Memory's lapsing tide.
II.
Again my timid childhood came,And boyhood's struggling, doubt and tears,
Where one dear hope illumed thy name,
Belovèd of my early years!
And trembled o'er the soul's deep chords
Sweet memories of their earliest tone—
The music of thy gentle words,
The deep devotion of my own!
I heard thy tender, low replies,
Beside the rose's breathing bower,
When o'er us hung the moonlit skies
And angels blest our trysting hour!
I felt the dewy winds, whose kiss
Cooled the quick pulses of my brow,
When thrilling with the voiceless bliss
Of being loved by such as thou—
When o'er the cloudy doubts above
Stood broad and bright the glorious rainbow—Love!
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III.
The hope which yearned for thee afar,The boyish worship, treasured long,
Dawned on my heart—a morning star
Before the rising orb of Song!
And the lone stream and solemn grove
That knew my spirit's gloom and glee,
Learned the dear secret of my love,
Till all their music spoke of thee!
On the calm midnight's breezy tide
Came the sweet breath of flowers afar;
The sentries of the forest sighed—
On the stream's bosom throbbed the star!
Low murmurs from the holy skies
Haunted, like song, the dreamy air,
And from my heart, the fond replies
Awoke prophetic echoes there;
For boyhood's prayer foretold the hour,
When with fulfillment came the blessing and the power!
IV.
I know not how the world may love—How, in a thousand hearts, the fire
May seem descended from above,
And yet in ashy gloom expire;
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The lip may speak its holiest vow,
Yet shadows dim the spirit's truth
And pride and coldness change the brow;
I only know, how, from the mist
Of childhood's dreams, thine image grew—
A flower by Passion's sunbeams kissed
And fed by Hope's perpetual dew!
I only know how dear a worth
This restless being wins through thee,
Within whose sunshine, o'er the earth,
All beauty lives eternally!
And if my lays, in after-time,
Should win men's love,—the holiest fame;
If Sorrow's gifts of sweetest rhyme
Should brighten round my humble name—
Thy soul will light my footsteps on,
Up the long path of toil and tears,
And share with me the glory won—
Belovèd of my early years!
Heidelberg, 1844.
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