The Marriage Before Death, And Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

“As Maria Forster entered womanhood, Richter became the ideal of all that was dreamed or imagined. He was the only living mortal that was admitted into her ideal world; the purest and holiest of men, a saint, a ‘new Christ for her,’ who could alone bear her over the waves of life that threatened right and left to overwhelm her. To be near him in some form, or in some relation, was the only contingency in which she could find peace. To hold some kind of communion with him was a necessity of her nature. She must speak to him, or she must die.”—See the “Life of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter.”

Ah! could I see him—for he fills my dreams
With sweet white fancies flying in stray gleams,
Like butterflies amid the meadow grass,
Across my brain's mad vapour-shrouded glass.
Ah! could I see him! all my heart is full
At morning and at noon and when the cool
Clear sunset gilds our cottage window-pane,
And when night's glamour doth pervade my brain
I am held by thoughts I know not how to speak;
The red rose is a white rose in my cheek,
And tears do throng my eyes, I know not how,
And fever parches my torn sultry brow.

Ah! Richter—father, hear my fainting prayer,
Borne towards thee on the sympathetic air;

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And let thy daughter's sorrow and her dreams
Wake in thy soul responsive tender gleams.
Thine own grand soul—whose early power I felt
Throughout my fiery girlhood burn and melt,
Yet—guard me angels from immodest thought,
But as a father's distant message brought
Towards me on the gold angelic wings:
Beneath thy fair touch all my spirit sings,
Beneath the pressure of thy distant hands
My spirit's smiling inner bloom expands.

Ah! Richter, shall I see thee, my fair lord,
In heaven, having cut Time's paltry cord
Of separation, for thy loving sake,
And plunged for thee beneath the death-cold lake?
In heaven passion and reward are one,
And moons are not detained from their sweet sun
By distance, or by custom, or by fate.
Ah! Richter, at the heavenly outer gate
I tarry—fair grand genius-soul—for thee,
Having conquered Death's pale intermediate sea,
As only women-souls can conquer Death
By dainty witchery of rose-perfumed breath.

That perfume—ah! my lover, shall be thine,
And all my hands can weave of soft woodbine,
And ivy, and white lilies, and gold corn,
And poppies, that love's sleep may thence be born

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To flutter over us with healing wings,
Even so thy passionate-voicèd daughter!—sings.

Daughter—a simple daughter—ah! good God,
The cold interposition of Thy rod
One moment was forgotten, and I soared
Towards fragrant heights by maidenhood abhorred,
And drank forbidden nectar in a dream.
Now—father, thy departing garments gleam
Like ghostly visitors across a wave,
Or grasses beckoning around a grave.

But father—my sweet father—all thy tales
Of high romance, at which the spirit pales
With ecstasy and deep unuttered thought,
Those legends which thy magic hand has wrought,
Are made a part inalienable of me,
As the moon's reflection mixes with the sea.

I know not what I mean—I cannot say
The things that trouble me from day to day,
I only know that every flower I see
Serves somehow to remind my soul of thee.
I only know that every sunrise fair,
Filled wildly with unutterable air,
Wrenches my eager spirit till it turns
Towards the house o'er which thy planet burns;

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And every sunset, red or green or grey,
Hath but one same unerring word to say.

I am but a mute maiden, I am young,
And thou art first of those whose magic tongue
Pervades the utmost limits of our land,
A silver-voiced and silver-soulèd band.
Who am I thus to venture to declare,
Even towards the pure reliable high air,
The passion that a daughter—is it so?
Or are my spirits steeped in some dense glow
Fetched from the entrancing mystic house of hell?
O, haste ye angel-spirits, haste to tell
A puzzled maid the way wherein to walk;
I would be valiant—would withstand and balk
The power of Monarch Satan, if it be
The Fiend who pierces and inhabits me.

But it cannot be so—my love is high,
Even as an eagle in the utmost sky;
And I am but a pale tree-perching bird,
Far from the lowest limit of his word,
And therefore may I safely send my voice
Towards the region where the gods rejoice,
Well-knowing that my high lord heareth not—
Yet would that he were with me in this spot,

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Or rather would that he were far away,
Not covering me with blushes of dismay.

Sweet, listen, let us traverse some lone wood
Filled full with many herbs and flowers good,
And I will weave a fragrant coronet
To crown thy temples grey from labour's sweat,
And weary from creation all alone.
Thy wife—nay, is my idol overthrown?
She cannot love him as I love my lord;
She bears the marriage-sceptre—I a sword,
Made sharp with distance and the pungent fire
Of girlhood's young intemperate desire.

Do I desire him—do I long to sit
At his dear feet, and watch the wild birds flit
Over the tempting hollows of the sea,
Knowing my love doth overshadow me?
My longing is not of this world at all,
I long to be released from earth's dull thrall,
And, piercing the grey vapours of the night,
To join my love beneath the golden light
Of heaven, and God's grand pure ivory throne;
There I may freely clasp him as my own,
And with love's violence delicately intense,
Still the delirious leaping of each sense.