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233

V. PART V. OVERSETTINGS FROM THE GERMAN.

235

ALEXANDER AND THE TREE.

[_]

(De La Motte Fouqué.)

The sun is bright, the air is bland,
The heavens wear that stainless blue,
Which only in an Orient land
The eye of man may view;
And lo! around, and all abroad,
A glittering host, a mighty horde—
And at their head a demigod
Who slays with lightning sword!
The bright noon burns, but idly now
Those warriors rest by copse and hill,
And shadows on their Leader's brow
Seem ominous of ill.
Spell-bound, he stands beside a tree,
And well he may, for through its leaves,
Unstirred by wind, come brokenly
Moans, as of one that grieves!
How strange! he thought—Life is a boon
Given, and resumed—but how? and when?
But now I asked myself how soon
I should go home agen!
How soon I might once more behold
My mourning mother's tearful face;
How soon my kindred might enfold
Me in their dear embrace!
236

There was an Indian Magian there—
And, stepping forth, he bent his knee:
“O king!” he said, “be wise!—beware
This too prophetic tree!”
“Ha!” cried the king, “thou knowest then, Seer,
What yon strange oracle reveals?”
“Alas!” the Magian said, “I hear
Deep words, like thunder peals!
“I hear the groans of more than Man,
Hear tones that warn, denounce, beseech;
Hear—woe is me!—how darkly ran
That stream of thrilling speech!
‘O king,’ it spake, ‘all-trampling king!
Thou leadest legions from afar;
But Battle droops his clotted wing!
Night menaces thy star!
“‘Fond visions of thy boyhood's years
Dawn like dim light upon thy soul;
Thou seest again thy mother's tears,
Which Love could not control!
Ah! thy career, in sooth, is run!
Ah! thou indeed returnest home!
The Mother waits to clasp her son
Low in her lampless dome!
“‘Yet go, rejoicing! He who reigns
O'er Earth alone leaves worlds unscanned;
Life binds the spirit as with chains;
Seek thou the Phantom Land!
Leave Conquest all it looks for here,
Leave willing slaves a bloody throne;
Thine henceforth is another sphere,
Death's realm, the dark Unknown!’”
237

The Magian paused; the leaves were hushed,
But wailings broke from all around,
Until the Chief, whose red blood flushed
His cheek with hotter bound,
Asked, in the tones of one with whom
Fear never yet had been a guest—
“And when doth Fate achieve my doom?
And where shall be my rest?”
“Oh, noble heart!” the Magian said,
And tears unbidden filled his eyes,
“We should not weep for thee!—the Dead
Change but their home and skies:
The moon shall beam, the myrtles bloom
For thee no more—yet sorrow not!
The immortal pomp of Hades' gloom
Best consecrates thy lot.”

NOON-DAY DREAMING.

[_]

(Müller.)

There danceth adown the mountain
The Child of a lofty race,
A Streamlet fresh from its Fountain
Hies towards the valley apace.
Some Fairy hath whispered “Follow!”
And I have obeyed her well:
I thread the Blossomy Hollow
With my pilgrim-staff and shell.
On, on, behold me straying,
And ever beside the stream,
As I list its murmurous playing
And mark how its wavelets gleam.
238

Can this be the path I intended?
O, Sorceress! what shall I say?
Thy dazzle and music blended
Have wiled my reason away!
No mortal sounds are winging
Their wonted way along;
Oh, no! some Naiad is singing
A flattering Summer-song!

TO THE BELOVED ONE.

[_]

(Heine.)

O, why are the roses so drooping and pale?
My sweet, wilt thou whisper me why?
O, why, my beloved, in the heart of the vale,
Do the violets languish and die?
And why with so plaintive and wailing a sound
Goes singing the lark in the skies?
Or why from the odorous blossoms around
Should the scents of the charnel arise?
And why will the sun the green valley below
Thus wanly and dully illume?
O, why should the earth like a wilderness show?
And as vacant of soul as a tomb?
And why am I, too, so dejected and lone?
O, loved of my bosom, canst tell?
My richest of treasures, my beautiful one,
O, why dost thou bid me farewell?
239

THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER.

[_]

(Eichendorff.)

The mill wheel turns with a saddening sound—
I hear it each morning early,
When the sun arises red and round,
And the flower cups glisten so pearly.
The miller's daughter is gone away,
And oh! most bodeful wonder,
The ring she gave me on Valentine's day
Sprang yestereven asunder!
No longer now may I linger here;
I'll don the willow, and till grim
Death shall at length arrest my career
I'll wander about as a pilgrim.
I'll wander with lute from bower unto hall,
From shepherd's dell unto city,
Compelling tears from the eyes of all
Who shall hearken my doleful ditty.
The mill wheel turns in the early morn,
I hear both wheel and water;
And I turn, too—away, forlorn,
For I think of the miller's daughter.
That wheel shall turn and turn again,
Re-turn, re-turn, forever;
But the miller's faithless daughter, when
Shall she return? Ah, never!
240

BREADTH AND DEPTH.

[_]

(Schiller)

Gentry there be who don't figure in History;
Yet they are clever, too—deucedly!—
All that is puzzling, all tissues of mystery
They will unravel you lucidly.
Hear their oracular dicta but thrown out,
You'd fancy these Wise Men of Gotham must find the Philosophers' Stone out!
Yet they quit Earth without signal and voicelessly;
All their existence was vanity.
He seldom speaks—he deports himself noiselessly
Who would enlighten Humanity:
Lone, unbeheld, he by slow, but incessant
Exertion, extracts for the Future the pith of the Past and the Present.
Look at yon tree, spreading like a pavilion! See
How it shines, shadows and flourishes!
Not in its leaves, though all odour and brilliancy,
Seek we the sweet fruit that nourishes.
No! a dark prison encloses the kernel
Whence shoots with round bole and broad boughs the green giant whose youth looks eternal!

THE RIDE ROUND THE PARAPET.

[_]

(Rückert.)

She said, “I was not born to mope at home in loneliness,”—
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
She said, “I was not born to mope at home in loneliness,
241

When the heart is throbbing sorest there is balsam in the forest,
There is balsam in the forest for its pain,”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Said the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
She doffed her silks and pearls, and donned instead her hunting-gear,
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
She doffed her silks and pearls, and donned instead her hunting-gear,
And, till Summer-time was over, as a huntress and a rover,
Did she couch upon the mountain and the plain,
She, the Lady Eleanora,
Noble Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Returning home again, she viewed with scorn the tournaments—
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Returning home again, she viewed with scorn the tournaments;
She saw the morions cloven and the crowning chaplets woven,
And the sight awakened only the disdain
Of the Lady Eleanora,
Of the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
“My feeling towards Man is one of utter scornfulness,”
Said Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
“My feeling towards Man is one of utter scornfulness,
And he that would o'ercome it, let him ride around the summit
Of my battlemented Castle by the Maine,”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Said the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
242

So came a knight anon to ride around the parapet,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
So came a knight anon to ride around the parapet,
Man and horse were hurled together o'er the crags that beetled nether—
Said the Lady, “There, I fancy, they'll remain!”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Queenly Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
Then came another knight to ride around the parapet,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Then came another knight to ride around the parapet,
Man and horse fell down, asunder, o'er the crags that beetled under—
Said the Lady, “They'll not leap the leap again!”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Lovely Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
Came other knights anon to ride around the parapet,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Came other knights anon to ride around the parapet,
Till six-and-thirty corses of both mangled men and horses
Had been sacrificed as victims at the fane
Of the Lady Eleanora,
Stately Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
That woeful year went by, and Ritter none came afterwards
To Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
That woeful year was by, and Ritter none came afterwards;
The Castle's lonely basscourt looked a wild o'ergrown-with-grasscourt;
'Twas abandoned by the Ritters and their train
To the Lady Eleanora,
Haughty Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
243

She clomb the silent wall, she gazed around her sovran-like,
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
She clomb the silent wall, she gazed around her sovran-like;
“And wherefore have departed all the Brave, the Lion-hearted,
Who have left me here to play the Castellain?”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Said the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
“And is it fled for aye, the palmy time of Chivalry?”
Cried Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
“And is it fled for aye, the palmy time of Chivalry?
Shame light upon the cravens! May their corses gorge the ravens,
Since they tremble thus to wear a woman's chain!”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Said the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
The story reached at Gratz the gallant Margrave Gondibert
Of Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
The story reached at Gratz the gallant Margrave Gondibert.
Quoth he, “I trow the woman must be more or less than human;
She is worth a little peaceable campaign,
Is the Lady Eleanora,
Is the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!”
He trained a horse to pace round narrow stones laid merlonwise,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
He trained a horse to pace round narrow stones laid merlonwise—
“Good Grey! do thou thy duty, and this rocky-bosomed beauty
Shall be taught that all the vauntings are in vain
Of the Lady Eleanora,
Of the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!”
244

He left his castle-halls, he came to Lady Eleanor's,
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
He left his castle-halls, he came to Lady Eleanor's.
“O lady, best and fairest, here am I,—and, if thou carest,
I will gallop round the parapet amain,
Noble Lady Eleanora,
Noble Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.”
She saw him spring to horse, that gallant Margrave Gondibert,
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
She saw him spring to horse, that gallant Margrave Gondibert.
“O, bitter, bitter sorrow! I shall weep for this to-morrow!
It were better that in battle he were slain,”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Said the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Then rode he round and round the battlemented parapet,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Then rode he round and round the battlemented parapet;
The Lady wept and trembled, and her paly face resembled,
As she looked away, a lily wet with rain;
Hapless Lady Eleanora!
Hapless Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
So rode he round and round the battlemented parapet,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
So rode he round and round the battlemented parapet;
“Accurst be my ambition! He but rideth to perdition,
He but rideth to perdition without rein!”
Wept the Lady Eleanora,
Wept the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Yet rode he round and round the battlemented parapet,
For Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Yet rode he round and round the battlemented parapet.
245

Meanwhile her terror shook her—yea, her breath well-nigh forsook her,
Fire was burning in the bosom and the brain
Of the Lady Eleanora,
Of the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
Then rode he round and off the battlemented parapet
To Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Then rode he round and off the battlemented parapet.
“Now blest be God for ever! This is marvellous! I never
Cherished hope of laying eyes on thee again!”
Cried the Lady Eleanora,
Joyous Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
“The Man of Men thou art, for thou hast truly conquered me,
The Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
The Man of Men thou art, for thou hast fairly conquered me.
I greet thee as my lover, and, ere many days be over,
Thou shalt wed me and be Lord of my domain,”
Said the Lady Eleanora,
Said the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Then bowed the graceful knight, the gallant Margrave Gondibert,
To Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Then bowed that graceful knight, the gallant Margrave Gondibert,
And thus he answered coldly, “There be many who as boldly
Will adventure an achievement they disdain,
For the Lady Eleanora,
For the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
246

“Mayest bide until they come, O stately Lady Eleanor!
O Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
Mayest bide until they come, O stately Lady Eleanor!
And thou and they may marry, but, for me, I must not tarry;
I have won a wife already out of Spain,
Virgin Lady Eleanora,
Virgin Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!”
Thereon he rode away, the gallant Margrave Gondibert.
From Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Thereon he rode away, the gallant Margrave Gondibert.
And long in shame and anguish did that haughty Lady languish,
Did she languish without pity for her pain
She the Lady Eleanora,
She the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
And year went after year, and still in barren maidenhood
Lived Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
And wrinkled Eld crept on, and still her lot was maidenhood,
And, woe! her end was tragic; she was changed, at length, by magic,
To an ugly wooden image, they maintain;
She, the Lady Eleanora,
She, the Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
And now before the gate, in sight of all, transmogrified,
Stands Lady Eleanora von Alleyne.
Before her castle-gate, in sight of all, transmogrified,
And he that won't salute her must be fined in foaming pewter,
If a boor—but if a burgher, in champagne,
For the Lady Eleanora,
Wooden Lady Eleanora von Alleyne!
247

NATURE MORE THAN SCIENCE.

[_]

(Rückert.)

I have a thousand thousand lays,
Compact of myriad myriad words,
And so can sing a million ways,
Can play at pleasure on the chords
Of tunèd harp or heart;
Yet is there one sweet song
For which in vain I pine and long;
I cannot reach that song, with all my minstrel art.
A shepherd sits within a dell,
O'er-canopied from rain and heat;
A shallow but pellucid well
Doth ever bubble at his feet.
His pipe is but a leaf,
Yet there above that stream,
He plays and plays, as in a dream,
One air that steals away the senses like a thief.
A simple air it seems in truth,
And who begins will end it soon;
Yet when that hidden shepherd youth
So pours it in the ear of Noon,
Tears flow from those anear.
All songs of yours and mine
Condensed in one were less divine
Than that sweet air to sing, that sweet, sweet air to hear!
'Twas yesternoon he played it last;
The hummings of a hundred bees
Were in mine ears, yet, as I passed,
I heard him through the myrtle trees.
248

Stretched all along he lay,
'Mid foliage half-decayed.
His lambs were feeding while he played,
And sleepily wore on the stilly Summer day.

AND THEN NO MORE.

[_]

(Rückert.)

I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
'Twas Eden's light on Earth awhile, and then no more.
Amid the throng she passed along the meadow-floor:
Spring seemed to smile on Earth awhile, and then no more;
But whence she came, which way she went, what garb she wore
I noted not; I gazed awhile, and then no more!
I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
'Twas Paradise on Earth awhile, and then no more.
Ah! what avail my vigils pale, my magic lore?
She shone before mine eyes awhile, and then no more.
The shallop of my peace is wrecked on Beauty's shore.
Near Hope's fair isle it rode awhile, and then no more!
I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
Earth looked like Heaven a little while, and then no more.
Her presence thrilled and lighted to its inner core
My desert breast a little while, and then no more.
So may, perchance, a meteor glance at midnight o'er
Some ruined pile a little while, and then no more!
I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
The earth was Peri-land awhile, and then no more.
Oh, might I see but once again, as once before,
249

Through chance or wile, that shape awhile, and then no more!
Death soon would heal my griefs! This heart, now sad and sore,
Would beat anew a little while, and then no more.

GONE IN THE WIND.

[_]

(Rückert.)

Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Like the swift shadows of Noon, like the dreams of the Blind,
Vanish the glories and pomps of the earth in the wind.
Man! canst thou build upon aught in the pride of thy mind?
Wisdom will teach thee that nothing can tarry behind;
Though there be thousand bright actions embalmed and enshrined,
Myriads and millions of brighter are snow in the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
All that the genius of Man hath achieved or designed
Waits but its hour to be dealt with as dust by the wind.
Say, what is Pleasure? A phantom, a mask undefined;
Science? An almond, whereof we can pierce but the rind;
Honour and Affluence? Firmans that Fortune hath signed
Only to glitter and pass on the wings of the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Who is the Fortunate? He who in anguish hath pined!
He shall rejoice when his relics are dust in the wind!
250

Mortal! be careful with what thy best hopes are entwined;
Woe to the miners for Truth—where the Lampless have mined!
Woe to the seekers on earth for—what none ever find!
They and their trust shall be scattered like leaves on the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Happy in death are they only whose hearts have consigned
All Earth's affections and longings and cares to the wind.
Pity, thou, reader! the madness of poor Humankind,
Raving of Knowledge,—and Satan so busy to blind!
Raving of Glory,—like me,—for the garlands I bind
(Garlands of song) are but gathered, and—strewn in the wind!
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
I, Abul-Namez, must rest; for my fire hath declined,
And I hear voices from Hades like bells on the wind.

THE POET.

[_]

(Rückert.)

Yes! true Poetry is wizard power;
'Tis the felt enchantment of the heart—
But the Poet, what is he? Enchanted
Or Enchanter? Master of his art
Or but Slave? Haunts he the World soul Tower?
Or is he himself the world soul haunted?
251

DISAPPOINTMENT.

[_]

(Rückert.)

Because a chance hath overset
Thy House of Cards, thou grievest!—why so?
Since thou thyself art standing yet,
Thou hast no cause to sigh and cry so.
Besides, thou mayest, if thou but will,
Construct a nobler dome at leisure:
The cards are on the table still,
And only wait the builder's pleasure!

THE FAIRIES' PASSAGE.

[_]

(Kopisch.)

I

Tap, tap! Rap, rap! “Get up, Gaffer Ferryman!”
—“Eh? Who is there?”—The clock strikes three.—
“Get up—do, Gaffer! You are the very man
We have been long, long, longing to see.”
The Ferryman rises, growling and grumbling,
And goes fum-fumbling, and stumbling—and tumbling
Over the wares in his way to the door;
But he sees no more
Than he saw before,
Till a voice is heard—“O, Ferryman, dear!
Here we are waiting, all of us, here!
We are a wee, wee colony, we,
Some two hundred in all, or three—
Ferry us over the River Spree
Ere dawn of day,
And we will pay
The most we may
In our own wee way!”
252

II

“Who are you? Whence came you? What place are you going to?”
—“Oh, we have dwelt overlong in this land.
The people get cross, and are growing so knowing, too!
Nothing at all but they now understand.
We are daily vanishing under the thunder
Of some huge engine or iron wonder—
That iron—oh, it has entered our souls!”
—“Your souls? O Goles!
You queer little drolls!
Do you mean—?” “Good Gaffer, do aid us with speed,
For our time, like our stature, is short indeed!
And a very long way we have to go,
Eight or ten thousand miles or so,
Hither and thither, and to and fro,
With our pots and pans,
And little gold cans;
But our light caravans
Run swifter than Man's!”

III

“Well, well, you may come!” said the Ferryman affably;
—“Peter! turn out and get ready the barge!”
Then again to the Little Folks—“Though you seem laughably
Small, I don't mind, if your hellers be large!”
Oh, dear! what a rushing, what pushing, what crushing
(The Waterman making vain efforts at hushing
The hubbub the while) there followed these words!
What clappings of boards!
What strappings of cords!
What stowings away of children and wives,
And platters, and mugs, and spoons, and knives!
253

Till all had been safely got into the boat,
And the Ferryman, clad in his ten-caped coat,
And his wee little farers were fairly afloat.
Then ding! ding! ding!
And kling! kling! kling!
How the hellers did ring
In the tin pitcherling!

IV

Off then went the boat, at first very pleasantly,
Smoothly and so forth, but after a while
It swayed and it swagged this and that way, and presently
Chest after chest, and pile after pile,
Of the Little Folks' goods began tossing and rolling
And pitching like fun, beyond fairy controlling!
O Mab! if the hubbub was great before,
It was now some two or three million times more;
Crash went the wee crocks, and the clocks—and the locks
Of each little box were stove in by hard knocks.
And then there were oaths, and prayers and cries—
“Take care!”—“See there!”—“Oh, dear! my eyes!”
“I am killed”—“I am drowned”—with groans and sighs.—
Till the land is in view—
“Yeo, ho! Pull to!—
Tiller rope thro' and thro'!”
—And all's right anew.

V

“Now, jump upon shore, ye queer little oddities!—
. . . Eh! What is this? Where are they at all?
Where are they, and where are their tiny commodities?
Well! as I live!” He looks blank as a wall,
The poor Ferryman! Round him and round him he gazes,
254

But only gets deeplier lost in the mazes
Of utter bewilderment! All, all are gone—
And he stands alone,
Like a statue of stone,
In a doldrum of wonder! He turns to steer,
And a tinkling laugh salutes his ear
With other odd sounds—“Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Tol, lol, zid—ziddle—quee—quee—bah! bah!
Fizzigigiggidy—psha—sha! sha!”
—“O ye thieves! ye thieves! ye rascally thieves!”
The good man cries. He turns to his pitcher,
And there, alas! to his horror perceives
That the Little Folks' mode of making him richer
Has been, to pay him with—withered leaves!

GRABBE.

[_]

(Freiligrath.)

There stood I in the Camp. 'Twas when the setting sun
Was crimsoning the tents of the Hussars.
The booming of the Evening-gun
Broke on mine ear. A few stray stars
Shone out, like silverblank medallions
Paving a sapphire floor. Then flowed in unison the tones
Of many hautboys, bugles, drums, trombones,
And fifes, from twenty-two battalions.
They played, “Give glory unto God our Lord!”
A solemn strain of music and sublime,
That bade Imagination hail a coming time,
When universal Mind shall break the slaying sword,
255

And Sin and Wrong and Suffering shall depart
An Earth which Christian love shall turn to Heaven.
A dream!—yet still I listened, and my heart
Grew tranquil as that Summer-even.
But soon uprose pale Hecate—she who trances
The skies with deathly light. Her beams fell wan, but mild,
On the long lines of tents, on swords and lances,
And on the pyramids of musquets piled
Around. Then sped from rank to rank
The signal-order, “Tzako ab!” The music ceased to play.
The stillness of the grave ensued. I turned away.
Again my memory's tablets showed a saddening blank!
Meanwhile another sort of scene
Was acted at the Outposts. Carelessly I strolled,
In quest of certain faces, into the Canteen.
Here wine and brandy, hot or cold,
Passed round. At one long table Fredericks-d'or
Glittered à qui mieux mieux with epaulettes,
And, heedless of the constant call, “Who sets?”
Harpwomen played and sang old ballads by the score.
I sought an inner chamber. Here sat some
Dragoons and Yagers, who conversed, or gambled,
Or drank. The dice-box rattled on a drum.
I chose a seat apart. My speculations rambled.
Scarce even a passive listener or beholder,
I mused: “Give glory—” “Qui en veut?”—The sound
Came from the drum-head. I had half turned round
When some one touched me on the shoulder.
“Ha!—is it you?” “None other.” “Well!—what news?
How goes it in Mulhausen?” Queries without end
Succeed, and I reply as briefly as I chuse.
An hour flies by. “Now then, adieu, my friend!”
256

“Stay!—tell me—” “Quick! I am off to Rouge et Noir.”—
“Well—one short word, and then Good Night!—
Grabbe?”—“Grabbe? He is dead. Wait: let me see. Ay, right!
We buried him on Friday last. Bon soir!”
An icy thrill ran through my veins.
Dead! Buried! Friday last!—and here!—His grave
Profaned by vulgar feet! Oh, Noble, Gifted, Brave!
Bard of The Hundred Days—was this to be thy fate indeed?
I wept; yet not because Life's galling chains
No longer bound thy spirit to this barren earth;
I wept to think of thy transcendent worth
And genius—and of what had been their meed!
I wandered forth into the spacious Night,
Till the first feelings of my heart had spent
Their bitterness. Hours passed. There was an Uhlan tent
At hand. I entered. By the moon's blue light
I saw some arms and baggage and a heap
Of straw. Upon this last I threw
My weary limbs. In vain! The moanful night-winds blew
About my head and face, and Memory banished Sleep.
All night he stood, as I had seen him last,
Beside my couch. Had he indeed forsaken
The tomb? Or, did I dream, and should I waken?
My thoughts flowed like a river, dark and fast.
Again I gazed on that columnar brow:
“Deserted House! of late so bright with vividest flashes
Of Intellect and Passion, can it be that thou
Art now a mass of sparkless ashes?
257

“Those ashes once were watch-fires, by whose gleams
The glories of the Hohenstauffen race,
And Italy's shrines, and Greece's hallowed streams
Stood variously revealed—now, softly, as the face
Of Night illumined by her silver Lamp—
Now, burning with a deep and living lustre,
Like the high beacon-lights that stud this Camp,
Here, far apart,—there, in a circular cluster.
“This Camp! Ah, yes! methinks it images well
What thou hast been, thou lonely Tower!—
Moonbeams and lamplight mingled—the deep choral swell
Of Music in her peals of proudest power,
And then—the tavern dice-box rattle!
The Grand and the Familiar fought
Within thee for the mastery; and thy depth of thought
And play of wit made every conflict a drawn battle!
“And, oh! that such a mind, so rich, so overflowing
With ancient lore and modern phantasy,
And prodigal of its treasures as a tree
Of golden leaves when Autumn winds are blowing,
That such a mind, made to illume and glad
All minds, all hearts, should have itself become
Affliction's chosen Sanctuary and Home!—
This is in truth most marvellous and sad!
“Alone the Poet lives—alone he dies.
Cain-like, he bears the isolating brand
Upon his brow of sorrow. True, his hand
Is pure from blood-guilt, but in human eyes
His is a darker crime than that of Cain,—
Rebellion against Social Wrong and Law!”
Groaning, at length I slept, and in my dreams I saw
The ruins of a Temple on a desolate plain.
258

MY THEMES.

To My Readers.

[_]

(Freiligrath.)

“Most weary man!—why wreathest thou
Again and yet again,” methinks I hear you ask,
“The turban on thy sunburnt brow?
Wilt never vary
Thy tristful task,
But sing, still sing, of sands and seas as now,
Housed in thy willow zumbul on the Dromedary?
“Thy tent has now o'ermany times
Been pitched in treeless places on old Ammon's plains!
We long to greet in blander climes
The Love and Laughter
Thy soul disdains.
Why wanderest ever thus in prolix rhymes
Through snows and stony wastes, while we come toiling after?
“Awake! Thou art as one who dreams;
Thy quiver overflows with melancholy sand!
Thou faintest in the noontide beams!
Thy crystal beaker
Of Song is banned!
Filled with the juice of poppies from dull streams
In sleepy Indian dells, it can but make thee weaker!
“O! cast away the deadly draught,
And glance around thee then with an awakened eye!
The waters healthier bards have quaffed
At Europe's Fountains
Still babble by,
Bright now as when the Grecian Summer laughed,
And Poesy's first flowers bloomed on Apollo's mountains!
259

“So many a voice thine era hath,
And thou art deaf to all! O, study Mankind! Probe
The heart! Lay bare its Love and Wrath,
Its Joy and Sorrow!
Not round the globe,
O'er flood and field and dreary desert-path,
But into thine own bosom look, and thence thy marvels borrow.
“Weep! Let us hear thy tears resound
From the dark iron concave of Life's Cup of Woe!
Weep for the souls of Mankind, bound
In chains of Error!
Our tears will flow
In sympathy with thine when thou hast wound
Our feelings up to the proper pitch of Grief or Terror!
“Unlock the life-gates of the flood
That rushes through thy veins! Like Vultures we delight
To glut our appetites with blood!
Remorse, Fear, Torment,
The blackening blight
Love smites young hearts withal—these be the food
For us! Without such stimulants our dull souls lie dormant!
“But no long voyagings—oh, no more
Of the weary East or South—no more of the Simoom—
No apples from the Dead Sea shore—
No fierce volcanoes,
All fire and gloom!
Or else, at most, sing basso, we implore,
Of Orient sands, while Europe's flowers monopolise thy Sopranos!”
260

Thanks, friends, for this your kind advice!
Would I could follow it—could bide in balmier lands!
But those far arctic tracts of ice,
Those wildernesses
Of wavy sands,
Are the only home I have. They must suffice
For one whose lonely hearth no smiling Peri blesses.
Yet, count me not the more forlorn
For my barbarian tastes. Pity me not. Oh, no!
The heart laid waste by Grief or Scorn,
Which inly knoweth
Its own deep woe,
Is the only Desert. There no spring is born
Amid the sands—in that no shady Palm-tree groweth!

ICHABOD! THY GLORY HAS DEPARTED.

[_]

(Uhland.)

I ride through a dark, dark Land by night,
Where moon is none and no stars lend light,
And rueful winds are blowing;
Yet oft have I trodden this way ere now,
With summer zephyrs a-fanning my brow,
And the gold of the sunshine glowing.
I roam by a gloomy garden wall;
The death-stricken leaves around me fall;
And the night-blast wails its dolours;
How oft with my love I have hitherward strayed
When the roses flowered, and all I surveyed
Was radiant with Hope's own colours!
261

But the gold of the sunshine is shed and gone
And the once bright roses are dead and wan,
And my love in her low grave moulders,
And I ride through a dark, dark land by night
With never a star to bless me with light,
And the Mantle of Age on my shoulders.

HOLINESS TO THE LORD.

[_]

(Runge.)

There blooms a beautiful Flower; it blooms in a far-off land;
Its life has a mystic meaning, for few to understand.
Its leaves illumine the valley, its odour scents the wood;
And if evil men come near it they grow for the moment good.
When the winds are tranced in slumber, the rays of this luminous Flower
Shed glory more than earthly o'er lake, and hill, and bower;
The hut, the hall, the palace, yea, Earth's forsakenest sod,
Shine out in the wondrous lustre that fills the Heaven of God.
Three kings came once to a hostel, wherein lay the Flower so rare:
A star shone over its roof, and they knelt adoring there.
Whenever thou seest a damsel, whose young eyes dazzle and win,
O, pray that her heart may cherish this Flower of Flowers within!
262

SONG.

[_]

(Hölty.)

O, strew the way with rosy flowers,
And dupe with smiles thy grief and gloom,
For tarnished wreaths and songless hours
Await thee in the tomb.
Lo! in the brilliant festal hall
How lightly Youth and Beauty tread!
Yet, gaze again—the grass is tall
Above their charnel bed!
In blaze of noon the jewelled bride
Before the altar plights her faith:
Ere weep the skies of eventide
Her eyes are dulled in death!
Then sigh no more—if life is brief
So are its woes; and why repine?
Pavilioned by the linden leaf
We'll quaff the chaliced wine.
Wild music from the nightingale
Comes floating on the loaded breeze,
To mingle in the bowery vale
With hum of summer bees:
Then taste the joys that God bestows,
The beaded wine, the faithful kiss,
For while the tide of Pleasure flows,
Death bares his black abyss.
In vain the Zephyr's breath perfumes
The House of Death—in vain its tones
Shall mourn at midnight round the tombs
Where sleep our blackening bones.
263

The star-bright bowl is broken there,
The witchery of the lute is o'er,
And—wreck of wrecks!—there lie the Fair,
Whose beauty wins no more!

A SONG FROM THE COPTIC.

[_]

(Goethe.)

Quarrels have long been in vogue among sages;
Still, though in many things wranglers and rancorous,
All the philosopher-scribes of all ages
Join, una voce, on one point to anchor us.
Here is the gist of their mystified pages,
Here is the wisdom we purchase with gold—
Children of Light, leave the world to its mulishness,
Things to their natures, and fools to their foolishness;
Berries were bitter in forests of old.
Hoary old Merlin, that great necromancer,
Made me, a student, a similar answer,
When I besought him for light and for lore:
Toiler in vain! leave the world to its mulishness,
Things to their natures, and fools to their foolishness;
Granite was hard in the quarries of yore.
And on the ice-crested heights of Armenia,
And in the valleys of broad Abyssinia,
Still spake the Oracle just as before:
Wouldst thou have peace, leave the world to its mulishness,
Things to their natures and fools to their foolishness;
Beetles were blind in the ages of yore.
264

ANOTHER SONG FROM THE SAME COPTIC.

[_]

(Goethe.)

Go!—but heed and understand
This my last and best command:
Turn thine Youth to such advantage
As that no reverse shall daunt Age.
Learn the serpent's wisdom early;
And contemn what Time destroys;
Also, wouldst thou creep or climb,
Chuse thy rôle, and chuse in time,
Since the scales of Fortune rarely
Show a liberal equipoise.
Thou must either soar or stoop,
Fall or triumph, stand or droop;
Thou must either serve or govern,
Must be slave, or must be sovereign,
Must in fine, be block or wedge,
Must be anvil or be sledge.

SONG.

[_]

(Tieck.)

Yes, cherish Pleasure!
To him alone
'Tis given to measure
Time's jewelled zone.
As over meadows
Cloud-masses throng,
So sweep the Shadows
Of Earth along.
265

The years are hasting
To swift decay;
Life's lamp is wasting
By day and day.
Yet cherish Pleasure!
To him alone
'Tis given to measure
Time's jewelled zone.
For him the hours are
Enamelled years;
His laughing flowers are
Undulled by tears.
With him the starry
And regal wine
Best loves to tarry
Where sun-rays shine.
And when Night closes
Around his sky,
In graves of roses
His Buried lie.
Then cherish Pleasure!
To him alone
'Tis given to measure
Time's jewelled zone.
266

LIGHT AND SHADOW.

[_]

(Tieck.)

The gayest lot beneath
By Grief is shaded;
Pale Evening sees the wreath
Of Morning faded.
Pain slays, or Pleasure cloys;
All mortal morrows
But waken hollow joys
Or lasting sorrows.
Hope yesternoon was bright,
Earth beamed with Beauty;
But soon came conquering Night,
And claimed his booty.
Life's billows as they roll
Would fain look sunward;
But ever must the soul
Drift darkly onward.
The sun forsakes the sky,
Sad stars are sovereigns,
Long shadows mount on high,
And Darkness governs.
So Love deserts his throne,
Weary of reigning;
Ah! would he but rule on
Young and unwaning!
Pain slays, or Pleasure cloys;
And all our morrows
But waken hollow joys
Or lasting sorrows.
267

LOVE AND LIGHT.

[_]

(Tieck.)

All who live of Loved and Beauteous,
Sigh to
Think how soon the trellised bowers
Fade away with all their flowers,
While the nightingales, unduteous,
Also fly to
Sing their soulful songs in far lands,
And the wasted Summer dies, with all its odours, hues and garlands.
Sooth to sing, it seems a dreamy
Vision.
Lavishly from silver fountains
Fall diffused o'er lakes and mountains,
Light and Life; when lo! the beamy
Face elysian
Of the heavens is darkened wholly,
And the false enchantress flies, and leaves her dupes to melancholy.
All that blooms but blooms to wither.
Gladly
Would the shrinking foliage flourish,
Would the flowers their petals nourish
In the beams that wander hither;
But too sadly
Sweepeth change; and Flora's garnish
Scarcely pranks her infant minions ere, alas! they droop and tarnish.
268

Love! and art thou fled, Consoler?
Weary
Feels my heart to see returning
Sombre-vested months of mourning,
While the spent year sinks with dolor,
And so dreary
Seem the woods I cannot haunt less,
Even though bare of all their beauty, scentless, rayless, leafless, chauntless.

LIFE IS THE DESERT AND THE SOLITUDE.

Whence this fever?
Whence this burning
Love and Longing?
Ah! forever,
Ever turning,
Ever thronging
Tow'rds the Distance,
Roams each fonder
Yearning yonder,
There, where wander
Golden stars in blest existence!
Thence what fragrant
Airs are blowing!
What rich vagrant
Music flowing!
Angel voices
Tones wherein the
Heart rejoices,
Call from thence from Earth to win thee!
269

How yearns and burns for evermore
My heart for thee, thou blessèd shore!
And shall I never see thy fairy
Bowers and palace-gardens near?
Will no enchanted skiff so airy,
Sail from thee to seek me here?
O! undeveloped Land,
Whereto I fain would flee,
What mighty hand shall break each band
That keeps my soul from thee?
In vain I pine and sigh
To trace thy dells and streams:
They gleam but by the spectral sky
That lights my shifting dreams.
Ah! what fair form, flitting through yon green glades,
Dazes mine eye? Spirit, oh! rive my chain!
Woe is my soul! Swiftly the vision fades,
And I start up—waking—to weep in vain!
Hence this fever;
Hence this burning
Love and Longing:
Hence forever,
Ever turning,
Ever thronging,
Tow'rds the Distance,
Roams each fonder
Yearning yonder,
There, where wander
Golden stars in blest existence!
270

BE MERRY AND WISE.

[_]

(Kotzebue.)

No beauty, no glory remaineth
Below the unbribable skies;
All beauty but winneth and waneth—
All glory but dazzles and dies.
Since multitudes cast in a gay mould
Before us have lived and have laughed—
To the slumberers under the claymould
Let goblet on goblet be quaffed!
For millions in centuries after
Decay shall have crumbled our bones,
As lightly with revel and laughter
Will fill their progenitors' thrones.
Here banded together in union
Our bosoms are joyous and gay,
How blest, could our festive communion
Remain to enchant us for aye!
But Change is omnipotent ever;
Thus knitted we cannot remain;
Wide waves and high hills will soon sever
The links of our brotherly chain.
Yet even though far disunited
Our hearts are in fellowship still,
And all, if but one be delighted,
Will hear it with sympathy's thrill.
And if, after years have gone o'er us,
Fate brings us together once more,
Who knows but the mirth of our chorus
May yet be as loud as before!
271

THE SAW-MILL.

[_]

(From the German.)

My path lay towards the Mourne again,
But I stopped to rest by the hillside
That glanced adown o'er the sunken glen,
Where the Saw- and Water-mills hide,
Which now, as then,
The Saw- and Water-mills hide.
And there, as I lay reclined on the hill,
Like a man made by sudden qualm ill,
I heard the water in the Water-mill,
And I saw the saw in the Saw-mill!
As I thus lay still,
I saw the saw in the Saw-mill!
The saw, the breeze, and the humming bees,
Lulled me into a dreamy reverie,
Till the objects round me, hills, mills, trees,
Seemed grown alive all and every,
By slow degrees
Took life as it were, all and every!
Anon the sound of the waters grew
To a very Mourne-ful ditty,
And the song of the tree that the saw sawed through,
Disturbed my spirit with pity,
Began to subdue
My spirit with tenderest pity!
272

“O, wand'rer! the hour that brings thee back
Is of all meet hours the meetest.
Thou now, in sooth, art on the Track,
Art nigher to Home than thou weetest;
Thou hast thought Time slack,
But his flight has been of the fleetest!
“For thee it is that I dree such pain
As, when wounded, even a plank will;
My bosom is pierced, is rent in twain,
That thine may ever bide tranquil,
May ever remain
Henceforward untroubled and tranquil.
“In a few days more, most Lonely One!
Shall I, as a narrow ark, veil
Thine eyes from the glare of the world and sun
'Mong the urns in yonder dark vale,
In the cold and dun
Recesses of yonder dark vale!
“For this grieve not! Thou knowest what thanks
The Weary-souled and Meek owe
To Death!”—I awoke, and heard four planks
Fall down with a saddening echo.
I heard four planks
Fall down with a hollow echo.

CHILDHOOD.

[_]

(Salis.)

And where is now the golden hour
When Earth was as a fairy realm,
When Fancy revelled
Within her own enchanted bower,
273

Which Sorrow came to overwhelm,
Which Reason levelled;
When Life was new and Hope was young,
And sought and saw no other chart
Than rose where'er
We turned—the crystal joy that sprung
Up from the ever-bubbling heart?
O! tell us where!
Man, like the leaf that swims the wave,
A wanderer down that rushing river
Whose torchless shore
Is spectre-peopled from the grave,
Can scarce, amid his whirl and fever
Of soul, explore
The treasures infant-bosoms cherish;
Yet feelings of celestial birth
To these are given,
Whose Iris hues, too deep to perish,
Surviving Life, outlasting Earth,
Shall glow in Heaven.
I see thy willow-darkened stream,
Thy sunny lake, thy sunless grove,
Before me glassed
In many a dimly-gorgeous dream,
And wake to love, to doubly love
The magic Past!
Or Fiction lifts her dazzling wand,
And lo! her buried wonders rise
On Slumber's view,
Till all Arabia's genii-land
Shines out, the mimic Paradise
Thy pencil drew!
274

Youth burns: we run the blind career
Which they who run but run to rue;
Too fleetly flies
The witchery of that maddening year;
Yet will we not the track pursue
Where Wisdom lies,
For Manhood lours, and all the cares
And toils and ills of Manhood born
Consume the soul,
Till withered Age's whitened hairs,
The symbols of his Winter, warn
Us to the goal.
But thou, lost vision! Memory clings
To all of bright and pure and fond
By thee enrolled!
Mementos as of times and things
Antique, remote, far, far beyond
The Flood of old!
Yet oh! the spell itself how brief!
How sadly brief! how swiftly broken!
We witness how
The freshness of the lily's leaf
Ere Autumn dies, and leaves no token—
And where art thou?

THE GRAVE.

[_]

(Mahlmann.)

Blest are the dormant
In death: they repose
From bondage and torment,
From passions and woes,
From the yoke of the world and the snares of the traitor—
The grave, the grave is the true liberator!
275

Griefs chase one another
Around the earth's dome;
In the arms of the mother
Alone is our home.
Woo pleasure, ye triflers! The thoughtful are wiser;
The grave, the grave is their one tranquilliser!
Is the good man unfriended
On life's ocean path,
When storms have expended
Their turbulent wrath?
Are his labours requited by slander and rancour?
The grave, the grave is his sure bower-anchor!
To gaze on the faces
Of lost ones anew,
To lock in embraces
The loved and the true,
Were a rapture to make even Paradise brighter.
The grave, the grave is the great re-uniter!
Crown the corpse, then, with laurels,
The conqueror's wreath,
Make joyous with carols
The chamber of death,
And welcome the victor with cymbal and psalter:
The grave, the grave is the only exalter!

MY THREE TORMENTORS.

(Song of a Maniac.)

Three spirits there be who haunt me always,
Plaguing my spirit in sundry small ways.
One is apparelled in purple and red;
276

He sits on a barrel—a chaplet of laurel
Which ought to be mine, and was before he
Robbed me of brains, and bread, and glory,
Wreathèd around his globular head,
And a royal and richly bubbling cup
Of the blood that he drains from his victims' veins
In his hand, that shakes as he lifts it up!
Oh, woe, woe,
And sorrow,
To me, to be
His slave,
Through every coming morrow,
Till years lay me low,
Low in an honourless grave!
My second tormentor, a weazened old pigmy,
Delves in a mine, as though he would dig my
Grave, or his own—I'd hardly care which!
His visage is wrinkled and dust-besprinkled,
His clothes are in rags, yet he heaps together
Bright gold by the bushel; one scarce knows whether
The hateful old hunks be poor or be rich!
His gold is ever before his view;
He worships it, he, and alas! makes me
In spite of my conscience, worship it too!
Oh, woe, woe,
And sorrow,
To me, to be
His slave,
Through every coming morrow,
Till years lay me low,
Low in an honourless grave!
The third—oh! the third is a marvellous creature,
Infant-like, and of heavenly feature!
His voice is rich as the song of the spheres;
277

But ah! what tragic unrest its magic
Doth bring to the bosom who shall tell of?
To me that voice has been as the knell of
Death and Despair through bitterest years!
And then, his bright but mischievous eyes!
Their mildest glance is the wound of a lance,
'Neath which the heart's blank innocence dies!
Oh, woe, woe,
And sorrow,
To me, to be
A slave
To these through every morrow,
Till years lay me low,
Low in mine honourless grave!

O MARIA, REGINA MISERICORDIÆ!

[_]

(Karl Simrock.)

There lived a Knight long years ago,
Proud, carnal, vain, devotionless.
Of God above, or Hell below,
He took no thought, but undismayed
Pursued his course of wickedness.
His heart was rock; he never prayed
To be forgiven for all his treasons;
He only said at certain seasons,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
Years rolled, and found him still the same,
Still draining Pleasure's poison-bowl;
Yet felt he now and then some shame;
The torment of the Undying Worm
At whiles woke in his trembling soul;
278

And then, though powerless to reform,
Would he, in hope to appease that sternest
Avenger, cry, and more in earnest,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
At last Youth's riotous time was gone,
And Loathing now came after Sin.
With locks yet brown, he felt as one
Grown grey at heart; and oft with tears,
He tried, but all in vain, to win
From the dark desert of his years
One flower of hope; yet morn and e'ening,
He still cried, but with deeper meaning,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
A happier mind, a holier mood,
A purer spirit, ruled him now:
No more in thrall to flesh and blood,
He took a pilgrim staff in hand,
And under a religious vow,
Travailed his way to Pommerland.
There entered he an humble cloister,
Exclaiming, while his eyes grew moister,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
Here, shorn and cowled, he laid his cares
Aside, and wrought for God alone.
Albeit, he sang no choral prayers,
Nor matin hymn nor laud could learn,
He mortified his flesh to stone;
For him no penance was too stern;
And often prayed he on his lonely
Cell couch at night, but still said only,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
279

And thus he lived, long, long; and, when
God's angels called him, thus he died.
Confession made he none to men,
Yet when they anointed him with oil,
He seemed already glorified.
His penances, his tears, his toil
Were past; and now with passionate sighing,
Praise thus broke from his lips while dying,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
They buried him with mass and song
Aneath a little knoll so green:
But, lo! a wonder sight!—Ere long
Rose blooming from that verdant mound,
The fairest lily ever seen;
And on its petal-edges round,
Relieving their translucent whiteness,
Did shine these words in gold-hued brightness,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
And would God's angels give thee power,
Thou, dearest reader, might'st behold
The fibres of this holy flower,
Upspringing from the dead man's heart
In tremulous threads of light and gold:
Then wouldst thou choose the better part!
And thenceforth flee Sin's foul suggestions;
Thy sole response to mocking questions,
“O Mary, Queen of Mercy!”
280

THE LOVER'S FAREWELL.

[_]

(Kerner.)

Slowly through the tomb-still streets I go—
Morn is dark, save one swart streak of gold—
Sullen rolls the far-off river's flow,
And the moon is very thin and cold.
Long and long before the house I stand
Where sleeps she, the dear, dear one I love—
All undreaming that I leave my land,
Mute and mourning, like the moon above!
Wishfully I stretch abroad mine arms
Towards the well-remembered casement-cell—
Fare thee well! Farewell thy virgin charms!
And thou stilly, stilly house, farewell!
And farewell the dear dusk little room,
Redolent of roses as a dell,
And the lattice that relieved its gloom—
And its pictured lilac walls, farewell!
Forth upon my path! I must not wait—
Bitter blows the fretful morning wind:
Warden, wilt thou softly close the gate
When thou knowest I leave my heart behind?
281

TO THE SPIRIT-SEERESS OF PREVORST.

As She Lay on Her Death-bed

[_]

(Kerner.)

Yet lingerest thou!—but I have ceased repining;
Through thy long nights I see God's brightness shining;
For, though our Sceneworld vanish from thy sight,
Within thee radiates more than starry light!
To thee have been revealed—bared for thy seeing—
The Inner Life—the Mystery of Being—
Heaven, Hades, Hell—the eternal How and Where—
The glory of the Dead—and their despair!
Tears darkened long thy bodily vision nightly,
Yet then, even then, the Interior Eye saw brightly,
Saw, too, how Truth itself spake by His voice
Who bade men weep, that so they might rejoice!
Well hast thou borne thy Cross, like Him, thy Master,
Though griefs, like snares, waylaid thee fast and faster.
While that hard-minded world which knew thee not
Found only food for mockery in thy lot!
And now, rejoice, thou Faithfullest and Meekest!
It lies in sight, the Quiet Home thou seekest;
And gently wilt thou pass to it, for thou
Art all but disembodied even now!
282

TO THE GHOST-SEERESS OF PREVORST, AFTER HER DECEASE.

[_]

(Kerner.)

Farewell!—the all I owe to thee
This breast enshrined shall ever keep;
Mine Inner Sense upwakes to see
The Ghostworld's clear and wondrous Deep.
Where'er thy home—in Light or Shade—
A spirit still thou wert and art;
Oh! if my faith shall fail or fade,
Send thou a sign to cheer my heart!
And, since thou soon shalt share the power
Of purer spirits, blessèd, bright,
Sustain me in that fateful hour
When Death shall rob mine eyes of light!
Above the grave-mound blooms and blows
Of all dear flowers the dearest one,
Mute witness of the Saviour's woes,
Thine own beloved Hypericon.
And that lone flower, blood-hued at heart,
And gold without, from every leaf
Shall nightly to my soul impart
The memory of thy faith and grief.
Farewell!—the world may mock, may rave;
Me little move its words or ways;
Men's idle scorn he well can brave
Who never wooed their idler praise.
283

MY ADIEU TO THE MUSE.
[_]

(Kerner.)

1830.
Winter is nearing my dark threshold fast,
Already in low knells and broken wailings,
Ever austerer, menaces the blast
Which, soon a tempest, with its fierce assailings
Will swoop down on its unresistant prey.
The Iris-coloured firmament, whereto
Imagination turned, weeps day by day,
For some lost fragment of its gold and blue,
And the dun clouds are mustering thick that soon
Will overdark the little of the beams
Of that unfaithful and most wasted Moon
Of hope, that yet with pallid face (as gleams
A dying lamp amid grey ruins), wins
The cozened spirit o'er its flowerless path.
So be it! When the wanderer's night begins,
And the hoarse winds are heard afar in wrath,
He gazes on the curtained West with tears,
And lists disturbedly each sound, nor sees
Aught but dismay in the vague Night, nor hears
Aught but funereal voices on the breeze,
But when—his hour of gloom and slumber done—
He looks forth on the re-awakened globe,
Freshly apparelled in her virgin robe
Of morning light and crownèd with the sun,
His heart bounds like the light roe from its lair.
And shall it not be thus with me—the trance
Of death once conquered and o'erpast?—Perchance
I know not, but I cannot all despair.
284

I have grieved enough to bid Man's world farewell
Without one pang—and let not this be turned
To my disparagement what time my unurned
Ashes lie trodden in the churchyard dell.
For is not Grief the deepest, purest love?
Were not the tears that I have wept alone
Beside the midnight river, in the grove,
Under the yew, or o'er the burial-stone,
The outpourings of a heart that overflowed
With an affection worlds beyond control,
The pleasurable anguish of a soul
That, while it suffered, fondly loved and glowed?
It may be that my love was foolishness,
And yet it was not wholly objectless
In mine own fancy, which in soulless things,
Fountains and wildwood blossoms, rills and bowers,
Read words of mystic lore, and found in flowers,
And birds, and clouds, and winds, and gushing springs,
Histories from ancient spheres like the dim wanderers
Whose path is in the great Inane of Blue,
And which, though voiceless, utter to the few
Of Earth, whom Heaven and Poesy make ponderers
Apocalyptic oracles and true.
My Fatherland! My Mother-Earth! I owe
Ye much, and would not seem ungrateful now;
And if the laurel decorate my brow,
Be that a set-off against so much woe
As Man's applause hath power to mitigate;
If I have won, but may not wear it yet,
The wreath is but unculled, and soon or late
Will constitute my vernal coronet,
Fadeless—at least till some unlooked-for blight fall—
For, thanks to Knowledge, fair Desert, though sometimes
Repulsed and baffled, wins its meed at last,
And the reveil-call which on Fame's deep drum Time's
285

Hands beat for some lost hero of the Past,
If mute at morn and noon, will sound ere nightfall,
Hard though the struggle oft be which is made,
Not against Power throned in its proud pavilions,
Not against Wealth in trumpery sheen arrayed,
But against those who speed as the Postillions
Of Mind before the world, and, in their grade
Of teachers, can exalt or prostrate millions.
I have said I would not be an ingrate—No!
'Twere unavailing now to examine whence
The tide of my calamities may flow—
Enough that in my heart its residence
Is permanent and bitter:—let me not
Perhaps rebelliously arraign my lot.
If I have looked for nobleness and truth,
In souls where Treachery's brood of scorpions dwelt,
And felt the awakening shock as few have felt,
And found, alas! no anodyne to soothe,
I murmur not; to me was overdealt,
No doubt, the strong and wrong romance of Youth.
Less blame I for each lacerating error,
For all the javelin memories that pierce
Me now, that world wherein I willed to mirror
The visions of my boyhood, than the fierce
Impulses of a breast that scarce would curb
One ardent feeling, even when all was gone
Which makes Life dear, and ever frowned upon
Such monitors as ventured to disturb
Its baleful happiness. Of this no more.
My benison be on my native hills!
And when the sun shall shine upon the tomb
Where I and the remembrance of mine ills
Alike shall slumber, may his beams illume
Scenes happy as they oft illumed before,
Scenes happier than these feet have ever trod!
May the green Earth glow in the smile of God!
286

May the unwearying stars as mildly twinkle
As now—the rose and jessamine exhale
Their frankincense—the moon be still as pale—
The pebbled rivulets as lightly tinkle—
The singing-birds in Summer fill the vale
With lays whose diapasons never cloy!
May Love still garland his young votaries' brows!
May the fond husband and his faithful spouse
List to the pleasant nightingale with joy!
May radiant Hope for the soft souls that dream
Of golden hours long, long continue brightening
An alas! traitorous Future with her beam,
When in forgotten dust my bones lie whitening!
And, for myself, all I would care to claim
Is kindness to my memory—and to those
Whom I have tried, and trusted to the close,
Would I speak thus: Let Truth but give to Fame
My virtues with my failings; if this be,
Not all may weep but none will blush for me;
And—whatsoever chronicle of Good,
Attempted or achieved, may stand to speak
For what I was, when kindred souls shall seek
To unveil a life but darkly understood,—
Men will not, cannot, write it on my grave
That I, like myriads, was a mindless clod,
And trod with fettered will the course they trod,
Crouched to a world whose habitudes deprave
And sink the loftiest nature to a slave,
Slunk from my standard and renounced my God.
They will not, cannot tell, when I am cold,
That I betrayed, even once, a plighted trust,
Wrote but a single vow in Summer dust,
Or, weakly blinded by the glitter, sold
The best affections of my heart for gold,
And died as fickle as the wind or wave;
No! they will not write this upon my grave.
287

HOME-SICKNESS.

[_]

(Justinus Kerner.)

There calleth me ever a marvellous Horn,
“Come away! Come away!”
Is it earthly music faring astray,
Or is it air-born?
Oh, whether it be a spirit-wile
Or a forest-voice,
It biddeth mine ailing heart rejoice,
Yet sorrow the while!
In the greenwood glades—o'er the garlanded bowl—
Night, Noontide and Morn,
The summoning call of that marvellous Horn
Tones home to my soul!
In vain have I sought for it east and west,
But I darkly feel
That so soon as its music shall cease to peal
I go to my rest!

MY HOME.

[_]

(Wetzel.)

Morn and eve a star invites me,
One imploring, silver star,
Woos me, calls me, lures me, lights me,
O'er the desert deep afar
To a lovely Orient land,
Where the sun at morning early
Rises fresh and young and glowing,
288

Where the air is light and bland,
And the rain-drops fall so pearly.
Therefore am I going, going
Home to this, my lovely land,
Where the sun at morning early
Rises fresh and young and glowing,
Where the airs are light and bland,
And the rain is warm and pearly!
All unheeding, all unknowing,
I am speeding, I am going—
Going home to my—to my land,
To my only lonely island
In the desert deep afar.
Yet, unknowing and undreaming,
Why I go, or how, or whither,
Save that one imploring star,
Ever burning, ever beaming,
Woos me, lures me, lights me thither!

WHEN THE ROSES BLOW.

[_]

(Wetzel.)

When the roses blow
Man looks out for brighter hours;
When the roses glow
Hope relights her lampless bowers.
Much that seemed in Winter's gloom
Dark with heavy woe
Wears a gladsome hue and bloom
When the roses blow—
When the roses blow—
Wears a gladsome hue and bloom
When the roses blow.
289

When the roses blow
Love that slept shall wake anew:
Merrier blood shall flow
Through the springalds' veins of blue:
And if sorrow wring the heart,
Even that shall go—
Pain and mourning must depart
When the roses blow—
When the roses blow—
Pain and mourning must depart
When the roses blow.
When the roses blow
Look to Heaven, my fainting soul!
There in stainless show
Spreads the veil that shrouds thy goal.
Not while Winter breathes his blight,
Burst thy bonds below!
Let the earth look proud and bright!
Let the roses blow!
Let the roses blow!
O, let Earth look proud and bright!
Let the roses blow!
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