Rampolli
by
George MacDonald

Part 1 out of 3







Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed Proofreaders




RAMPOLLI

BY

GEORGE MACDONALD



CONTENTS.


PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS--
FROM NOVALIS
" SCHILLER
" GOETHE
" UHLAND
" HEINE
" VON SALIS-SEEWIS
" CLAUDIUS
FROM THE DUTCH OF GENESTET
FROM THE GERMAN--_Author to me unkown_
FROM PETRARCH
MILTON'S ITALIAN POEMS
LUTHER'S SONG-BOOK

A YEAR'S DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL



PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS.


I think every man who can should help his people to inherit the earth by
bringing into his own of the wealth of other tongues. In the flower-pots
of translation I offer these few exotics, with no little labour taught to
exist, I hope to breathe, in English air. Such labour is to me no less
serious than delightful, for to do a man's work, in the process of
carrying over, more injury than must be, is a serious wrong.

I have endeavoured, first of all, to give the spirit of the poetry.

Next, I have sought to retain each individual meaning that goes to form
the matter of a poem.

Third, I have aimed at preserving the peculiar mode, the aroma of the
poet's style, so far as I could do it without offence to the translating
English.

Fourth, both rhythm and rime being essential elements of every poem in
which they are used, I have sought to respect them rigorously.

Fifth, spirit, matter, and form truly represented, the more literal the
translation the more satisfactory will be the result.

After all, translation is but a continuous effort after the impossible.
There is in it a general difficulty whose root has a thousand
ramifications, the whole affair being but an accommodation of
difficulties, and a perfect translation from one language into another is
a thing that cannot be effected. One is tempted even to say that in the
whole range of speech there is no such thing as a synonym.

Much difficulty arises from the comparative paucity in English of double,
or feminine rimes. But I can remember only one case in which, yielding to
impossibility, I have sacrificed the feminine rime: where one thing or
another must go, the less valuable must be the victom.

But sometimes a whole passage has had to suffer that a specially poetic
line might retain its character.

With regard to the _Hymns to the Night_ and the _Spiritual Songs_ of
Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly called Novalis, it is desirable to
mention that they were written when the shadow of the death of his
betrothed had begun to thin before the approaching dawn of his own new
life. He died in 1801, at the age of twentynine. His parents belonged to
the sect called Moravians, but he had become a Roman Catholic.

Perhaps some of Luther's Songs might as well have been omitted, but they
are all translated that the Songbook might be a whole. Some, I cannot tell
how many or which, are from the Latin. His work is rugged, and where an
occasional fault in rime occurs I have reproduced it.

In the few poems from the Italian, I have found the representation of the
feminine rimes, so frequent in that language, an impossibility.



FROM NOVALIS.

HYMNS TO THE NIGHT
SPIRITUAL SONGS
A PARABLE (From THE DISCIPLES AT SAIS)



HYMNS TO THE NIGHT.

I.

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what
living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light, with its colours,
its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the
wakening Day? The giant world of the unresting constellations inhales it
as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its azure flood; the
sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the
wild, burning, multiform beast-world inhales it; but more than all, the
lordly stranger with the meaning eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly
closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every
force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable
alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. Its
presence alone reveals the marvellous splendour of the kingdoms of the
world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the
world, sunk in a deep grave; waste and lonely is its place. In the chords
of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of
dew, and mingle with the ashes.--The distances of memory, the wishes of
youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole
long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapour after the
sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents: what if
it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of
innocence?

What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the
soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dusky Night?
What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my
soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou
upliftest the heavy-laden pinions of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly
are we moved: joy-startled, I see a grave countenance that, tender and
worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks,
reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a
thing seems to me now the light! how joyous and welcome the departure of
the day!--Didst thou not only therefore, because the Night turns away from
thee thy servants, strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to
proclaim, in seasons of thy absence, thy omnipotence, and thy return?

More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which
the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those
countless hosts. Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths
of a loving soul that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory
to the queen of the world, to the great prophetess of holier worlds, to
the foster-mother of blissful love! she sends thee to me, thou tenderly
beloved, the gracious sun of the Night. Now am I awake, for now am I thine
and mine. Thou hast made me know the Night, and brought her to me to be my
life; thou hast made of me a man. Consume my body with the ardour of my
soul, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and
then our bridal night endure for ever.


II.

Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never
cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the
time never come when Love's hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the
Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of
the Night. Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep, gladden not too
seldom in this earthly day-labour, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools
alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the
gloaming of the real night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee
not in the golden flood of the grapes, in the magic oil of the almond
tree, and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who
hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap;
never suspect it is thou, the portress of heaven, that steppest to meet
them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the
blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.


III.

Once when I was shedding bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope
was melting away, and I stood alone by the barren hillock which in its
narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my Life, lonely as never yet
was lonely man, driven by anguish unspeakable, powerless, and no longer
aught but a conscious misery;--as there I looked about me for help, unable
to go on or to turn back, and clung to the fleeting, extinguished life
with an endless longing: then, out of the blue distances, from the hills
of my ancient bliss, came a shiver of twilight, and at once snapped the
bond of birth, the fetter of the Light. Away fled the glory of the world,
and with it my mourning; the sadness flowed together into a new,
unfathomable world. Thou, soul of the Night, heavenly Slumber, didst come
upon me; the region gently upheaved itself, and over it hovered my
unbound, new-born spirit. The hillock became a cloud of dust, and through
the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity
reposed. I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling chain
that could not be broken. Into the distance swept by, like a tempest,
thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic
tears. Never was such another dream; then first and ever since I hold fast
an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night, and its sun,
the Beloved.


IV.

Now I know when will come the last morning: when the light no more scares
away the Night and Love, when sleep shall be without waking, and but one
continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful
was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The
crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the
dark bosom of the hillock against whoose foot breaks the flood of the
world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of
the world, and looked across into the new land, into the abode of the
Night, verily he turns not again into the tumult of the world, into the
land where dwells the Light in ceaseless unrest.

On those heights he builds for himself tabernacles--tabernacles of peace;
there longs and loves and gazes across, until the welcomest of all hours
draws him down into the waters of the spring. Afloat above remains what is
earthly, and is swept back in storms; but what became holy by the touch of
Love, runs free through hidden ways to the region beyond, where, like
odours, it mingles with love asleep. Still wakest thou, cheerful Light,
the weary man to his labour, and into me pourest gladsome life; but thou
wilest me not away from Memory's mossgrown monument. Gladly will I bestir
the deedy hands, everywhere behold where thou hast need of me; bepraise
the rich pomp of thy splendour; pursue unwearied the lovely harmonies of
thy skilled handicraft; gladly contemplate the thoughtful pace of thy
mighty, radiant clock; explore the balance of the forces and the laws of
the wondrous play of countless worlds and their seasons; but true to the
Night remains my secret heart, and to creative Love, her daughter. Canst
_thou_ show me a heart eternally true? Has thy sun friendly eyes that know
me? Do thy stars lay hold of my longing hand? Do they return me the tender
pressure and the caressing word? Was it thou didst bedeck them with
colours and a flickering outline? Or was it _she_ who gave to thy jewels a
higher, a dearer significance? What delight, what pleasure offers _thy_
life, to outweigh the transports of Death? Wears not everything that
inspirits us the livery of the Night? Thy mother, it is she who brings
thee forth, and to her thou owest all thy glory. Thou wouldst vanish into
thyself, thou wouldst dissipate in boundless space, if she did not hold
thee fast, if she swaddled thee not, so that thou grewest warm, and,
flaming, gavest birth to the universe. Verily I was before thou wast; the
mother sent me with my sisters to inhabit thy world, to sanctify it with
love that it might be an ever present memorial, to plant it with flowers
unfading. As yet they have not ripened, these thoughts divine; as yet is
there small trace of our coming apocalypse. One day thy clock will point
to the end of Time, and then thou shalt be as one of us, and shalt, full
of ardent longing, be extinguished and die. I feel in me the close of thy
activity, I taste heavenly freedom, and happy restoration. With wild pangs
I recognize thy distance from our home, thy feud with the ancient lordly
Heaven. Thy rage and thy raving are in vain. Inconsumable stands the
cross, victory-flag of our race.

Over I pilgrim
Where every pain
Zest only of pleasure
Shall one day remain.
Yet a few moments
Then free am I,
And intoxicated
In Love's lap lie.
Life everlasting
Lifts, wave-like, at me:
I gaze from its summit
Down after thee.
Oh Sun, thou must vanish
Yon hillock beneath;
A shadow will bring thee
Thy cooling wreath.
Oh draw at my heart, love,
Draw till I'm gone;
That, fallen asleep, I
Still may love on!
I feel the flow of
Death's youth-giving flood;
To balsam and aether, it
Changes my blood!
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might:
In holy rapture
I die every night.


V.

In ancient times an iron Fate lorded it, with dumb force, over the
widespread families of men. A gloomy oppression swathed their anxious
souls: the Earth was boundless, the abode of the gods and their home. From
eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond the red hills of the
morning, in the sacred bosom of the sea, dwelt the sun, the
all-enkindling, live luminary. An aged giant upbore the happy world.
Prisoned beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth,
helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods,
and their kindred, glad-hearted men. Ocean's dusky, green abyss was the
lap of a goddess. In the crystal grottoes revelled a wanton folk. Rivers,
trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine, poured
out by youth impersonated; a god was in the grape-clusters; a loving,
motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves; love's sacred carousal
was a sweet worship of the fairest of the goddesses. Life revelled through
the centuries like one spring-time, an ever-variegated festival of the
children of heaven and the dwellers on the earth. All races childlike
adored the ethereal, thousandfold flame, as the one sublimest thing in the
world.

It was but a fancy, a horrible dream-shape--

That fearsome to the merry tables strode,
And wrapt the spirit in wild consternation.
The gods themselves here counsel knew nor showed
To fill the stifling heart with consolation.
Mysterious was the monster's pathless road,
Whoose rage would heed no prayer and no oblation;
Twas Death who broke the banquet up with fears,
With anguish, with dire pain, and bitter tears.

Eternally from all things here disparted
That sway the heart with pleasure's joyous flow,
Divided from the loved, whom, broken-hearted,
Vain longing tosses and unceasing woe--
In a dull dream to struggle, faint and thwarted,
Smeemed all was granted to the dead below!
Broke lay the merry wave of human glory
On Death's inevitable promontory.

With daring flight, aloft Thought's pinions sweep;
The horrid thing with beauty's robe men cover:
A gentle youth puts out his torch, to sleep;
Sweet comes the end, like moaning lute of lover.
Cool shadow-floods o'er melting memory creep:
So sang the song, for Misery was the mover.
Still undeciphered lay the endless Night--
The solemn symbol of a far-off Might.

The old world began to decline. The pleasure-garden of the young race
withered away; up into opener regions and desolate, forsaking his
childhood, struggled the growing man. The gods vanished with their
retinue. Nature stood alone and lifeless. Dry Number and rigid Measure
bound her with iron chains. As into dust and air the priceless blossoms of
life fell away in words obscure. Gone was wonder-working Faith, and the
all-transforming, all-uniting angel-comrade, the Imagination. A cold north
wind blew unkindly over the torpid plain, and the wonderland first froze,
then evaporated into aether. The far depths of heaven filled with flashing
worlds. Into the deeper sanctuary, into the more exalted region of the
mind, the soul of the world retired with all her powers, there to rule
until the dawn should break of the glory universal. No longer was the
Light the abode of the gods, and the heavenly token of their presence:
they cast over them the veil of the Night. The Night became the mighty
womb of revelations; into it the gods went back, and fell asleep, to go
abroad in new and more glorious shapes over the transfigured world. Among
the people which, untimely ripe, was become of all the most scornful and
insolently hostile to the blessed innocence of youth, appeared the New
World, in guise never seen before, in the song-favouring hut of poverty, a
son of the first maid and mother, the eternal fruit of mysterious embrace.
The forseeing, rich-blossoming wisdom of the East at once recognized the
beginning of the new age; a star showed it the way to the lowly cradle of
the king. In the name of the far-reaching future, they did him homage with
lustre ond odour, the highest wonders of Nature. In solitude the heavenly
heart unfolded itself to a flower-chalice of almighty love, upturned to
the supreme face of the father, and resting on the bliss-boding bosom of
the sweetly solemn mother. With deifying fervour the prophetic eye of the
blooming child beheld the years to come, foresaw, untroubled over the
earthly lot of his own days, the beloved offspring of his divine stem. Ere
long the most childlike souls, by true love marvellously possessed,
gathered about him. Like flowers sprang up a new strange life in his
presence. Words inexhaustible and tidings the most joyful fell like sparks
of a divine spirit from his friendly lips. From a far shore came a singer,
born under the clear sky of Hellas, to Palestine, and gave up his whole
heart to the marvellous child:--

The youth art thou who ages long hast stood
Upon our graves, lost in a maze of weening;
Sign in the darkness of God's tidings good,
Whence hints of growth humanity is gleaning;
For that we long, on that we sweetly brood
Which erst in woe had lost all life and meaning;
In everlasting life death found its goal,
For thou art Death, and thou first mak'st us whole.

Filled with joy, the singer went on to Indostan, his heart intoxicated
with sweetest love, and poured it out in fiery songs under that tender
sky, so that a thousand hearts bowed to him, and the good news sprang up
with a thousand branches. Soon after the singer's departure, his precious
life was made a sacrifice for the deep fall of man. He died in his youth,
torn away from his loved world, from his weeping mother, and his trembling
friends. His lovely mouth emptied the dark cup of unspeakable wrongs. In
horrible anguish the birth of the new world drew near. Hard he wrestled
with the terrors of old Death; heavy lay the weight of the old world upon
him. Yet once more he looked kindly at his mother; then came the releasing
hand of the Love eternal, and he fell asleep. Only a few days hung a deep
veil over the roaring sea, over the quaking land; countless tears wept his
loved ones; the mystery was unsealed: heavenely spirits heaved the ancient
stone from the gloomy grave. Angels sat by the sleeper, sweetly outbodied
from his dreams; awaked in new Godlike glory, he clomb the apex of the
new-born world, buried with his own hand the old corpse in the forsaken
cavity, and with hand almighty laid upon it the stone which no power shall
again upheave.

Yet weep thy loved ones over thy grave tears of joy, tears of emotion,
tears of endless thanksgiving; ever afresh, with joyous start, see thee
rise again, and themselves with thee; behold thee weep with soft fervour
on the blessed bosom of thy mother, walk in thoughtful communion with thy
friends, uttering words plucked as from the tree of life; see thee hasten,
full of longing, into thy father's arms, bearing with thee youthful
Humanity, and the inexhaustible cup of the golden Future. Soon the mother
hastened after thee in heavenly triumph; she was the first with thee in
the new home. Since then, long ages have flowed past, and in splendour
ever increasing hath bestirred itself thy new creation, and thousands
have, out of pangs and tortures, followed thee, filled with faith and
longing and truth, and are walking about with thee and the heavenly virgin
in the kingdom of Love, minister in the temple of heavenly Death, and are
for ever thine.

Uplifted is the stone,
And all mankind is risen;
We all remain thine own,
And vanished is our prison.
All troubles flee away
Before thy golden cup;
For Earth nor Life can stay
When with our Lord we sup.

To the marriage Death doth call;
No virgin holdeth back;
The lamps burn lustrous all;
Of oil there is no lack.
Would thy far feet were waking
The echoes of our street!
And that the stars were making
Signal with voices sweet!

To thee, O mother maiden,
Ten thousand hearts aspire;
In this life, sorrow-laden,
Thee only they desire;
In thee they hope for healing;
In thee expect true rest,
When thou, their safety sealing,
Shalt clasp them to thy breast.

With disappointment burning
Who made in hell their bed,
At last from this world turning
To thee have looked and fled:
Helpful thou hast appeared
To us in many a pain:
Now to thy home we're neared,
Not to go out again!

Now at no grave are weeping
Such as do love and pray;
The gift that Love is keeping
From none is taken away.
To soothe and quiet our longing
Night comes, and stills the smart;
Heaven's children round us thronging
Now watch and ward our heart.

Courage! for life is striding
To endless life along;
The Sense, in love abiding,
Grows clearer and more strong.
One day the stars, down dripping,
Shall flow in golden wine:
We, of that nectar sipping,
As living stars shall shine!

Free, from the tomb emerges
Love, to die never more;
Fulfilled, life heaves and surges
A sea without a shore!
All night! all blissful leisure!
One jubilating ode!
And the sun of all our pleasure
The countenance of God!


VI.

LONGING AFTER DEATH.

Into the bosom of the earth!
Out of the Light's dominions!
Death's pains are but the bursting forth
Of glad Departure's pinions!
Swift in the narrow little boat,
Swift to the heavenly shore we float!

Blest be the everlasting Night,
And blest the endless Slumber!
We are heated with the day too bright,
And withered up with cumber!
We're weary of that life abroad:
Come, we will now go home to God!

Why longer in this world abide?
Why love and truth here cherish?
That which is old is set aside--For
us the new may perish!
Alone he stands and sore downcast
Who loves with pious warmth the Past.

The Past where yet the human spirit
In lofty flames did rise;
Where men the Father did inherit,
His countenance recognize;
And, in simplicity made ripe,
Many grew like their archetype.

The Past wherin, still rich in bloom,
Old stems did burgeon glorious;
And children, for the world to come,
Sought pain and death victorious;
And, though both life and pleasure spake,
Yet many a heart for love did break.

The Past, where to the glow of youth
God yet himself declared;
And early death, in loving truth
The young beheld, and dared--
Anguish and torture patient bore
To prove they loved him as of yore.

With anxious yearning now we see
That Past in darkness drenched;
With this world's water never we
Shall find our hot thirst quenched:
To our old home we have to go
That blessed time again to know.

What yet doth hinder our return?
Long since repose our precious!
Their grave is of our life the bourn;
We shrink from times ungracious!
By not a hope are we decoyed:
The heart is full; the world is void!

Infinite and mysterious,
Thrills through me a sweet trembling,
As if from far there echoed thus
A sigh, our grief resembling:
The dear ones long as well as I,
And send to me their waiting sigh.

Down to the sweet bride, and away
To the beloved Jesus!
Courage! the evening shades grow gray,
Of all our griefs to ease us!
A dream will dash our chains apart,
And lay us on the Father's heart.



SPIRITUAL SONGS.

I.

Without thee, what were life or being!
Without thee, what had I not grown!
From fear and anguish vainly fleeing,
I in the world had stood alone;
For all I loved could trust no shelter;
The future a dim gulf had lain;
And when my heart in tears did welter,
To whom had I poured out my pain?

Consumed in love and longing lonely
Each day had worn the night's dull face
With hot tears I had followed only
Afar life's wildly rushing race.
No rest for me, tumultuous driven!
A hopeless sorrow by the hearth!--
Who, that had not a friend in heaven,
Could to the end hold out on earth?

But if his heart once Jesus bareth,
And I of him right sure can be,
How soon a living glory scareth
The bottomless obscurity!
Manhood in him first man attaineth;
His fate in Him transfigured glows;
On freezing Iceland India gaineth,
And round the loved one blooms and blows.

Life grows a twilight softly stealing;
The world speaks all of love and glee;
For every wound grows herb of healing,
And every heart beats full and free.
I, his ten thousand gifts receiving,
Humble like him, his knees embrace;
Sure that we share his presence living
When two are gathered in one place.

Forth, forth to all highways and hedges!
Compel the wanderers to come in;
Stretch out the hand that good will pledges,
And gladly call them to their kin.
See heaven high over earth up-dawning!
In faith we see it rise and spread:
To all with us one spirit owning--
To them with us 'tis opened.

An ancient, heavy guilt-illusion
Haunted our hearts, a changeless doom;
Blindly we strayed in night's confusion;
Gladness and grief alike consume.
Whate'er we did, some law was broken!
Mankind appeared God's enemy;
And if we thought the heavens had spoken,
They spoke but death and misery.

The heart, of life the fountain swelling--
An evil creature lay therein;
If more light shone into our dwelling,
More unrest only did we win.
Down to the earth an iron fetter
Fast held us, trembling captive crew;
Fear of Law's sword, grim Death the whetter,
Did swallow up hope's residue.

Then came a saviour to deliver--
A Son of Man, in love and might!
A holy fire, of life all-giver,
He in our hearts has fanned alight.
Then first heaven opened--and, no fable,
Our own old fatherland we trod!
To hope and trust we straight were able,
And knew ourselves akin to God.

Then vanished Sin's old spectre dismal;
Our every step grew glad and brave.
Best natal gift, in rite baptismal,
Their own faith men their children gave.
Holy in him, Life since hath floated,
A happy dream, through every heart;
We, to his love and joy devoted,
Scarce know the moment we depart.

Still standeth, in his wondrous glory,
The holy loved one with his own;
His crown of thorns, his faithful story
Still move our hearts, still make us groan.
Whoso from deadly sleep will waken,
And grasp his hand of sacrifice,
Into his heart with us is taken,
To ripen a fruit of Paradise.


II.

Dawn, far eastward, on the mountain!
Gray old times are growing young:
From the flashing colour-fountain
I will quaff it deep and long!--
Granted boon to Longing's long privation!
Sweet love in divine transfiguration!

Comes at last, our old Earth's native,
All-Heaven's one child, simple, kind!
Blows again, in song creative,
Round the earth a living wind;
Blows to clear new flames that rush together
Sparks extinguished long by earthly weather.

Everywhere, from graves upspringing,
Rises new-born life, new blood!
Endless peace up to us bringing,
Dives he underneath life's flood;
Stands in midst, with full hands, eyes caressing--
Hardly waits the prayer to grant the blessing.

Let his mild looks of invading
Deep into thy spirit go;
By his blessedness unfading
Thou thy heart possessed shalt know.
Hearts of all men, spirits all, and senses
Mingle, and a new glad dance commences.

Grasp his hands with boldness yearning;
Stamp his face thy heart upon;
Turning toward him, ever turning,
Thou, the flower, must face thy sun.
Who to him his heart's last fold unfoldeth,
True as wife's his heart for ever holdeth.

Ours is now that Godhead's splendour
At whose name we used to quake!
South and north, its breathings tender
Heavenly germs at once awake!
Let us then in God's full garden labour,
And to every bud and bloom be neighbour!


III.

Who in his chamber sitteth lonely,
And weepeth heavy, bitter tears;
To whom in doleful colours, only
Of want and woe, the world appears;

Who of the Past, gulf-like receding,
Would search with questing eyes the core,
Down into which a sweet woe, pleading,
Wiles him from all sides evermore--

As if a treasure past believing
Lay there below, for him high-piled,
After whose lock, with bosom heaving,
He breathless grasps in longing wild:

He sees the Future, waste and arid,
In hideous length before him stretch;
About he roams, alone and harried,
And seeks himself, poor restless wretch!--

I fall upon his bosom, tearful:
I once, like thee, with woe was wan;
But I grew well, am strong and cheerful,
And know the eternal rest of man.

Thou too must find the one consoler
Who inly loved, endured, and died--
Even for them that wrought his dolour
With thousand-fold rejoicing died.

He died--and yet, fresh each to-morrow,
His love and him thy heart doth hold;
Thou mayst, consoled for every sorrow,
Him in thy arms with ardour fold.

New blood shall from his heart be driven
Through thy dead bones like living wine;
And once thy heart to him is given,
Then is his heart for ever thine.

What thou didst lose, he keeps it for thee;
With him thy lost love thou shalt find;
And what his hand doth once restore thee,
That hand to thee will changeless bind.


IV.

Of the thousand hours me meeting,
And with gladsome promise greeting,
One alone hath kept its faith--
One wherein--ah, sorely grieved!--
In my heart I first perceived
Who for us did die the death.

All to dust my world was beaten;
As a worm had through them eaten
Withered in me bud and flower;
All my life had sought or cherished
In the grave had sunk and perished;
Pain sat in my ruined bower.

While I thus, in silence sighing,
Ever wept, on Death still crying,
Still to sad delusions tied,
All at once the night was cloven,
From my grave the stone was hoven,
And my inner doors thrown wide.

Whom I saw, and who the other,
Ask me not, or friend or brother!--
Sight seen once, and evermore!
Lone in all life's eves and morrows,
This hour only, like my sorrows,
Ever shines my eyes before.


V.

If I him but have,[1]
If he be but mine,
If my heart, hence to the grave,
Ne'er forgets his love divine--
Know I nought of sadness,
Feel I nought but worship, love, and gladness.

[Footnote 1: Here I found the double or feminine rhyme impossible without
the loss of the far more precious simplicity of the original, which could
be retained only by a literal translation.]

If I him but have,
Pleased from all I part;
Follow, on my pilgrim staff,
None but him, with honest heart;
Leave the rest, nought saying,
On broad, bright, and crowded highways straying.

If I him but have,
Glad to sleep I sink;
From his heart the flood he gave
Shall to mine be food and drink;
And, with sweet compelling,
Mine shall soften, deep throughout it welling.

If I him but have,
Mine the world I hail;
Happy, like a cherub grave
Holding back the Virgin's veil:
I, deep sunk in gazing,
Hear no more the Earth or its poor praising.

Where I have but him
Is my fatherland;
Every gift a precious gem
Come to me from his own hand!
Brothers long deplored,
Lo, in his disciples, all restored!


VI.

My faith to thee I break not,
If all should faithless be,
That gratitude forsake not
The world eternally.
For my sake Death did sting thee
With anguish keen and sore;
Therefore with joy I bring thee
This heart for evermore.

Oft weep I like a river
That thou art dead, and yet
So many of thine thee, Giver
Of life, life-long forget!
By love alone possessed,
Such great things thou hast done!
But thou art dead, O Blessed,
And no one thinks thereon!

Thou stand'st with love unshaken
Ever by every man;
And if by all forsaken,
Art still the faithful one.
Such love must win the wrestle;
At last thy love they'll see,
Weep bitterly, and nestle
Like children to thy knee.

Thou with thy love hast found me!
O do not let me go!
Keep me where thou hast bound me
Till one with thee I grow.
My brothers yet will waken,
One look to heaven will dart--
Then sink down, love-o'ertaken,
And fall upon thy heart.


VII.

HYMN.

Few understand
The mystery of Love,
Know insatiableness,
And thirst eternal.
Of the Last Supper
The divine meaning
Is to the earthly senses a riddle;
But he that ever
From warm, beloved lips,
Drew breath of life;
In whom the holy glow
Ever melted the heart in trembling waves;
Whose eye ever opened so
As to fathom
The bottomless deeps of heaven--
Will eat of his body
And drink of his blood
Everlastingly.
Who of the earthly body
Has divined the lofty sense?
Who can say
That he understands the blood?
One day all is body,
_One_ body:
In heavenly blood
Swims the blissful two.

Oh that the ocean
Were even now flushing!
And in odorous flesh
The rock were upswelling!
Never endeth the sweet repast;
Never doth Love satisfy itself;
Never close enough, never enough its own,
Can it _have_ the beloved!
By ever tenderer lips
Transformed, the Partaken
Goes deeper, grows nearer.
Pleasure more ardent
Thrills through the soul;
Thirstier and hungrier
Becomes the heart;
And so endureth Love's delight
From everlasting to everlasting.
Had the refraining
Tasted but once,
All had they left
To set themselves down with us
To the table of longing
Which will never be bare;
Then had they known Love's
Infinite fullness,
And commended the sustenance
Of body and blood.


VIII.

Weep I must--my heart runs over:
Would he once himself discover--
If but once, from far away!
Holy sorrow! still prevailing
Is my weeping, is my wailing:
Would that I were turned to clay!

Evermore I hear him crying
To his Father, see him dying:
Will this heart for ever beat!
Will my eyes in death close never?
Weeping all into a river
Were a bliss for me too sweet!

Hear I none but me bewailing?
Dies his name an echo failing?
Is the world at once struck dead?
Shall I from his eyes, ah! never
More drink love and life for ever?
Is he now for always dead?

_Dead?_ What means that sound of dolour?
Tell me, tell me thou, a scholar,
What it means, that word so grim.
He is silent; all turn from me!
No one on the earth will show me
Where my heart may look for him!

Earth no more, whate'er befall me,
Can to any gladness call me!
She is but one dream of woe!
I too am with him departed:
Would I lay with him, still-hearted,
In the region down below!

Hear, me, hear, his and my father!
My dead bones, I pray thee, gather
Unto his--and soon, I pray!
Grass his hillock soon will cover,
Soon the wind will wander over,
Soon his form will fade away.

If his love they once perceived,
Soon, soon all men had believed,
Letting all things else go by!
Lord of love him only owning,
All would weep with me bemoaning,
And in bitter woe would die!


IX.

He lives! he's risen from the dead!
To every man I shout;
His presence over us is spread,
Goes with us in and out.

To each I say it; each apace
His comrades telleth too--
That straight will dawn in every place
The heavenly kingdom new.

Now, to the new mind, first appears
The world a fatherland;
A new life men receive, with tears
Of rapture, from his hand.

Down into deepest gulfs of sea
Grim Death hath sunk away;
And now each man with holy glee,
Can face his coming day.

The darksome road that he hath gone
Leads out on heaven's floor:
Who heeds the counsel of the Son
Enters the Father's door.

Down here weeps no one any more
For friend that shuts his eyes;
For, soon or late, the parting sore
Will change to glad surprise.

And now to every friendly deed
Each heart will warmer glow;
For many a fold the fresh-sown seed
In lovelier fields will blow.

He lives--will sit beside our hearths,
The greatest with the least;
Therefore this day shall be our Earth's
Glad Renovation-feast.


X.

The times are all so wretched!
The heart so full of cares!
The future, far outstretched,
A spectral horror wears.

Wild terrors creep and hover
With foot so ghastly soft!
Our souls black midnights cover
With mountains piled aloft.

Firm props like reeds are waving;
For trust is left no stay;
Our thoughts, like whirlpool raving,
No more the will obey!

Frenzy, with eye resistless,
Decoys from Truth's defence;
Life's pulse is flagging listless,
And dull is every sense.

Who hath the cross upheaved
To shelter every soul?
Who lives, on high received,
To make the wounded whole?

Go to the tree of wonder;
Give silent longing room;
Issuing flames asunder
Thy bad dream will consume.

Draws thee an angel tender
In saftey to the strand:
Lo, at thy feet in splendour
Lies spread the Promised Land!


XI.

I know not what were left to draw me,
Had I but him who is my bliss;
If still his eye with pleasure saw me,
And, dwelling with me, me would miss.

So many search, round all ways going,
With face distorted, anxious eye,
Who call themselves the wise and knowing,
Yet ever pass this treasure by!

One man believes that he has found it,
And what he has is nought but gold;
One takes the world by sailing round it:
The deed recorded, all is told!

One man runs well to gain the laurel;
Another, in Victory's fane a niche:
By different Shows in bright apparel
All are befooled, not one made rich!

Hath He not then to you appeared?
Have ye forgot Him turning wan
Whose side for love of us was speared--
The scorned, rejected Son of Man?

Of Him have you not read the story--
Heard one poor word upon the wind?
What heavenly goodness was his glory,
Or what a gift he left behind?

How he descended from the Father,
Of loveliest mother infant grand?
What Word the nations from him gather?
How many bless his healing hand?

How, thereto urged by mere love, wholly
He gave himself to us away,
And down in earth, foundation lowly,
First stone of God's new city, lay?

Can such news fail to touch us mortals?
Is not to know the man pure bliss?
Will you not open all your portals
To him who closed for you the abyss?

Will you not let the world go faring?
For Him your dearest wish deny?
To him alone your heart keep baring,
Who you has shown such favour high?

Hero of love, oh, take me, take me!
Thou art my life! my world! my gold!
Should every earthly thing forsake me,
I know who will me scatheless hold!

I see Thee my lost loves restoring!
True evermore to me thou art!
Low at thy feet heaven sinks adoring,
And yet thou dwellest in my heart!


XII.

Earth's Consolation, why so slow?
Thy inn is ready long ago;
Each lifts to thee his hungering eyes,
And open to thy blessing lies.

O Father, pour him forth with might;
Out of thine arms, oh yield him quite!
Shyness alone, sweet shame, I know,
Kept him from coming long ago!

Haste him from thine into our arm
To take him with thy breath yet warm;
Thick clouds around the baby wrap,
And let him down into our lap.

In the cool streams send him to us;
In flames let him glow tremulous;
In air and oil, in sound and dew,
Let him pierce all Earth's structure through.

So shall the holy fight be fought,
So come the rage of hell to nought;
And, ever blooming, dawn again
The ancient Paradise of men.

Earth stirs once more, grows green and live;
Full of the Spirit, all things strive
To clasp with love the Saviour-guest,
And offer him the mother-breast.

Winter gives way; a year new-born
Stands at the manger's alter-horn;
'Tis the first year of that new Earth
Claimed by the child in right of birth.

Our eyes they see the Saviour well,
Yet in them doth the Saviour dwell;
With flowers his head is wreathed about;
From every flower himself smiles out.

He is the star; he is the sun;
Life's well that evermore will run;
From herb, stone, sea, and light's expanse
Glimmers his childish countenance.

His childlike labour things to mend,
His ardent love will never end;
He nestles, with unconscious art,
Divinely fast to every heart.

To us a God, to himself a child,
He loves us all, self un-defiled;
Becomes our drink, becomes our food--
His dearest thanks, a heart that's good.

The misery grows yet more and more;
A gloomy grief afflicts us sore:
Keep him no longer, Father, thus;
He will come home again with us!


XIII.

When in hours of fear and failing,
All but quite our heart despairs;
When, with sickness driven to wailing.
Anguish at our bosom tears;
Then our loved ones we remember;
All their grief and trouble rue;
Clouds close in on our December
And no beam of hope shines through!

Oh but then God bends him o'er us!
Then his love comes very near!
Long we heavenward then--before us
Lo, his angel standing clear!
Life's cup fresh to us he reaches;
Whispers comfort, courage new;
Nor in vain our prayer beseeches
Rest for our beloved ones too.


XIV.

Who once hath seen thee, Mother fair,
Destruction him shall never snare;
His fear is, from thee to be parted;
He loves thee evermore, true-hearted;
Thy grace remembered is the source
Whereout springs hence his spirit's highest force.

My heart is very true to thee;
My ever failing thou dost see:
Let me, sweet mother, yet essay thee--
Give me one happy sign, I pray thee.
My whole existence rests in thee:
One moment, only one, be thou with me.

I used to see thee in my dreams,
So fair, so full of tenderest beams!
The little God in thine arms lying
Took pity on his playmate crying:
But thou with high look me didst awe,
And into clouds of glory didst withdraw.

What have I done to thee, poor wretch?
To thee my longing arms I stretch!
Are not thy holy chapels ever
My resting-spots in life's endeavour?
O Queen, of saints and angels blest,
This heart and life take up into thy rest!

Thou know'st that I, beloved Queen,
All thine and only thine have been!
Have I not now, years of long measure,
In silence learned thy grace to treasure?
While to myself yet scarce confest,
Even then I drew milk from thy holy breast.

Oh, countless times thou stood'st by me!
I, merry child, looked up to thee!
His hands thy little infant gave me
In sign that one day he would save me;
Thou smiledst, full of tenderness,
And then didst kiss me: oh the heavenly bliss!

Afar stands now that gladness brief;
Long have I companied with grief;
Restless I stray outside the garden!
Have I then sinned beyond thy pardon?
Childlike thy garment's hem I pull:
Oh wake me from this dream so weariful!

If only children see thy face,
And, confident, may trust thy grace,
From age's bonds, oh, me deliver,
And make me thine own child for ever!
The love and truth of childhood's prime
Dwell in me yet from that same golden time.


XV.

In countless pictures I behold thee,
O Mary, lovelily expressed,
But of them all none can unfold thee
As I have seen thee in my breast!
I only know the world's loud splendour
Since then is like a dream o'erblown;
And that a heaven, for words too tender,
My quieted spirit fills alone.



_A PARABLE_.

Long ago, there lived far to the west a very young man, good, but
extremely odd. He tormented himself continually about this nothing and
that nothing, always walked in silence and straight before him, sat down
alone when the others were at their sports and merry-makings, and brooded
over strange things. Caves and woods were his dearest haunts; and there he
talked on and on with beasts and birds, with trees and rocks--of course
not one rational word, but mere idiotic stuff, to make one laugh to death.
He continued, however, always moody and serious, in spite of the utmost
pains that the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot, and the bullfinch could
take to divert him, and set him in the right way. The goose told stories,
the brook jingled a ballad between, a great thick stone cut ridiculous
capers, the rose stole lovingly about him from behind and crept through
his locks, while the ivy stroked his troubled brow. But his melancholy and
gravity were stubborn. His parents were much troubled, and did not know
what to do. He was in good health, and ate well enough; they had never
caused him any offence; and, until a few years ago, he had been the
liveliest and merriest of them all, foremost in all their games, and a
favourite with all the maidens. He was very handsome, looked like a
picture, and danced like an angel. Amongst the maidens was one, a charming
and beautiful creature, who looked like wax, had hair like golden silk,
and cherry-red lips, was a doll for size, and had coal-black, yes,
raven-black eyes. Whoever saw her was ready to swoon, she was so lovely.
Now Rosebud, for that was her name, was heartily fond of the handsome
Hyacinth, for that was his name, and he loved her fit to die. The other
children knew nothing of it. A violet told them of it first. The little
house-cats had been quite aware of it, for the houses of their parents lay
near each other. So when Hyacinth stood at night by his window, and
Rosebud at hers, and the cats ran past mouse-hunting, they saw the two
standing there, and often laughed and tittered so loud that they heard it
and were offended. The violet told it in confidence to the strawberry, and
she told it to her friend, the raspberry, who never ceased rasping when
Hyacinth came along; so that by and by the whole garden and wood were in
the secret, and when Hyacinth went out, he heard on all sides the cry:
"Little Rosy is my posy!" This vexed him; but the next moment he could not
help laughing from the bottom of his heart, when the little lizard came
slipping along, sat down on a warm stone, waggled his tail, and sang--

"Little Rosebud, good and wise,
All at once has lost her eyes:
Taking Hyacinth for her mother,
Round his neck her arms she flings;
Then perceiving 'tis another--
Starts with terror?--no, but clings--
Think of that!--fast as before,
Only kissing all the more!"

Alas, how soon was the grand time over! There came a man out of strange
lands, who had travelled wondrous far and wide, had a long beard, deep
eyes, frightful eyebrows, and a strange garment with many folds, and
inwoven with curious figures. He seated himself before the house of
Hyacinth's parents. Hyacinth at once became very inquisitive, and sat down
beside him, and brought him bread and wine. Then parted he his white
beard, and told stories deep into the night; and Hyacinth never stirred or
tired of listening. This much they learned afterward, that he talked a
great deal about strange lands, unknown countries, and amazingly wonderful
things; stopped there three days, and crept with Hyacinth down into deep
shafts. Little Rosebud execrated the old sorcerer pretty thoroughly, for
Hyacinth was altogether absorbed in his conversation, and paid no heed to
anything else, hardly even to the swallowing of a mouthful of food. At
length the man took his departure, but left with Hyacinth a little book
which no man could read. Hyacinth gave him fruit, and bread, and wine to
take with him, and accompanied him a long way. Then he came back sunk in
thought, and thereafter took up a quite new mode of life. Rosebud was in a
very sad way about him, for from that time forward he made little of her,
and kept himself always to himself. But it came to pass that one day he
came home, and was like one born again. He fell on his parents' neck and
wept. "I must away to a foreign land!" he said: "the strange old woman in
the wood has told me what I must do to get well; she has thrown the book
into the fire, and has made me come to you to ask your blessing. Perhaps I
shall be back soon, perhaps never more. Say good-bye to Rosebud for me. I
should have been glad to have a talk with her; I do not know what has come
to me: I must go! When I would think to recall old times, immediately come
thoughts more potent in between; my rest is gone, and my heart and love
with it; and I must go find them! I would gladly tell you whither, but do
not myself know; it is where dwells the mother of things, the virgin with
the veil; for her my spirit is on fire. Farewell!" He tore himself from
them, and went out. His parents lamented and shed tears. Rosebud kept her
chamber, and wept bitterly.

Hyacinth now ran, as fast as he could, through valleys and wildernesses,
over mountains and streams, toward the land of mystery. Everywhere he
inquired--of men and beasts, of rocks and trees,--after the sacred goddess
Isis. Many laughed, many held their peace; nowhere did he get an answer.
At first he passed through a rugged wild country; mists and clouds threw
themselves in his way, but he rushed on impetuously. Then he came to
boundless deserts of sand--mere glowing dust; and as he went his mood
changed also; the time became tedious to him, and his inward unrest
abated; he grew gentler, and the stormy impulse in him passed by degrees
into a mild yet powerful attraction, wherein his whole spirit was
dissolved. It seemed as if many years lay behind him.

And now the country became again richer and more varied, the air soft and
blue, the way smoother. Green bushes enticed him with their pleasant
shadows, but he did not understand their speech; they seemed indeed not to
speak, and yet they filled his heart with their green hues, and their
cool, still presence. Ever higher in him waxed that same sweet longing,
and ever broader and juicier grew the leaves, ever louder and more jocund
the birds and beasts, balmier the fruits, darker the heavenly blue, warmer
the air, and more ardent his love. The time went ever faster, as if it
knew itself near the goal.

One day he met a crystal rivulet, and a multitude of flowers, coming down
into a valley between dark, columnar cliffs. They greeted him friendlily,
with familiar words. "Dear country-folk," said he, "where shall I find the
sacred dwelling of Isis? Hereabouts it must be, and here, I guess, you are
more at home than I." "We also are but passing through," replied the
flowers; "a spirit-family is on its travels, and we are preparing for them
their road and quarters. A little way back, however, we passed through a
country where we heard her name mentioned. Only go up, where we came down,
and thou wilt soon learn more." The flowers and the brook smiled as they
said it, offered him a cool draught, and went on their way. Hyacinth
followed their counsel, kept asking, and came at last to that dwelling he
had sought so long, which lay hid among palms and other rare plants. His
heart beat with an infinite longing, and the sweetest apprehension
thrilled him in this abode of the eternal seasons. Amid heavenly odours he
fell asleep, for Dream alone could lead him into the holy of holies. In
marvellous mode Dream conducted him through endless rooms full of strange
things, by means of witching sounds and changeful harmonies. All seemed to
him so familiar, and yet strange with an unknown splendour; then vanished
the last film of the perishable as if melted into air, and he stood before
the celestial virgin. Then he lifted the thin glistening veil, and--
Rosebud sank into his arms. A far-off music surrounded the mysteries of
love's reunion and the outpouring of their longings, and shut out from the
scene of their rapture everything alien to it.

Hyacinth lived a long time after with Rosebud and his happy parents and
old playmates; and numberless grandchildren thanked the wonderful old wise
woman for her counsel and her uprousing; for in those days people had as
many children as they pleased.



FROM SCHILLER.

THE TRYST
HOPE
THE WORDS OF FAITH
THE WORDS OF VANITY
THE METAPHYSICIAN
THE PHILOSOPHERS
SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS
KNOWLEDGE
MY FAITH
FRIEND AND FOE
EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT
THE DIVER
KNIGHT TOGGENBURG
LONGING


THE TRYST.

That was the sound of the wicket!
That was the latch as it rose!
No--the wind that through the thicket
Of the poplars whirring goes.

Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof,
Her to receive: with silent welcome grace her;
Ye branches build a shadowy room, eye-proof,
With lovely night and stillness to embrace her,
Ye airs caressing, wake, nor keep aloof,
In sport and gambol turning still to face her,
As, with its load of beauty, lightly borne,
Glides in the fairy foot, and dawns my morn.

What is that rustling the hedges?
She, with her hurrying pace?
No, a bird among the sedges,
Startled from its hiding-place!

Quench thy sunk torch, O Day! Steal out, appear,
Dim, ghostly Night, with dumbness us entrancing!
Spread thy rose-purple veil about us here;
Weave round us twigs, the mystery enhancing:
Love's rapture flees the lurking listening ear--
Flies from the Day, so indiscreetly glancing;
Hesper alone--no tattling tell-tale he--
Far-gazing, still, her confidant may be.

That was a voice, but far distant,
Faint, like a whispering low!
No; the swan that draws persistent
Through the pond his circles slow!

About mine ears harmonious breathings flow;
The fountain falls in sweetly wavering rushes;
The flower beneath the west wind's kiss bends slow;
Delight from each to every thing outgushes;
Grape-clusters beckon; peaches luring glow,
And hide half in their leaves, up-swelling luscious;
The air, which aromatic odours streak,
Drinks up the glow upon my burning cheek.

Hear I not echoing footfalls
Hither adown the pleach'd walk?
No; the over-ripened fruit falls,
Heavy-swollen, from off its stalk!

Day's flaming eye at last is quenched quite;
In gentle death its colours all are paling;
Now boldly open in the fair twilight
The cups which in his blaze had long been quailing;
Slow lifts the moon her visage calmly bright;
Into great masses molten, earth sinks failing;
From every charm the zone drops unaware,
And shrouded beauty dawns upon me bare.

Yonder I see a white shimmer--
Silky--of robe or of shawl?
No; it is the column's glimmer
'Gainst the clipt yews' gloomy wall!

O longing heart, no more thyself befool,
Flouted by Fancy's loveliness unreal!
The empty arm no burning heart will cool,
No shadow-joy hold place for Love's Ideal!
O bring my live love all my heart to rule!
Give me her hand to hold, my every weal!
Or but the shadow of her mantle's hem--
And straight my dreams shall live, and I in them!

And soft as, from hills rosy-golden
The dews of still gladness descend,
So had she drawn nigh unbeholden,
And wakened with kisses her friend.

* * * * *

_HOPE_.

Men talk with their lips and dream with their soul
Of better days hitherward pacing;
To a happy, a glorious, golden goal
See them go running and chasing!
The world grows old and to youth returns,
But still for the Better man's bosom burns.

It is Hope leads him into life and its light;
She haunts the little one merry;
The youth is inspired by her magic might;
Her the graybeard cannot bury:
When he finds at the grave his ended scope,
On the grave itself he planteth Hope.

She was never begotten in Folly's brain,
An empty illusion, to flatter;
In the Heart she cries, aloud and plain:
We are born to something better!
And that which the inner voice doth say
The hoping spirit will not betray.


_THE WORDS OF FAITH_.

Three words I will tell you, of meaning full:
The lips of the many shout them;
Yet were they born of no sect or school,
The heart only knows about them:
That man is of everything worth bereft
Who in those three words has no faith left:

_Man_ is born free--and is free alway
Even were he born in fetters!
Let not the mob's cry lead you astray,
Or the misdeeds of frantic upsetters:
Fear not the slave when he breaks his bands;
Fear nothing from any free man's hands.

And _Virtue_--it is no empty sound;
That a man can obey her, no folly;
Even if he stumble all over the ground
He yet can follow the Holy;
And what never wisdom of wise man knew
A child-like spirit can simply do.

And a _God_ there is--a steadfast Will,
However the human shrinketh!
High over space and time He still,
The live Thought, doth what He thinketh;
And though all things keep circling, to change confined,
He keeps, in all changes, a changeless mind.

These three words cherish--of meaning full:
From mouth to mouth send them faring;
For, although they spring from no sect or school,
Your hearts them witness are bearing;
And man is never of worth bereft
While yet he has faith in those three words left.

Three words there are of weighty sound,
And from good men's lips they hail us;
But a tinkling cymbal, a drum's rebound,
For help or for comfort they fail us!
His Life's fruit away he forfeit flings
Who catches after those shadows of things;

Who still believes in a Golden Age,
Where the Right and the Good reign in splendour:
The Right and the Good war ever must wage--
Their foe will never surrender;
And chok'st thou him not in the upper air,
His strength he will still on the earth repair.

Who yet believes that Fortune, the jilt,
To the noble will bind herself ever:
Her love-looks follow the man of guilt;
The world to the good belongs never;
He is in it a stranger; he wanders away
Seeking a house that will not decay.

Who still believes that no human gaze
Truth ever her visage discloses:
Her veil no mortal hand shall raise;
Man only thinks and supposes:
Thou mayst prison the spirit in sounding form,
But the Fetterless walks away on the storm.

Then, noble spirit, from folly break free,
This heav'nly faith holding and handing:
What the ear never heard, what no eye can see,
Is the lovely, the true, notwithstanding;
Outside, the fool seeks for it evermore;
The wise man finds it with closed door!


THE METAPHYSICIAN.

"How far the world lies under me!
Scarce can I see the men below there crawling!
How high it bears me up, my lofty calling!
How near the heavenly canopy!"
Thus, from tower-roof where he doth clamber,
Calls out the slater; and with him the small big man,
Jack Metaphysicus, down in his writing-chamber!
Tell me, thou little great big man,--
The tower, whence thou so grandly all things hast inspected,
Of what is it?--Whereon is it erected?
How cam'st thou up thyself? Its heights so smooth and bare--
How serve they thee but thence into the vale to stare?


_THE PHILOSOPHERS_.

The principle whence everything
To life and shape ascended--
The pulley whereon Zeus the ring
Of Earth, which else in sherds would spring,
Has carefully suspended--
To genius I yield him a claim
Who fathoms for me what its name,
Save I withdraw its curtain:
It is--ten is not thirteen.

That snow makes cold, that fire burns,
That man on two feet goeth,
That in the heavens the sun sojourns--
This much the man who logic spurns
Through his own senses knoweth;
But metaphysics who has got,
Knows he that burneth, freezeth not;
Knows 'tis the moist that wetteth,
And 'tis the rough that fretteth.

Great Homer sings his epic high;
The hero fronts his dangers;
The brave his duty still doth ply--
And did it while, I won't deny,
Philosophers were strangers:
But grant by heart and brain achiev'd
What Locke and Des Cartes ne'er conceiv'd--
By them yet, as behoved,
It possible was proved.

Strength for the Right is counted still;
Bold laughs the strong hyena;
Who rule not, servants' parts must fill;
It goes quite tolerably ill
Upon this world's arena;
But how it would be, if the plan
Of the universe now first began,
In many a moral system
All men may read who list 'em.

"Man needs with man must linked be
To reach the goal of growing;
In the whole only worketh he;
Many drops go to make the sea;
Much water sets mills going.
Then with the wild wolves do not stand,
But knit the state's enduring band:"
From doctor's chair thus, tranquil,
Herr Pufendorf and swan-quill.

But since to all, what doctors say
Flies not as soon as spoken,
Nature will use her mother-way,
See that her chain fly not in tway,
The circle be not broken:
Meantime, until the world's great round
Philosophy in one hath bound,
She keeps it on the move, sir,
By hunger and by love, sir.



_SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS_.


I.

Threefold is of Time the tread:
Lingering comes the Future pacing hither;
Dartlike is the Now gone thither;
Stands the Past aye moveless, foot and head.

No impatience wings its idle
Tread of leisurely delay;
Fear or doubt it cannot bridle
Should it headlong run away;
No remorse, no incantation
Moves the standing from its station.

Wouldst thou end thy earthly journey
Wise and of good fortune full,
Make the Lingering thine attorney
Thee to counsel--not thy tool;
Not for friend the Flying take,
Nor thy foe the Standing make.


II.

Threefold is of Space the way:
On unresting, without stay,
Strives the Length into the distance;
Ceaseless pours the Breadth's insistence
Bottomless the Depth goes down.

For a sign the three are sent thee:
_Onward_ must alone content thee--
Weary, thou must not stand still
Wouldst thou thy perfection fill!
Thou must spread thee wider, bigger,
Wouldst thou have the world take figure!
To the deep the man descendeth
Who existence comprehendeth.
Leads persistence to the goal;
Leads abundance to precision;
Dwells in the abyss the Vision.

* * * * *

_In the following epigrams I have altered the form,
which in the original is the elegiac distich_.


_KNOWLEDGE_.

To this man, 'tis a goddess tall,
Who lifts a star-encircled head;
To that, a fine cow in a stall,
Which gives him butter to his bread.


_MY FAITH_.

Which religion I profess?
None of which you mention make.
Wherefore so?--And can't you guess?
For Religion's sake.


_FRIEND AND FOE_.

Dear is my friend, but my foe too
Is friendly to my good;
My friend the thing shows I _can_ do,
My foe, the thing I should.


_EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT_.

Thousand-masted, mighty float,
Out to sea Youth's navy goes:
Silent, in his one saved boat,
Age into the harbour rows.


_THE DIVER_

"Which of you, knight or squire, will dare
Plunge into yonder gulf?
A golden beaker I fling in it--there!
The black mouth swallows it like a wolf!
Who brings me the cup again, whoever,
It is his own--he may keep it for ever!"

Tis the king who speaks; and he flings from the brow
Of the cliff, that, rugged and steep,
Hangs out o'er the endless sea below,
The cup in the whirlpool's howling heap:--
"Again I ask, what hero will follow?
What brave heart plunge into yon dark hollow?"

The knights and the squires, the king about,
Hear him, and dumbly stare
Into the wild sea's tumbling rout;
But to win the beaker, they hardly care!
The king, for the third time, round him glaring--
"Not a soul of you has the daring?"

Speechless all, as before, they stand:
When a vassal bold, gentle, and gay,
Steps out from his comrades' shrinking band,
Flinging his girdle and cloak away;
And all the women and men that surrounded
Gazed on the grand-looking youth, astounded.

And when he stepped to the rock's rough brow
Looking down on the gulf so black,
The waters which it had swallowed, now
Charybdis bellowing rendered back;
And, with a roar as of distant thunder,
Foaming they burst from the dark lap under.

It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout,
As when water wrestles with fire,
Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout;
And flood upon flood keeps mounting higher:
It will never its endless coil unravel,
As the sea with another sea were in travail!

But, at last, slow sinks the writhing spasm,
And, black through the foaming white,
Downward gapes a yawning chasm--
Bottomless, cloven to hell's wide night;
And, sucked up, see the billows roaring
Down through the whirling funnel pouring!

Then in haste, ere the out-rage return again,
The youth to his God doth pray,
And--ascends a cry of horror and pain--
Already the vortex hath swept him away!
And o'er the bold swimmer, in darkness eternal,
Close the great jaws of the gulf infernal!

Then the water above grows smooth as glass,
While, below, dull roarings ply;
And, trembling, they hear the murmur pass--
"High-hearted youth, farewell! good-bye!"
And, hollower still, comes the howl affraying,
Till their hearts are sick with the frightful delaying.

If the crown itself thou in should fling,
And say, "Who back with it hies
Himself shall wear it, and shall be king,"
I should not covet the precious prize!
What Ocean hides in that howling hell of it,
Live soul will never come back to tell of it!

Ships many, caught in that whirling surge,
Shot sheer to their dismal doom:
Keel and mast only did ever emerge,
Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!--
Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer,
Comes its roaring nearer and ever nearer!

It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout,
As when water wrestles with fire,
Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout,
Wave upon wave's back mounting higher;
And as with the rumble of distant thunder
Bellowing it bursts from the dark lap under.

And see, from its bosom, flowing dark,
Something heave up, swan-white!
An arm and a shining neck they mark,
And it rows with unrelaxing might!
It is he! and aloft in his left hand holden,
He swings, recovered, the beaker golden!

With long deep breaths his path he ploughed,
Glad greeting the heavenly day;
Jubilant shouted the gazing crowd,
"He lives! he is free! he has burst his way!
Out of the grave, the whirlpool uproarious,
The hero hath rescued his life victorious!"

He comes; they surround him with shouts of glee;
At the king's feet he sinks on the sod,
And hands him the beaker upon his knee.
To his lovely daughter the king gives a nod:
She fills it brim-full of wine sparkling and raying;
And then to the monarch the youth turned, saying:

"Long live the king!--Ah, well doth he fare
Who breathes in this rosy light!
For frightful, yea, horrible is it down there;
And man ought not to tempt the heavenly Might,
Or long to see, with prying unwholesome,
What He graciously covers with darkness dolesome!

"It tore me down as on lightning's wing--
When a shaft in a rock outpours,
Wild-rushing against me, a torrent spring:
Its conflict seized me with raging force
And like a top, with giddy twisting,
Spun me about: there was no resisting!

"Then God did show me, sore beseeching
In deepest, frightfullest need,
Up from the bottom a rock-ledge reaching--
At it I caught, and from death was freed!
And behold, on spiked corals the beaker suspended
Which had else to the very abyss descended!

"For below me it lay yet mountain-deep
The purply darksome maw!
And, though to the ear it was dead asleep,
The ghasted eye, down staring, saw
How, with dragons, lizards, salamanders, crawling,
The hell-jaws horrible were sprawling!

"Black-swarming, in medley miscreate,
In masses lumped hideously,
Wallowed the conger, the thorny skate,
The lobster's grisly deformity;
And, baring its teeth with cruel sheen, a
Terrible shark, the sea's hyena.

"So there I hung, and shuddering knew
That human help was none;
One thinking soul mid the horrid crew,
In the ghastly desert I was alone--
Deeper than human speech e'er sounded,
By the sad waste's dismal monsters surrounded!

"Thus thought I, and shivered. Then a something crept near
Upon legs with a hundred joints!
It snaps at me suddenly: frantic with fear
I lost my grasp of the coral points:
Away the whirl in its raging tore me--
But it was my salvation, and upward bore me!"

The king at the tale is filled with amaze:--
"The beaker, well won, is thine;
And this ring I will give thee too," he says,
"Precious with gems that are more than fine,
If thou dare it yet once, and bring me the story
Of what's in the sea's lowest repertory."

His daughter she hears him with tender dismay,
And with sweet words suasive doth plead:
"Father, enough of this cruel play!
For you he has done an unheard-of deed!
If you may not master your heart's desire,
'Tis the knights' turn now to shame the squire!"

The king sudden snatches and hurls the cup
Into the swirling pool:--
"If thou bring me once more that beaker up,
Thou art best of my knights, the most worshipful!
And this very day to thy home thou shalt lead her
Who stands there--for thee such a pitiful pleader."

A passion divine his being invades;
His eyes dart a lightning ray;
He sees of her blushes the changeful shades,
He sees her grow pallid and sink away!
Determination thorough him flashes,
And downward for life or for death he dashes!

They hear the dull roar: 'tis returning again,
Announced by the thunderous brawl!
Downward they bend with loving strain:
They come! they are coming, the waters all!--
They rush up!--they rush down! they rush ever and ever:
The youth to the daylight rises never!


_KNIGHT TOGGENBURG_.

True love, knight, as to a brother,
Yield I you again;
Ask me not for any other,
For it gives me pain.
Calmly I behold you come in,
Calm behold you go;
Your sad eyes the weeping dumb in
I nor read nor know.

And he hears her uncomplaining,
Tears him free by force;
To his heart but once her straining,
Flings him on his horse;
Sends to all his vassals merry
In old Switzerland;
To the holy grave they hurry,
White-crossed pilgrim band.

Mighty deeds, the foe outbraving,
Works their hero-arm;
From their helms the plumes float waving
Mid the heathen swarm;
Still his "_Toggenburg_" upwaking
Frays the Mussulman;
But his heart its grievous aching
Quiet never can.

One whole year he did endure it,
Then his patience lost;
Peace, he never could secure it,
And forsakes the host;
Sees a ship by Joppa's entry
At her cable saw;
Sails him home to that dear country
Where she breath doth draw.

At the gate, her castle under,
Pilgrim sad, he knocked;
Straight, as with a word of thunder
Was the gate unlocked:
"She you seek, with rites most solemn
Is betrothed to heaven;
Yesterday, beneath that column,
She to Christ was given."

Then the halls he leaves for ever
Of his ancestors;
Shield or sword sets eyes on never,
Or his faithful horse.
Down from Toggenburg he fareth,
None to see or care;
On his noble limbs he weareth
Sackcloth made of hair:



 


Back to Full Books