POEMS JAMES CLARENCE MAMAN; BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION JOHN MITCHEL. NEW YORK: P. M. IIAVERTY, 112 FULTON- STREET. 1859. Entered according to Act of ("oiifjress, in the year 1859, UY P. M. HAVKRTY, the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New Yoik. REXNIE. SHEA & LINDSAY, STKKKOTYPKK vn Ft 81, 83 AW CKNTKK SIUEET, Mi\V YORK. MS CONTENTS PARE JAMES MANG AN : his Life, Poetry, and Death 7 And th.-n no Mon- 2IS The Cutlieilral of Cologne 2 W CONTENTS. AUGUST SCIINEZLER. PAGE The Deserted Mill 251 The Lily-Maidens 253 WILHELM MUELLER. The Sunken City 255 The Bride of the Dead 256 Noon-day Dreaming 257 FRIEDRICH BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE. Vale and Highway 258 Alexander the Great and the Tree i r ><) A Sigh 2(52 FERDINAND FREILIGRATH. The Spectre Caravan 263 The Lion's Ride 2 understand with what HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 9 wand of power, and what musical incantations he wrought so wondrous a magic. I have undertaken also to give some account of his life; or rather his two lives: for never was a creature on this earth whose existence was so entirely dual and double ; nay, whose two lives were so hopelessly and eternally at war, racking and desolating the poor mortal frame which was the battle-ground of that fearful strife. Yet I ask myself, What would Mangan think and feel now, if he could know that a man was going to write his life ? Would he not rise up from his low grave in Glasnevin to forbid ? Be still, poor ghost ! Gently and reverently, and with shoes from off my feet, I will tread that sacred ground. And first, of the mere material and visible life. Mangan was not born in the aristocratic rank. Moore's father was a grocer in Aungier-street ; Beranger was brought forth in the shed of his grandfather, a tailor. Of Mangan's parentage little more is known than that his father was one James Mangan, a native of Shana- golden, in Limerick county ; who in 1801 was married to Catharine Smith, of Fishamble-street, Dublin. In the same street, and in 1803, James Clarence Mangan was born, his father being then a shopkeeper of the grocer species, and unfortunate in his busi- ness. In the short sketch of Mangan's life prefixed to Mr. O'Daly's publication, called " The Poets and Poetry of Munster," it is said, touching this unprosperous grocer parent, ' that being of a restless disposition he removed to another locality, having consigned the establishment and his son to the care of his brother- in-law, whom he induced to come from London for that purpose." Those who knew Clarence Mangan in later days had a vague sort of knowledge that he had a brother, a sister, and a mother still living; some of whom survived him, and that their scanty sus- tenance depended, at least partly, upon him. In the older part of Dublin, between the castle and the river Liffey, runs off from Werburgh-stret-t a narrow alley which brings you into a small square of dismal brick houses, called "Derby-square." Very few of the wealthier and more fashionable inhabitants of Dublin know the existence of this dreary quadrangle. The houses are high and dingy : many of the windows are patched with paper : clothes-lines extend across from window to window, and on the whole the place has an air of having seen better days better, but never very good. In this Derby-square, it appears, was a boys' school; and here Clarence Mangan received what scholastic train- ing he ever had. Then, for seven years, he laboured as a copy- ist in a scrivener's office at a weekly salary ; a mechanical employ- ment which had at least one advantage for him, that his mind 10 JAMES CLARENCE MAXGAX I could wander. Eve and finger once set steadily to their task, the soul might spread her wings and soar beyond all the spheres- Then Fancy bore him to the palest star, Pinnacled in the lofty aether dim. After that, for two or three years he gained his living and main- tained his wretched household as an attorney's clerk. The name of that particular member of the Society of the King's Inns who doled out a few shillings a week to so remarkable a clerk, is not known to fame; and my researches upon this important point will be forever in vain. At what age lie devoted himself to this drudgery, at what age he left it, or was discharged from it, does not appear: for his whole biography documents are wanting, the man having never for one moment imagined that his poor life could interest any surviving human being, and having never, accordingly, collected his biographical assets, and appointed a literary executor to take care of his posthumous fame. Neither did he ever acquire the habit, common enough among literary men, of dwelling upon his own early trials, struggles, and triumphs. But those who knew him in after years can remember with what a shuddering and loathing horror he spoke, when at rare intervals he could be in- duced to speak at all, of his labours with the scrivener and the attorney. He was shy and sensitive, with exquisite sensibility and fine impulses; eye, ear, and soul open to all the beauty, music, and glory of heaven and earth ; humble, gentle, and uncx- acting; modestly craving nothing in the world but celestial glori- fied life, seraphic love, and a throne among the immortal gods (that's all), and he was eight or ten years scribbling deeds, plead- ings, and bills in chancery. Know all men by these presents, that it was " a very vile life," if indeed his true life were spent there and so; but there was another, an inner and a higher life for him : and in those years of quill driving, amongst gross and ill- conditioned fellow-clerks, whose naughty ways long after made him tremble to think of, that subtle spirit wandered and dwelt, afar. At this time lie must have been a great devourer of books, and scons to have early devoted himself to the exploration of those treasures which lay locked up in foreign languages. Man- gan had no education of a regular and approved sort ; neither, in his multifarious reading had he, nor could brook' any guidance, whatever. Yet the reader of his poems will probably find in them ample proof of culture both high and wide, both profound and curiously exquisite. How he came by these Acquirements; HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 11 by what devoted and passionate study, deep in the night, like the wrestle of Jacob with a god, this poor attorney's clerk brought down the immortals to commune with him, is not recorded. lie lias not made provision, as was remarked before, for satisfying the laudable curiosity of the public on these points. Indeed, for some years after his labours hud ceased in the at- torney's office, there is a gap in his life which pains-taking biog- raphy will never rill up. It is a vacuum and obscure gulf which no eye hath fathomed or measured ; into which he entered a bright- haired youth and emerged a withered and stricken man. Mangan, when the present writer saw him first, was a spare and meagre rigure, somewhat under middle height, witli a finely- formed head, clear blue eyes, and features of peculiar delicacy. Jlis face was pallid and worn, and the light hair seemed not so much grizzled as bleached. From several obscure indications in his poems, it is plain that in one at least of the great branches of education he had run through his curriculum regularly ; he had loved, and was deceived. The instructress in this department of knowledge was a certain fair and false " Frances ;" at least, such is the name under which he addressed to her one of his dreariest songs of sorrow. In that obscure, unrecorded interval of his life, he seems to have some time or other, by a rare accident, penetrated (like Diogenes Teufelsdrochk) into a sphere of life higher and more retined than any which his poor lot, had before revealed to him ; and even to have dwelt therein for certain days. JJubiously and with difficulty, I collect from those who were his intimates many years, thus much. He was on terms of visiting in a house where were three sisters ; one of them beautiful, s^irUuelle, and a coquette. The old story was here once more re-enacted in due order. Paradise opened before him : the imaginative and pas- sionate soul of a devoted boy bended in homage before an en- chantress. She received it, was pleased with it, even encouraged and stimulated it, by various arts known to that class of persons, until she was fully and proudly conscious of her absolute power over one other noble and gifted nature until she knew that she was the centre of the whole orbit of his being, and the light of his life : then with a cold surprise, as wondering that he could be guilty of such a foolish presumption, she exercised her undoubted prerogative and whistled him down the wind, liis air-paradise was suddenly a darkness and a chaos. Well, it was a needful part of his education: if his Frances had not done him this service, some other as fair and cruel most un- doubtedly would. She was but the accidental instrument and occasion of giving him that one fundamental lesson of a poet's 12 JAMES CLARENCE MANOAN I life, une grande passion. As a beautiful dream she entered into his existence once for all : as a tone of celestial music she pitched the key-note of his song; and, sweeping over all the chords of his melodious desolation you may see that white hand. Let us bid her farewell, then, not altogether in unkindness; for she was more than half the Mangan. He never loved, and hardly looked upon, any woman forever more. Neither over his disappointment did he gnash his teeth and beat his breast before the public ; nor make himself and his sorrows the burden of his song. Only in the selection of poems for translation, and in the wonderful pathos of the thought which he scrupled not sometimes to interpolate, can you discern the master misery : as in that ballad from Eueckert "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 my 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." Into the empty and dreary interval which followed there are but few glimpses of light; unless the hinted revelations in that ghastly poem, " The Nameless One," be regarded as autobiographic. One thing is plain : he could not afford leisure to brood over the shivered splinters of his great dreams, by reason of the necessity of earning daily bread fur himself and his mother and sister : which was also probably what saved him from suicide. Men do not usually rush to meet death, when death, by mere hunger, stands like a wolf at the door. It is well also, if the devil iind one furever occupied ; which was the receipt found effectual by that learned Count Cay his, who kept diligently engraving, to il- lustrate his own works, a glass always stuck in his eye, and u burin in his hand, his maxim and rule of life being " f ff grave 2>oii>' tie 2>as me jiciidre." Certain it is the man became miserable enough. At home he had no pleasure ; nothing but reproaches and ill-humour. He contracted a ''friendship" with I know not whom ; and the friend betrayed him at his need. .Bailled, bi-alen, mocked, and all alone amidst the wrecks of his world is it won- derful that he sought at times to escape from consciousness b} HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 13 taking for bread opium, urul for water brandy \ Many u sore and pitiable struggle lie must have maintained against the foul liend, but with a character and a will essentially feeble, he succumbed at last. About 1830 he being then twenty-seven years of age we find him contributing short poems, usually translations from the Ger- man or the Irish, to a small weekly illustrated periodical in Dub- lin. His compensation was small, and in penury and wretched- ness of body and soul, he dragged along his life : sometimes too truly " In days of darkness, And shapes and signs of the final wrath, When Death, in hideous and ghastly starkness, Stood on his path." Amongst the literary people of that provincial metropolis of Dublin (so I must call it, though I may gnash my teeth, if that be any comfort) were two or three who not only understood and ap- preciated Clarence Mangan, but would have served and saved him, if he had permitted. Of these 1 may name Dr. Anster, one of the innumerable translators of ' : Faust ;" Petrie, well known both as an exquisite artist, and also for his great work on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Ireland ; Dr. Todd, Fellow of Trinity College, and Librarian of the magnificent Library of that Univer- sity. By their aid and influence the solitary, half-conscious dreamer and opium-eater obtained employment in the great Uni- versity Library, on the preparation of a new and improved cata- logue of that vast repository ; for which his varied and polyglot studies eminently qualified him. The first time the present biographer saw Clarence Mangan, it ,was in this wise Being in the college library, and having occa- sion for a book in that gloomy apartment of the institution called the " Fagel Library," which is the innermost recess of the stately building, an acquaintance pointed out to me a man perched on the top of a ladder, with the whispered information that the figure was Clarence Mangan. It was an unearthly and ghostly figure, in a brown garment; the same garment (to all appearance) which lasted till the day of his death. The blanched hair was totally unkempt; the corpse-like features still as marble; a large book was in his arms, and all his soul was in the book. I had never heard of Clarence Mangan before, and knew not for what lie was celebrated; whether as a magician, a poet, or a murderer; yet took a volume and spread it on a table, not to read, but with pre- tence of reading to gaze on the spectral creature upon the ladder. 2 14 JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN : Here Mangan laboured mechanically, and dreamed, roosting on a ladder, for certain months, perhaps years; carrying the proceeds in money to his mother's poor home, storing in his memory the proceeds which were not in money, but in another kind of ore, which might feed the imagination indeed, but was not available for board and lodging. All this time lie was the bond-slave of opium. And now it almost repents me that I undertook to narrate the events of this man's outer and visible life, even to gratify the natural interest which his loving, worshipping readers cannot but feel in all that concerns him an interest, however, which is deeper and higher than mere curiosity. No purer and more be- nignant spirit ever alighted upon earth no more abandoned wretch ever found earth a purgatory and a hell. There were, as I have said, two Mangans : one well known to the Muses, the other to the police ; one soared through the empyrean and sought the stars the other lay too often in gutters of Peter- street and Bride-street. I have read the lives and sufferings of Edgar Poe and of Richard Savage. Neither was so consummate a poet, neither so miserable a mortal. Yet in one respect poor Mangan compares favorably with them both ; he had no malignity, sought no revenge, never wrought sorrow and suffering to any human being but himself. In his deadly struggle with the cold world he wore no defiant air and attitude ; was always humble, affectionate, almost prayerful. He was never of the "Satanic school," never Idevoted mankind to the infernal gods, nor cursed the sun ; but the cry of la's spirit was ever, Miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from the wrath to come ! To proceed with the few and meagre records of his remaining days. It was the time of " Penny Journals." There were the London and the Dublin Penny Journal, and the Irish Penny Jour- nal. To the two latter Mangan made frequent contributions ; but he never sent a line of his verses for publication in any London periodical; perhaps through diffidence; not feeling confident that any production of his could satisfy the critical taste of the step-sister island. Afterwards he became a regular contributor to the Dublin University Magazine / in whose pages appeared the most and best of his beautiful translations; and other pieces pur- porting to be translations, from the German, Irish, Persian, Span- ish, "Coptic,"' and so forth. In 1842 commenced the Xiit!<>n, weekly newspaper; and as na- tional poems, espeeinliy ballads, were to be a regular feature of that publication, and no man in Ireland knew all moods of the Irish harp save Mangan, a large number of his finest compositions HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 15 for five years appeared in the columns of the Nation. It was in the office of that journal his present biographer made his ac- quaintance; a feut not easily accomplished; for Mangan had a morbid reluctance to meet new people, or to be "introduced." The thing w accomplished, however, and when, in the end of the year 1847, I thought proper to break off my connection with the Xati-isMppi. At last, one morning in June, 1S19, the news spread abroad HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 19 amongst the literary persons of Dublin, that Clarence Mangan was dead: had died in a hospital, utterly destitute ; destitute but not deserted. He had suffered dreadfully from an attack of cholera, brought on, they say, by a lack of proper nourishment, and was nearly at the last stage when his friends found Jam. In the short biographical sketch prefixed to O'Daly's "Poets and Poetry of Minister," is this short memorandum. "A short time before his death, his constitution was greatly weakened by an attack of cholera. On his recovery (?) we found him in an obscure house in Bride-street, and, at his own request, procured admission for him to the Meath Hospital, on the 13th of June, 1849, where he lingered for seven days, and died on the 20th." During this interval he was assiduously Availed on by a few friends; and Mr. Meehan, a good priest, who had always appre- ciated him as a poet, loved him as a man, and yearned over him as a soul in the jaws of perdition, anxiously and affectionately sought to console him in his last hours. The poor patient never repined, never blamed an unjust world, constantly thanked his friends for their attentions, and apologized earnestly for the trouble he was giving. At his own request, they read him, dur- ing his last moments of life, one of the Catholic penitential hymns, and so that gentle spirit passed. His remains lie in the cemetery of Glasnevin, a suburb on the northern confines of Dublin ; where there is not, so far as I have learned, a stone to mark his last abode. Assuredly he did not covet monuments, or a laurelled bust : craved but a resting-place in the bosom of his mother earth ; and could, if poet ever could, content himself with that kind of immortality of which the dying flower of Kueckert so sweetly sang in death, or with the " Poet's Consolation" of Koerner " What, though no maiden's tears ever be shed O'er my clay bed, Yet will the generous Night never refuse To weep its dews. And though no friendly hand garland the cross Above my moss, Still will the dear, dear Moon tenderly shine Down on that sign. And if the saunterer-by songlcssly pass Through the long grass, There will the noontide bee pleasantly hum, And warm winds come. 20 JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN I Yes you at least, ye dells, meadows, and streams, Stars and moon-beams, "Will think on him whose weak, meritless lays Teemed with your praise." Such was the outward and visible existence of James Clarence Mangan. His inner and more living life affords a more pleasing spectacle. Whether the beautiful and luxuriant world of dreams wherein lie built his palaces, and laid up his treasure, and tasted the ambrosia of the gods, was indeed a sufficient compensation for all that squalid misery in the body, is a question on which there is no occasion to pronounce. One may hope that it was, and much more than a compensation ; for God is just. At any rate it was all the poor poet had. Some " poets" there are who desire to own a dream- world, and at the same time to own stock in banks and railroads. They do not give themselves up altogether to either order of things, but prudently invest in both a little. That " poet's consolation" suits them exactly, in a senti- mental kind of way; but the consolidated fund also is not to be despised : and like the gigantic angel, while they trust one foot out to sea, they keep the other on the firm shore. Of Mangan it may be said that he lived solely in his poetry all the rest was but a ghastly death-in-life. And now it remains to consider this side of his twofold existence. He was, though self- educated, a scholar. By what miraculous gift of apprehension he made his unaided studies so effective, in the attorney's office, and on the top of library ladders, is hard to understand ; but certain it is, that he became a thorough classical scholar ; and of modern languages he was familiar with at least three, besides his own namely, German, French, and Spanish ; and roved at will through the glowing garden of their poetic literature. It has been too readily assumed that he was also acquainted with the eastern tongues ; but this is at least doubtful ; and certainly his verses purporting to be translated from the Persian and the Coptic, were altogether his own. Somebody asked him why he gave credit to Ilafiz for such exquisite gems of his own poetry; because, he said, Hafiz paid better than Mangan and any critic could see that they were only half Iti*. Jn the case of Irish songs and ballads, he generally selected f>r translation the most dismal and desolate. More than in any other mood of song he seemed to revel in the expression of passionate sorrow : and 1 know not that any other productions in the world breathe so intensely the very soul of woe and terrible desolation HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 21 as do his version of "O'Husscy's Ode to the Maguire," the " La ment for the Irish Princes," " Sarsfield," " Kinkura," and " Durk Rosaleen." In these translations, as well as those from the Ger- man, he did not assume to be literal in words and phrases; nor, indeed, in general, was there any uniform unvarying version of the original poems, to which he could be literal, because they lived, for the most part only in the memories of the illiterate peasantry ; and Gaelic scholars, in their researches for authentic originals, usually found three or four different ballads, on the same subject and under the same name, having some lines and verses identical, but varying in the arrangement; always, how- ever, agreeing in cadence and rhythm, in general scope and spirit. To this scope and spirit he was always faithful ; and sometimes selected portions out of two or three codices (as supplied to him by his Gaelic friends) to make a perfect poem. Of the "Dark Rosaleen" (Huisin. Dulh, " Dark-haired Little Rose," or Rois Gheal Ditbk " Dark-haired, fair-skinned Rose"), there were, for example, at least three forms : none of them being technically the original of the poem in this volume ; and it may serve to illustrate his method of translating, if I present portions of two renderings which he made, somewhat literally from other versions of the same, as they are found in Mr. O'Daly's collection. This passionate song, by the hereditary bard of the Clan-Conal refers to the time of the great struggle of the Korthern clans against Queen Elizabeth's power; when the Irish were encouraged by promises of aid from the King of Spain and the Pope ; and lioisin DuljU means Ireland, according to the usage of the Celtic bards in personifying their country as a distressed virgin. Since last night's star, afar, afar, Heaven saw my speed, I seemed to fly, o'er mountains high, on magic steed, I dashed through Erne : the world may learn the cause from Love; For light or sun shone on me none, but Ruisin Dubh ! Eoisin mine ! droop not nor pine, look not so dull ! The Pope from Koine hath sent thee home a pardon full I - The priests are near: 0! never fear! from Heaven above The.y come to thee they come to free my Itoisin Dubh! Thee have I loved for thee have roved o'er land and sea: My heart was sore ; it evermore beat but fur thee. 1 could but weep I could not sleep I could not move; For, night and day, I dreamt alway of Roinin Dubh ! Through Ministers lands, by shores and strands, far could I roam, If 1 might get my loved one yet, and bring her home. O, sweetest dower, that blooms in bower, or dell, or grove, Thou lovest me, and I love thee, my Itoisin Dubk ! 22 JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN I The sea .shall burn, the earth shall mourn the skies rain blood The world shall ri.se in dread surprise and warful mood And hill and lake in Eire shake, and hawk turn dove Ere you shall pine, ere you decline, my Itvisiii Diibh, ! From another Jioisin Dubh. My guiding Star of Hope you are, all glow and grace, My blooming Love, my Spouse above all Adam's race ; In deed or thought you cherish nought of low or mean ; The base alone can hate my own my Dark Itoinin ! O, never mourn as one forlorn, but bide your hour ; Your friends ere long, combined and strong, will prove their power. From distant Spain will sail a train to change the scene That makes you sad, for one more glad, my Dark It o in in ! Till then, adieu ! my Fond and True ! adieu, till then ! Though now you grieve, still, still believe we'll meet again ; I'll yet return, with hopes that burn, and broad-sword keen; Fear not, nor think you e'er can sink, my Dark Itoisin ! Of "Kathaleen Ni Iloulalian," a Jacobite song about a century and a halt' old, besides the translation given in this volume. Man- gan versified also another original only partially agreeing with it, of which I may give a sample here : Let none believe this lovely Eve outworn or old Fair is her form ; her blood is warm, her heart is bold. Though strangers long have wrought her wrong, .she will not fawn- Will not prove mean, our Cuililiti Ni Unlldclniiri ! Her stately air, her flowing hair her eyes that far Pierce through the gloom of Banba's doom, each like a star; Her songful voice that makes rejoice hearts Grief hath gnawn, Prove her our Queen, our Caitilin. 37 UaliacJiain I "We will not bear the chains we wear, not bear them long. "We seem bereaven, but mighty Heaven will make us strong. The God who led through Ocean lied all Israel on "Will aid our Queen, our Caitilin Ni Uallachain I Kathaleen Ni Iloulalian, here spelled in the Gaelic manner, is again but an emblematic name for Ireland. In other cases, however, there is but one known form of the original, to which the tran.-iator has adhered with considerable closeness. Perhaps the two most characteristic of these are "O'llussey's Ode" and " Sarsfleld," ballacU of wonderful power and passion, but of a dreary desolation almost frightful. And it inu*t l>e confessed that this character of extravagant but impotent passion greatlv prevails throughout the Irish ballads at all times, HIS LIFE, POETKV, AM) DKATII. 23 expressing not only that misery produced by ages of torture and humiliation, but the excessively impressible temperament of the Gael, ever ready to sink into blackest despondency and blind rage, or to rise into rapturous triumph ; a temperament which makes both men and nations feeble in adversity, and great, .tray, and generous in prosperity. One might say many wise things on the advantages or disadvantages of this sort of national character; but those who are gifted with it, or cursed with it, must only make the best of it; being, as they are " Kindly Irish of the Irish, Neither Saxons nor Italians." Of the original poems in our volume, whether called transla- tions, or avowedly Siangan's own, the tone has this same mournful cadence; like the splendid, but ghastly "Cahal Mor," the " Kara- inanian Exile," " Kinkora," and those singular verses called " Twenty golden years ago," which blend the deepest pathos with a sort of fictitious jollity. For Mangan's pathos was all genuine, his laughter hollow and painful. In several poems he breaks out into a sort of humour, not hearty and merry fun, but rather gro- tesque, bitter, Fescennine buffoonery ; which leaves an unpleasant impression, as if he were grimly sneering at himself and at all the world ; purposely spoiling and marring the effect of fine poetry by turning it into burlesque ; and shewing how meanly he regarded every thing, even his Art wherein he lived and had his being, when he compared his own exulted ideal of Art and Life with the little- ness of all his experiences and performances. The German Translations, which were collected and published in Dublin, in 1845, under the title of " Anthologia Germanica," are likely to be always greatly most attractive to readers in our language, except perhaps Irish readers. Indeed some few of these must be regarded as perfect works of art in themselves, whether translations or not ; never perhaps exceeded for strength, sweet- ness, clearness, and beauty of finish. If this judgment appear ex- travagant, let the reader before so pronouncing it, only read "The Dying Flower," from Kueckert, the "Spectre Caravan" from Freiligrath, and "Charlemagne and the Bridge of Moonbeams" from Geibler, and if he can point out how any phrase or word could be altered without loss ; where the meaning could be made more transparently clear, the melody more perfect, or the whole (meaning and melody together) more admirably summed up in the last stanza of each, as in \\\Q finale, of a piece of music, then the praise I have awarded is too high. Undoubtedly these German translations are unequal. Two or three of those which appear in 24 JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN I this volume have been rendered perhaps as well, or better (if the reader chooses) by Longfellow or even by Bulwer, yet once read, in fitting' mood of mind, their melody haunts the ear, and the soft dreamy beauty of the sumptuous robe which they sometimes throw around the dry bones of a ballad harsh and meagre enough before, leads one to believe that if the German author could see himself so richly clothed, he would admit that in the account between him and his translator, the balance would be heavily in favor of the latter. Litcralness was in his eyes one of the least qualities of a truly faithful translator of poetry into poetry : and the license he allows himself in this regard is sometimes so great as to materially alter the. author's meaning. In the "Death of Hofer," by Julius Mo- sen, for example, that most literal versifier, Baskerville, gives ua the two last stanzas almost word for word : "They bade him then kneel down, He answered, ' I will not ! Here standing will I die, As I have stood and fought, As now I tread this bulwark's bank, Long life to my good Kaiser Frank, And Tyrol, hail to thee !'i A Grenadier then took The bandage from his hand, While Ilofer spake a prayer, His last on earthly land. 'Mark well,' he with loud voice exclaimed, ' Now jtfre / Ah ! 'twas badly aimed ! O Tyrol, fare thce well !' " Whether Mangan's free and easy rendering of this passage bo an improvement or not, may be variously judged by difterent readers. Here it is : " They bade him kneel, but he with all A patriot's truth replied 4 1 kneel alone to God on high As thus I stand so dare I die, As oft I fought, so let me fall ! Farewell' his breast a moment swoll AVith agony he strove to hide ' My Kaiser and Tyrol !' 1 A* lfl> n/ 'i/i rz. mit truber Lust, Stieg wechselnd laid und sank die Brust ; Herz, lierz, Brichst dn vor Wann' oder Schmerz /" Amongst the pieces now for the first time collected, will be found "The Midnight Review," by Baron Zedlitz, and Koerner's famous "Sword Song." They are both rather faithful (for Man- gan), yet not without some of his characteristic ornamentation. In the spectral " Review," Napoleon rising from his grave to parade his ghostly troops, is thus described : "Er tragtein kleines TIntchcn, Er tragtein einfitch Kleid." Here was a difficulty for the many translators of the "Review." Mr. Frothingham 1 very conscientiously gives us : " He wears a little hat, And a coat quite plain has on." The author of the version which appears in Mr. Dana's " House- hold Book" is equally exact : " A little Hat he wears, A coat quite plain wears he." Baskerville, with all his principles of verbatim rendering, cannot endure the " Little Hat," and so dignifies the Little Hat into a plumeless helm : " No plume his helm adorneth His garb no regal pride." If Mangan had preserved the head-gear at all, his propensity to slang might have tempted him to say " He wore a Little Tile ;" but prudently avoiding the spectral head altogether, he decorates his imperial ghost with the Star of the Legion of Honour. One other example of Mangan's habit of adding a thought to his original, may be given. Mr. Frothingham 1 has very nobly translated that matchless "Dying Flower" of Rtieckert; and has thus admirably rendered one of the stanzas : i Metrical Pieces ; Translated and Original. By N. L. Frothingham. Boston, 1856. HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 20 "For every gentle note of Spring; Each Summer's gale I trembled to ; Each gold on insect's dancing wing, That gaily round my leaflets flew; For eyes that sparkled at my hues ; For hearts that Messed my fragrancy ; Made but of tints and odorous dews, Maker, I still give thanks to thec." Which is presented by Mangan thus : " How often soared my soul aloft, In balmy bliss too deep to speak, "When Zephyr came and kissed with soft, Sweet incense-breath my blushing cheek ! When beauteous bees and butterflies Flew round me in the summer beam, Or when some virgin's glorious eyes Sent o'er me like a dazzling dream /" If Mr. Longfellow's beautiful translations of "The Castle by the Sea," " The Black Knight" (Mangan's " Spring Eoses"), and "Whither" (Mangan's "Noon-Day Dreaming"), were not so well known, one might collate them with the versions of the same poems in this volume. But every reader can do this for himself, and generally with the same result save that while it is easy to decide that Mr. Longfellow is more faithful, it is hard to say which is the more musical. It is a grievous pity that Longfellow's poems from the German are so few; seeing that no man now living could carry us with such a pomp of purple words into the magnificent temple of Teuton Song. No reader who considers the man Mangan, and his sad, strange death-in-life, will wonder to find that in his selection of poems for translation, he has been irresistibly drawn to so many whose bur- den is dreary retrospection, or a longing for the peace of the grave. There is also another class of ballads, in which the German litera- ture excels all others, and which never did, and never will find so fitting an interpreter as Clarence Mangan : those poems, namely, which strive to utter that vague, yearning aspiration towards somewhat nobler and grander than the world can give us, that passionate stretching forth of hands to reach the ever-flying Ideal, which must be to us all as the fair Cloud Juno was to Ixion. It is the mysterious Longing which Schiller calls Sehnsucht. In the poems called by Mangan " Home-sickness," the " Garden that fades not," especially in that marvellously impassioned song of Tiek, " Life is the Desert and the Solitude," this ardent craving, as with strong crying and tears, for the fair realm of perfect Lib- 3"* 30 JAMES CLARENCE MAXGAN I erty and Love outside the prison bars of flesh and sense, is surely uttered with a pathos as profound as human utterance was ever made to express : " Whence this fever ? Whence this burning Love and Longing? * * * Thence what fragrant Airs are blowing! What rich vagrant Music flowing ! * * * In vain I pine and sigh To trace ihy 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 !" So, with neither possibility of attaining nor capacity for enjoy- ing a nobler superhuman life, man continually bends forward towards the glorious, glowing Distance : " the eye is not satis- fied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing :" " On the whole it is much to be feared," says the Chevalier de Montaigne, " it is much to be feared, that our eyes are bigger than our bel- lies." Here is "The Desire of the Moth for the Star;" which however demonstrates, perhaps, that the true home of the Moth, could he but find it, lies somewhere beyond the crystalline spheres. Many readers of poetry, familiar with the sensuous luxury of love-poems, like those of Owen-Meredith, Bulwer-Lytton, and others, may be disgusted with the spiritual purity of Mangan. In this respect he will be found sensitively scrupulous, even al- most to a fault: as where, in Hoelty's "Song exciting to glad- ness," he renders a passage thus : "The wine, the chaliced wine, still sheds its purple splendour On souls that droop in Griefs eclipse; And in the rosy glen is still as fond and tender The kiss from pure Affection's lips." But Hoelty has nothing of " pure Affection ;" and most persons will agree that there would have been no great harm in the Trans- lator giving us the sentiment as it stands namely, that kisses from a Red-Mouth in an evening bower are still as delicious as, HIS LIFE, POETRY, AND DEATH. 31 according to the best authorities, they were in ancient times; and the Poet encourages his readers to '' gladness," by inculcating that there is yet so much to live for. 1 The allotted space is e\liau>ted ; and indeed this present editor has discoursed so long of Mangan, not so much for the reader's delectation as for his own. This volume contains not all Man- gan's poems, but only about two-thirds of them. In the selection some may be omitted which are favorites with his readers ; for no compiler can satisfy every taste. They have been selected with my best skill ; and so let the reader take them, with a benison. J. M. 1 Noch schmeckft in der Abendlaube Der Kms auf einen rothan JUund. GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. FRIEDRICH SCHILLER. % Ifeg of % SWL Vivos voco. Mortuos plango. Fulgura frango. PKEPAKATION FOK FOUNDING THE BELL. FIEMLT walled within the soil Stands the firebaked mould of clay. Courage, comrades ! Now for toil ! For we cast THE BELL to-day. Sweat must trickle now Down the burning brow, If the work may boast of beauty ; Still 'tis Heaven must bless our duty. A word of earnest exhortation The serious task before us needs : Beguiled by cheerful conversation, How much more lightly toil proceeds ! Then let us here, with best endeavor, Weigh well what these our labors mean : Contempt awaits that artist ever Who plods through all, the mere machine ; 34 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. But Thought makes Man to dust superior, And he alone is though tfulsouled Who ponders in his heart's interior Whatever shape his hand may mould. Gather first the pine-tree wood, Only be it wholly dry, That the flame, with subtle flood, Through the furnace-chink may fly. Now the brass is in, Add the alloy of tin, That the ingredients may, while warm, Take the essential fluid form. OFFICES OF THE BELL. What here in caverns by the power Of fire our mastering fingers frame, Hereafter from the belfry tower Will vindicate its makers' aim ; 'Twill speak to Man with voice unfailing In latest years of after-days, Will echo back the mourner's wailing, Or move the heart to prayer and praise ; In many a varying cadence ringing, The willing BELL will publish far The fitful changes hourly springing Beneath Man's ever-shifting star. Surface-bubbles glittering palely Show the mixture floweth well: SCHILLER. 35 Mingle now the quick alcali ; That will help to found the BELL. Purified from scum Must the mass become, That the tone, escaping free, Clear and deep and full may be. THE BIRTH-DAY BELL. For, with a peal of joyous clangor It hails the infant boy, that in The soft embrace of sleep and languor Life's tiring travel doth begin. His brighter lot and darker doom Lie shrouded in the Future's womb. Watched over by his tender mother, His golden mornings chase each other; Swift summers fly like javelins by. The woman's yoke the stripling spurneth; He rushes wildly forth to roam The wide world over, and returneth When years have wheeled a stranger home. Arrayed in Beauty's magic might, A vision from the Heaven that's o'er him, With conscious blush and eye of light, The bashful virgin stands before him. Then flies the youth his wonted sports, For in his heart a nameless feeling Is born ; the lonesome dell he courts, And down his cheek the tears are stealing. He hangs upon her silver tone, He tracks with joy her very shadow, 30 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. And culls, to deck his lovely one, The brightest flowers that gem the meadow. Oh, golden time of Love's devotion, When tenderest hopes and thrills have birth, When hearts are drunk with blest emotion, And Heaven itself shines out on Earth ! Were thy sweet season ever vernal ! Were early Youth and Love eternal! Ha ! the pipes appear embrowned, So this little staff I lower : 'Twill be time, I wis, to found, If the fluid glaze it o'er. Courage, comrades! Move! Quick the mixture prove. If the soft but well unite With the rigid, all is right. THE WEDDING-BELL. For, where the Strong protects the Tender, Where Might and Mildness join, they render A sweet result, content ensuring ; Let those then prove who make election, That keart meets heart in blent affection, Else Bliss is brief, and Grief enduring! In the bride's rich ringlets brightly Shines the flowery coronal, As the BELL, now pealing lightly, Bids her to the festal hall. Fairest scene of Man's elysian World 1 thou closest life's short May : SCHILLER. 37 With the zone and veil 1 the Vision Melts in mist and fades for aye! The rapture has fled, Still the love has not perished ; The blossom is dead, But the fruit must be cherished. The husband muot out, He must mix in the rout, In the struggle and strife And the clangor of life, Must join in its jangle, Must wrestle and wrangle, O'erreaching, outrunning, By force and by cunning, That Fortune propitious May smile on his wishes. Then riches flow in to his uttermost wishes ; His warehouses glitter with all that is precious ; The storehouse, the mansion, Soon call for expansion, And busied within is The orderly matron, The little ones' mother, 2 Who is everywhere seen As she rules like a queen, The instructress of maidens And curber of boys ; i Mit dem Gurtel, mit dem Schleitr, Reiszt der schone Wahn entzwei. Schiller here alludes to that custom of antiquity according to which the bride- groom unloosed the zone and removed the veil of his betrothed. Among the an- cients, to unbind the cestits, and to espouse, were expressions meaning the same thing. Hence the well-known line of Catullus Quod possit zonam solvere virgineam. a Here, and in a few subsequent passages, Schiller omits his rhymes. 4 38 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. And seldom she lingers In plying her fingers, But doubles the gains By her prudence and pains, And winds round the spindle the threads at her leisure, And fills odoriferous coffers with treasure, And storeth her shining receptacles full Of snowy-white linen and pale-colored wool, And blends with the Useful the Brilliant and Pleasing, And toils without ceasing. And the father counts his possessions now, As he paces his house's commanding terrace, And he looks around with a satisfied brow On his pillar-like trees in rows unending, And his barns and rooms that are filling amain, And his granaries under their burden bending, And his wavy fields of golden grain, And speaks with exultation, " Fast as the Earth's foundation, Against all ill secure, Long shall my house endure!" But ah ! with Destiny and Power No human paction lasts an hour, And Ruin rides a restless courser. Good ! The chasm is guarded well ; Now, my men ! commence to found ; Yet, before ye run the BELL, Breathe a prayer to Heaven around! AY reach the stopple-cork! GOD protect our work ! Smoking to the bow it flies, While the flames around it rise. SCHILLER. 39 THE FIRE-BELL. Fire works for good with noble force So long as Man controls its course ; And all he rears of strong or slight Is debtor to this heavenly might. But dreadful is this heavenly might When, bursting forth in dead of night, Unloosed and raging, wide and wild It ranges, Nature's chainless child ! Woe! when oversweeping bar, With a fury naught can stand, Through the stifled streets afar Rolls the monstrous volurnebrand ! For the elements ever war With the works of human hand. From the cloud Blessings gush ; From the cloud Torrents rush ; From the cloud alike Come the bolts that strike. LAEUM peals from lofty steeple Rouse the people ! Red, like blood, Heaven is flashing ! How it shames the daylight's flood! Hark ! what crashing Down the streets ! Smoke ascends in volumes ! Skyward flares the flame in columns ! 40 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Through the tent-like lines of streets Rapidly as wind it fleets! Now the white air, waxing hotter, Glows a furnace pillars totter Rafters crackle casements rattle Mothers fly- Children cry Under ruins whimper cattle. All is horror, noise, affright ! Bright as noontide glares the night ! Swung from hand to hand with zeal along By the throng, Speeds the pail. In bow-like form Sprays the hissing watershower, But the madly-howling storm Aids the flames with wrathful power ; Round the shrivelled fruit they curl ; Grappling with the granary-stores, Now they blaze through roof and floors, And with upward-dragging whirl, Even as though they strove to bear Earth herself aloft in air, Shoot into the vaulted Void, Giant- vast ! Hope is past: Man submits to GOD'S decree, And, all stunned and silently, Sees his earthly All destroyed! Burned a void Is the Dwelling: AVi nter winds its wailing dirge are knelling; In the skeleton window-pits SCHILLER. 41 Horror sits, And exposed to Heaven's wide woof Lies the roof. One glance only On the lonely Sepulchre of all his wealth below Doth the man bestow ; Then turns to tread the world's broad path. It matters not what wreck the wrath Of lire hath brought on house and land, One treasured blessing still he hath, His Best Beloved beside him stand ! Happily at length, and rightly, Doth it fill the loamy frame : Think ye will it come forth brightly? Will it yet fulfil our aim? If we fail to found ? If the mould rebound ? Ah ! perchance, when least we deem, Fortune may defeat our scheme. In hope our work we now confide To Earth's obscure but hallowed bosom ; Therein the sower, too, doth hide The seed he hopes shall one day blossom, If bounteous Heaven shall so decide. But holier, dearer Seed than this We bury oft, with tears, in Earth, And trust that from the Grave's abyss 'Twill bloom forth yet in brighter birth. 4* 42 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. THE PASSING BELL. Hollowly and slowly, By the BELL'S disastrous tongue, Is the melancholy Knell of death and burial rung. Heavily those muffled accents mourn Some one journeying to the last dark bourne. Ah ! it is the spouse, the dear one ! Ah ! it is that faithful mother ! She it is that thus is borne, Sadly borne and rudely torn By the sable Prince of Spectres From her fondest of protectors From the children forced to flee Whom she bore him lovingly, Whom she gazed on day and night With a mother's deep delight. Ah ! the house's bands, that held Each to each, are doomed to sever: She that there as mother dwelled Roams the Phantomland forever. Truest friend and best arranger ! Thou art gone, and gone for aye; And a loveless hireling stranger O'er thine orphaned ones will sway. Till the BELL shall cool and harden, Labor's heat a while may cease; Like the wild bird in the garden, Each may play or take his ease. SCHILLER. 43 Soon as twinkles Ilesper, Soon as chimes the Vesper, All the workman's toils are o'er, But the master frets the more. Wandering through the lonely greenwood, Blithely hies the merry rover Forward towards his humble hovel. Bleating sheep are homeward wending, And the herds of Sleek and broad-browed cattle come with Lowing warning Each to fill its stall till morning. Townward rumbling Keels the wagon, Corn-o'erladeri, On whose sheaves Shine the leaves Of the Garland fair, While the youthful band of reapers To the dance repair. Street and market now grow stiller : Round the social hearth assembling, Gayly crowd the house's inmates, As the towngate closes creaking; And the earth is Robed in sable, But the night, which wakes affright In the souls of conscience-haunted men, Troubles not the tranquil denizen, For he knows the eye of Law unsleeping Watch is keeping. 44 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Blessed Order! heavendescended Maiden ! Early did she band Like with like, in union blended, Social cities early planned ; She the fierce barbarian brought From his forest-haunts of wildness ; She the peasant's hovel sought, And redeemed his mind to mildness, And first wove that everdearest band, Fond attachment to our Fatherland ! Thousand hands in ceaseless motion All in mutual aid unite, Every art with warm devotion Eager to reveal its might. All are bonded in affection ; Each, rejoicing in his sphere, Safe in Liberty's protection, Laughs to scorn the scoffer's sneer. Toil is polished Man's vocation : Praises are the meed of Skill ; Kings may vaunt their crown and station, We will vaunt our Labor still. Mildest Quiet! Sweetest Concord ! Gently, gently Hover over this our town ! Ne'er may that dark day be witnessed "When the dread exterminators Through our vales shall rush, destroying, When that azure SCHILLER. 45 Softly painted by the rays of Sunset fair Shall (oh, horror !) with the blaze of Burning towns and hamlets glare! Now, companions, break the mould, For its end and use have ceased: On the structure 'twill unfold Soul and sight alike shall feast. Swing the hammer! Swing! Till the covering spring. Shivered first the mould must lie Ere the BELL may mount on high. The Master's hand, what time he wills, May break the mould ; but woe to ye If, spreading far in fiery rills, The glowing ore itself shall free! With roar as when deep thunder crashes It blindly blasts the house to ashes, And as from Hell's abysmal deep The deathtide rolls with lava sweep. Where lawless force is awless master Stands naught of noble, naught sublime; Where Freedom conies achieved by Crime Her fruits are tumult and disaster. 46 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. THE TOCSIN, OR ALARM-BELL. Woe! when in cities smouldering long The pent-up train explodes at length ! "Woe! when a vast and senseless throng Shake off their chains hy desperate strength! Then to the bellrope rushes Riot, And rings, and sounds the alarm afar, And, destined but for tones of quiet, The TOCSIN peals To War ! To War ! "Equality and Liberty!" They shout : the rabble seize on swords ; And streets and halls 1 fill rapidly With cutthroat gangs and ruffian hordes. Then women change to wild hyenas, And mingle cruelty with jest, And o'er their prostrate foe are seen, as With panther-teeth they tear his breast. All holy shrines go trampled under: The Wise and Good in horror flee; Life's shamefaced bands are ripped asunder, And cloakless Riot wantons free. The lion roused by shout of stranger, The tiger's talons, these appal But worse, and charged with deadlier danger, Is reckless Man in Frenzy's thrall ! Woe, woe to those who attempt illuming Eternal blindness by the rays Of Truth ! they flame abroad, consuming Surrounding nations in their blaze! i Die Straszen fallen sicb, die Ifullmt. Scliiller means public halls, as the Town Hall, the Halls of Justice, Ac. SCHILLER. 47 GOD hath given ray soul delight! Glancing like a star of gold, From its shell, all pure and bright, Comes the metal kernel rolled. Brim 1 and rim, it gleams As when sunlight beams ; And the armorial shield and crest ^ Tell that Art hath wrought its best. In, in ! our task is done In, in, companions every one ! By what name shall we now baptize the BELL? CONCOKDIA will become it well: For oft in concord shall its pealing loud Assemble many a gay and many a solemn crowd. THE DESTINATION OF THE BELL. And this henceforward be its duty, For which 'twas framed at first in beauty ; High o'er this world of lowly labor In Heaven's blue concave let it rise, And heave aloft, the thunder's neighbor, In commerce with the starry skies. There let it chorus with the story Of the resplendent planetsphere, Which nightly hymns its MAKER'S glory, And guides the garland-crowned year. Be all its powers devoted only To things eternal and sublime, i Brim is the technical terra for the body of the bell, or that part upon which the clapper strikes. 48 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. As hour by hour it tracks the lonely And forwardwinging flight of Time ! To destiny an echo lending, But never doomed itself to feel, Forever be it found attending Each change of Life's revolving wheel ; And as its tone, when tolling loudest, Dies on the listener's ear away, So let it teach that all that's proudest In human might must thus decay ! Now attach the ropes now move, Heave the BELL from this its prison, Till it hath to Heaven above And the realm of Sound arisen. Heave it! heave it! there Now it swings in air. Joy to this our city may it presage ! PEACE attend its first harmonious message ! &|j pessagc io % In A BALLAD. A GOD-REVERING youth, we learn, "Was gentle Fridolin : Reared by the Countess Von Savern, His childhood knew no sin. Oh ! she was mild so mild and good ! But even Caprice's harshest mood He would have borne, this duteous boy, And borne, for love of GOD, with joy. SCHILLER. 49 From streaky gleam of morning's light Until the vesper-toll, He wrought for her with earnest might, He gave her heart and soul. "Best, rest, my child!" the dame would cry: Then tears would fill the Page's eye, But still he toiled, and seemed to feel The labor lost that wanted zeal. And therefore did the Countess raise Him o'er her menials all, And from her lovely lips his praise Was hourly heard to fall. Her knave or page he scarce was named ; His heart a filial interest claimed: And often would her pleasured glance Dwell on his comely countenance. Now in the huntsman Robert, this Begot the wrath of Hell. With Envy's devilish venom his Black breast began to swell ; And listening to the Tempter's word, Straightway one day he sought his Lord, Fresh from the chase, and strewed with art Doubt's darkling seeds within his heart. " How blest are you, my noble master!'' 1 So spake his cunning deep "No spectral omens of disaster Affright your golden sleep. You have a pure and virtuous wife, Of rarest worth and purest life, 5 50 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Whose ever-spotless faith to stain Seducers might attempt in vain." Then loured his Master's brow of gloom " What trumpery dost thou rave ? Shall Man on Woman's troth presume ? What shifts as shifts the wave Soon falls the losel wheedler's prey : My trust, I trow, hath sterner stay. Is here no gallant fop to earn Smiles from the Countess Von Savern." Quoth Robert, "Right, my Lord! In sooth He should but move your scorn, Your pity. Most audacious youth ! A thrall, a vassal born, To lift his wanton eyes to her, His Lady and his Fosterer!" " Ha !" cried the other, startled, " How ? Who? Where? What youth? How sayest thou ?" " What ! Wis you not, ray Lord, the tale They babble far and nigh ? Nay, now, methinks you fain would veil The truth. Well, so shall I." u Man !" cried the other, u mock me not ! Speak ! else I stab thee on the spot ! Who dares to think on Cunigond?" "My Lord, that smock-faced page beyond. "In sooth he ... seems ... a shapely springald," He said with damning art, SCHILLER. 51 While cold and hot the quick blood tingled About his listener's heart. "And marked you never, even by chance, How she, not you, absorbs his glance, And how he leans, with lovesick air, At table o'er your Lady's chair? "Look! Read, my Lord, these amorous lines Mark how his feelings burn ; He owns the love with which he pines, And asks a like return. Your highsoul'd Consort, with a view To spare him, screens his guilt from you. . . . But I have idly vexed your ear, For what, my Lord, have you to fear?" At once into a neighboring wood The Count in frenzy rode, Wherein an Iron-foundry stood, Whose furnace redly glowed. Here, late and early, swinking hands, Fed volumed flames and blazing brands, While sparkles flew, and bellows roar'd, And molten ore in billows poured. Here waves on waves, fires hot and hotter, In raging strength were found ; Huge millwheels, turned by foaming water, Clanged clattering round and round. Harsh engines brattled night and day ; The thunderous hammer stunned alway. With sledgeblows blended, which descended Till even the stubborn iron bended. 52 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. And, beckoning there to workmen two, He called them from their task, And spake : " The FIRST who comes to you From me, and thus shall ask 'Have ye fulfilled the Count's desire?' Him cast in yonder furnace-fire, So that his bones be cindered white, And he no more may blast my sight !" This dark behest the monsters twain Enjoyed with bloody zest, For anvil-dead had longtime lain The heart in cither's breast, And fiercelier now they blow the fire, Till palier shoots its flame and higher, And glare thereon with gloating eyes, Impatient for the sacrifice. To Fridolin the huntsman speeds, And speaks with oily tone "Companion mine, the Master needs Thy presence : go alone !" He went: then spake the Count, "Must waste No time, but to the Foundry haste, And ask the furnace-men this word 'Have ye obeyed the Count, my Lord?' " Said Fridolin, " Without delay." But pausing musefully, Perchance, he thought, my Lady may Have some commands for me. Anon before the I>:tme he stands, And speaks: "My Lord the Count commands SCHILLER. 53 Me to the Foundry ; so, if thou Wouldst aught, I bide thy bidding now." Replied the Dame, with silvery tone u My son lies ill, alas ! Else I to-day had gladly gone To hear the holy Mass. Go thou, my child, instead, and be Thine orisons to GOD for me, So, when thy sins are blanched by Heaven, Mine too, I trust, may be forgiven." The Page received with joy the glad And everwelcome order; But ere with bounding step he had Attained the village border, Hark ! toll ! and toll ! the Minster-bell Pealed out with clear and solemn swell, Inviting chosen souls to share The Eucharistic banquet there. "If GOD shall call thee o'er and o'er, Resist not thou His will," He said, and entered at the door, But all within was still ; For these were harvest-days, and now Men toiled afield with sweltering brow, Nor clerk was nigh, nor choral throng To serve at Mass with answering song. Eftsoons the aisle he therefore trod, And filled the sexton's post : 5* 54 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Said he, " The time we give to GOD, Be sure, is never lost.' 1 The stole upon the Priest he placed, And bound the cincture round his waist, And then prepared the water-glass And sacred chalice-cup for Mass. AVhich finished with decorous haste, The novice did not falter, But walked before the Priest, and placed The missal on the altar ; And knelt at left and right hand duly, And answered reverently and truly ; And as the Priest the Sanctus sang, His little bell three times he rang. And when the Priest, inclining lowly, Knelt humbly to adore The present GOD whom, pure and holy, In hand upraised he bore, The bell again went tinkling, tinkling, To give the throng the usual inkling, And all, adoring CHRIST, and kneeling, Then beat their breasts with contrite feeling. He thus accomplished all with ease, By quick perceptive thought, For he those hallowed usages From childhood had been taught ; Nor tired when at the close the Priest Pronounced the Ite: Missa est, And, turning round, bestowed aloud His blessing on the assembled crowd. SCHILLER. 55 Book, stole, and cup he then restored, Each to its place anew, And, having clean'd the altarboard, He noiselessly withdrew, And towards the wood, his purposed goal, Retook his way with placid soul, And, as his prayers were uncompleted, Twelve Paternosters more repeated. And reaching soon the hammerers 1 den, Mid smoke and storming fires, He stopped and asked " Have you, ye men, Done what the Count desires?" When, pointing towards the furnace wide, And grimly grinning, one replied "The cindered bones require no bellows The Count may style us dexterous fellows!" He bears the answer to his Master, Who spies him with surprise, And, as he nears him, fast and faster, Almost mistrusts his eyes. " Unhappy wretch ! Whence comest thou ?" " This moment from the Foundry." " How I Thou hast been loitering, then, elsewhere?" " My Lord, I stopped for Mass and prayer, "For when this morning I retired With your command, I sought Your spouse, if haply she required My services in aught, Who bade me hear the Mass : content And willing, I obeyed and went; 56 GERMAN ANTHOLOGV. And thrice I said my rosary For her and your prosperity." The Count, amazed and quivering, gazed, While terror blanched his cheek. " And what reply was given thee by The Foundry-workmen ? Speak !" u Obscure, my Lord, it seemed : One showed Me where the horrid furnace glowed, And grinned, and thus his answer flowed 1 The cindered bones require no bellows : The Count may style us dexterous fellows !' " "And Robert?" asked the Count and strange Sensations iced his blood u Didst thou not meet him on thy range ? I sent him to the wood." " My Lord, in wood or mead around No trace of Robert have I found." u Then," cried the Count, with reverent fear, " GOD has Himself passed judgment here !" And yielding to a softer mood, The unconscious Page he led Before his spouse (who understood The mystery not), and said " Be kind and bounteous tow'rds this child ; No angel is more undefiled. THOUGH MEN MISJUDGE, CONDEMN, DISTRUST, GOD AND HIS SAINTS WATCH O'ER THE JUST." SCHILLER. 57 A BALLAD. "BARON or vassal, is any so bold As to plunge in yon gulf and follow Through chamber and cave this beaker of gold, Which already the waters whirlingly swallow ? Who retrieves the prize from the horrid abyss Shall keep it : the gold and the glory be his!" So spake the King, and incontinent flung From the cliff that, gigantic and steep, High over Charybdis's whirlpool hung, A glittering wine-cup down in the deep ; And again he asked, " Is there one so brave As to plunge for the gold in the dangerous wave ?" And the knights and the knaves all answerless hear The challenging words of the speaker; And some glance downwards with looks of fear, And none are ambitious of winning the beaker. And a third time the King his question urges "Dares none, then, breast the menacing surges?" But the silence lasts unbroken and long; When a Page, fair-featured and soft, Steps forth from the shuddering vassal-throng, And his mantle and girdle already are doffed, And the groups of nobles and damosels nigh, Envisage the youth with a wondering eye. 58 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. He dreadlessly moves to the gaunt crag's brow, And measures the drear depth under; But the waters Charybdis had swallowed she now Regurgitates bellowing back in thunder; And the foam, with a stunning and horrible sound, Breaks its hoar way through the waves around. And it seethes and roars, it welters and boils, As when water is showered upon fire; And skyward the spray agonizingly toils, And flood over flood sweeps higher and higher, Upheaving, downrolling, tumultuously, As though the abyss would bring forth a young sea. But the terrible turmoil at last is over; And down through the whirlpool's well A yawning blackness ye may discover, Profound as the passage to central Hell ; And the waves, under many a struggle and spasm, Are sucked in afresh by the gorge of the chasm. And now, ere the din rethunders, the youth Invokes the Great Name of GOD; And blended shrieks of horror and ruth Burst forth as he plunges headlong unawed: And down he descends through the watery bed, And the waves boom over his sinking head. But though for a while they have ceased their swell, They roar in the hollows beneath, And from mouth to mouth goes round the farewell "Brave-spirited youth, good- night in death!" SCHILLER. 59 And louder and louder the roarings grow, While with trembling all eyes are directed below. Now, wert thou even, O monarch ! to fling Thy crown in the angry abyss, And exclaim, " Who recovers tho crown shall be king!" The guerdon were powerless to tempt me, I wis ; For what in Charybdis's caverns dwells No chronicle penned of mortal tells. Full many a vessel beyond repeal Lies low in that gulf to-day, And the shattered masts and the drifting keel Alon tell the tale of the swooper's prey. But bark ! with a noise like the howling of storms, Again the wild water the surface deforms ! And it hisses and rages, it welters and boils, As when water is spurted on fire, And skyward the spray agonizingly toils, And wave over wave beats higher and higher, While the foam with a stunning and horrible sound, Breaks its white way through the waters around When lo ! ere as yet th billowy war Loud raging beneath is o'er, An arm and a neck are distinguished afar, And a swimmer is seen to make for the shore, And hardily buffeting surge and breaker, He springs upon land with the golden beaker. And lengthened and deep is the breath he draws As he hails the bright face of the sun ; 60 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. And a murmur goes round of delight and applause He lives ! he is safe! he has conquered and won ! He has mastered Gharybdis's perilous Avave ! He has rescued his life and his prize from the grave! Now, bearing the booty triumphantly, At the foot of the throne he falls, And he proffers his trophy on bended knee ; And the King to his beautiful daughter calls, "Who tills with red wine the golden cup, While the gallant stripling again stands up. u All hail to the King! Rejoice, ye who breathe Wheresoever Earth's gales are driven! For ghastly and drear is the region beneath ; And let Man beware how he tempts high Heaven ! Let him never essay to uncurtain to light What destiny shrouds in horror and night! "The maelstrom dragged me down in its course; When, forth from the cleft of a rock, A torrent outrushed with tremendous force, And met me anew with deadening shock ; And I felt my brain swim and my senses reel As the double-flood whirled me round like a wheel. " But the GOD I had cried to answered me When my destiny darkliest frowned, And He showed me a reef of rocks in the sea, Whereunto I clung, and there I found On a coral jag the goblet of gold, Which else to the lowermost crypt had rolled. SCHILLER. 61 " And the gloom through measureless toises under Was all as a purple haze ; And though sound was none in these realms of wonder, I shuddered when under my shrinking gaze That wilderness lay developed where wander The dragon, and dog-fish, and sea-salamander. " And I saw the huge kraken and magnified snake And the thornback and ravening shark Their way through. the dismal waters take, While the hammer-fish wallowed below in the dark, And the river-horse rose from his lair beneath, And grinned through the grate of his spiky teeth. " And there I hung, aghast and dismayed, Among skeleton larvae, the only Soul conscious of life despairing of aid In that vastness untrodden and lonely. Not a human voice not an earthly sound But silence, and water, and monsters around. " Soon one of these monsters approached me, and plied His hundred feelers to drag Me down through the darkness ; when, springing aside, I abandoned my hold of the coral crag, And the maelstrom grasped me with arms of strength, And upwhirled and upbore me to daylight at length." Then spake to the Page the marvelling King, " The golden cup is thine own, But I promise thee further this jewelled ring That beams with a priceless hyacinth-stone, G 62 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Shouldst tliou dive once more and discover for me The mysteries shrined in the cells of the sea." Now the King's fair daughter was touched and grieved, And she fell at her father's feet U O father, enough what the youth has achieved! Expose not his life anew, I entreat! If this your heart's longing you cannot well tame, There are surely knights here who will rival his fame." But the King hurled downwards the golden cup, And he spake, as it sank in the wave, "Now, shonldst thou a second time bring it me up, As my knight, and the bravest of all my brave, Thou shalt sit at my nuptial banquet, and she Who pleads for thee thus thy wedded shall be !" Then the blood to the youth's hot temples rushes, And his eyes on the maiden are cast, And lie sees her at first overspread with blushes, And then growing pale and sinking aghast. So, vowing to win so glorious a crown, For Life or for Death he again plunges down. The far-sounding din returns amain, And the foam is alive as before, And all eyes are bent downward. In vain, in vain The billows .indeed re-dash and re-roar. But while ages shall roll and those billows shall thunder, That youth shall sleep under! SCHILLER. 63 Jjjolncraies am) bis JUng. A BALLAD. HE stood upon his palace-wall. His proud eye wandered over all The wealth of Samos, east and west. u See ! this is mine all this / govern !" He said, addressing Egypt's Sovereign, u Confess! my lot indeed is blest!" " Yes, thou hast won the Gods 1 high favor, For nobler men than thou, and braver, Thy rivals once, are now thy slaves ; But, Fate will soon revenge the wrong I dare not call thee blest, so long As Heaven is just or Earth has graves!" While yet he spake, behold ! there came A messenger in Milo's name u Health to the great Polycrates ! O King, braid laurels in thy hair, And let new Pa3ans thrill the air, And incense-offerings load the breeze ! "Spear-pierced, thy rebel foe lies dead, Behold ! I bear the traitor's head, Sent by thy General, Polydore." Unrolling a dark shroud of cloth, He bared, before the gaze of both, A ghastly head, still dropping gore! 64 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. The Stranger King shrank back a pace, Then said " Thou art of mortal race : On earth Success but heralds 111. Thou hast a fleet at sea : Beware ! For waves and winds heed no man's prayer And Tempest wakes at Neptune's will!" But hark! a loud, a deafening shout Of welcome from the throng without ! " Joy ! joy !" The fleet so long away, So long away, so long awaited, At last is come, and, richly freighted, Casts anchor in the exulting bay!" The Royal Guest hears all, astounded. "Thy triumphs, truly, seem unbounded, But are they ? No ! Thy star will set ; The javelins of the Cretan hordes Strike surer home than Samian swords, And thou must fall before them yet!" Even while he warns again rejoice The crowd with one tumultuous voice "Hurrah! Dread Sovereign, live alway ! The war is over! Lo! the storms Have wrecked thy foes ! The savage swarms Of Crete and Thrace are Neptune's prey!" "It is enough !" exclaimed the Guest : Blind Mortal! call thyself The Blest- Feel all that Pride and Conquest can ! I here predict thine overthrow, SCHILLER. 65 For, perfect bliss, unstarred with woe, Came never yet from God to Man. "I too have been most fortunate : At borne, abroad, in camp and state, The bounteous Gods long favored me Yet I have wept ! My only-cherished, My son died in my arms ! He perished, And paid my debt to Destiny. u If thou, then, wilt propitiate Fate, Pray God forthwith to adulterate Thy Cup of Joy ! In all rny past Experience never knew I one "Who too long filled a golden throne, But Kuin crushed the wretch at last ! " But if God will not hear thy prayer, Then woo Misfortune by some snare, Even as the fowler sets his gin. Hast here some jewel, some rare treasure, Thou lovest, prizest beyond measure ? The sea rolls yonder hurl it in !" Replied the Host, now seized with fear, "My realm hath naught I hold so dear As this resplendent opal ring ; If that may cairn the Furies' wrath, Behold ! I cast it in their path ;" And forth he flung the glittering thing. But when the morn again was come, There stood without the palace-dome 6* 66 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. A fisher with his teeming flasket, Who cried, u Great King, thy days be pleasant ! Thou wilt not scorn my humble present, This fish, the choicest in my basket. 1 ' And ere the mid-day meal the cook, With joy and wonder in his look, Rushed in, and fell before his Master " O glorious Victor ! matchless King ! Within the fish I found thy ring! Thou wast not born to know Disaster !" Hereon uprose the Guest in dread: " I tarry here too long," he said ; " O prosperous wretch ! my friend no more! The Gods have willed thy swift perdition! /will not bide the Avenger's mission!" He spake, and straightway left the shore. f% postage. A BALLAD. THEY seize in the Tyrant of Syracuse' halls A youth with a dagger in's vest: He is bound by the Tyrant's behest : The Tyrant beholds him Rage blanches his cheek: u Why hiddest yon dagger, conspirator? Speak!" "To pierce to the heart such as thou!" "Wretch! Death on the cross is thy doom even now!" SCHILLER. 67 "It is well," spake the youth ; u I am harnessed for death; And I sue not thy sternness to spare ; Yet would I be granted one prayer: Three days would I a>k, till my sister he \ved ; As a hostage, I leave tliee my friend in my stead ; If /In- found false to my truth, Nail him to thy cross without respite or ruth!" Then smiled with a dark exultation the King, And he spake, after brief meditation U I grant thee three days' preparation; But see thou outstay not the term I allow, Else, by the high thrones of Olympus I vow, That if thou shalt go scathless and free, The best blood of thv friend shall be forfeit for thee I" And Pythias repairs to his friend u I am doomed To atone for my daring ernprize, By Death in its shamefullest guise ; But the Monarch three days ere I perish allows, Till I give a loved sister away to her spouse ; Thou, therefore, my hostage must be, Till I come the third day, and again set thee free." And Damon in silence embraces his friend, And he gives himself up to the Despot; While Pythias makes use of his respite, And ere the third morning in Orient is burning Behold the Devoted already returning To save his friend ere it be later, By dying himself the vile death of a traitor! 68 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. But the rain, the wild rain, dashes earthwards in floods, Upswelling the deluging fountains; Strong torrents rush down from the mountains, And lo! as he reaches the deep river's border The bridgeworks give way in terrific disorder, And the waves, with a roaring like thunder, Sweep o'er the rent wrecks of the arches, and under. To and fro by the brink of that river he wanders In vain he looks out through the offing The fiends of the tempests are scoffing His outcries for aid ; from the opposite strand No pinnace puts off to convey him to land ; And, made mad by the stormy commotion, The river-waves foam like the surges of Ocean. Then he drops on his knees, and he raises his arms To Jupiter, Strength-and-Help-giver "Oh, stem the fierce force of this river! The hours are advancing Noon wanes in the West Soon Apollo will sink and my zeal and my best Aspirations and hopes will be baffled And Damon, my Damon, will die on a scaflfold!" But the tempest abates not, the rapid flood waits not ; On, billow o'er billow comes hasting, Day, minute by minute, is wasting And, daring the worst that the Desperate dare, He casts himself in with a noble despair; And he buffets the tyrannous waves And Jupiter pities the straggler and saves. SCHILLER. 69 The hours will not linger : his speed is redoubled Forth, Faithfullest ! Bravest, exert thee ! The gods cannot surely desert thee ! Alas! as Hope springs in his bosom renewed, A band of barbarians rush out of the wood, And they block up the wanderer's path, And they brandish their weapons in clamorous wrath. "What will ye?" he cries ; "I have naught but my life, And that must be yielded ere night : Force me not to defend it by fight!" But they swarm round him closer, that truculent band, So he wrests the huge club from one savage's hand, And he fells the first four at his feet; And the remnant, dismayed and astounded, retreat. The storm-burst is over low glows the red sun, Making Earth and Air fainter and hotter; The knees of the fugitive totter "Alas!" he cries, "have I then breasted the flood, Have I vanquished those wild men of rapine and blood, But to perish from languor and pain, While my hostage, my friend, is my victim in vain?" When, hark ! a cool sound, as of murmuring water ! He hears it it bubbles it gushes Hark ! louder and louder it rushes ! He turns him, he searches, and lo! a pure stream Kipples forth from a rock, and shines out in the beam Of the sun ere he fierily sinks, And the wanderer bathes his hot limbs, and he drinks. 70 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. The sun looks his last ! On the oft-trodden pathway Hies homeward the weariful reaper ; The shadows of evening grow deeper. When, pressing and hurrying anxiously on, Two strangers pass Pythias and list ! he hears one To the other exclaiming, u Oh, shame on The wretch that betrayed the magnanimous Darnon P Then Horror lends wings to his faltering feet, And he dashes in agony onward ; And soon a few roofs, looking sunward, Gleam faintly where Syracuse' suburbs extend ; And the good Philodemus, his freedman and friend, Now comes forward in tears to his master, Who gathers despair from that face of disaster. " Back, Master ! Preserve thine own life at the least ! His, I fear me, thou canst not redeem, For the last rays of Eventide beam : Oh ! though hour after hour travelled on to its goal, He expected thy coming with confident soul, And though mocked by the King as forsaken, His trust in thy truth to the last was unshaken!" " Eternal Avenger, and is it too late ?" Cried the youth, with a passionate fervor, "And dare not I be his preserver? Then Death shall unite whom not Hell shall divide ! We will die, he and I, on the rood, side by side, And the bloody Destroyer shall find That there be souls whom Friendship and Honor can bind!" SCHILLER. l And on, on, unresting, he bounds like a roe : See ! they lay the long cross on the ground ! See ! the multitude gather all round ! See! already they hurry their victim along! When, with giant-like strength, a man bursts through the throng, And u Oh, stay, stay your hands!" is his cry . "I am come! I am here! I am ready to die!" And Astonishment masters the crowd at the sight, While the friends in the arms of each other Weep tears that they struggle to smother. Embarrassed, the lictors and officers bring The strange tidings at length to the ears of the King, And a human emotion steals o'er him, And he orders the friends to be summoned before him. And, admiring, he looks at them long ere he speaks " You have conquered, O marvellous pair, By a friendship as glorious as rare ! You have melted to flesh the hard heart in my breast! Go in peace ! you are free ! But accord one request To my earnest entreaties and wishes Accept a third friend in your King, Dionysius." T2 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY f laint. THE fores tpines groan The dim clouds are flitting The Maiden is sitting On the green shore alone. The surges are broken with might, with might, And her sighs are pour'd on the desert Night, And tears are troubling her eye. "All, all is o'er: The heart is destroyed The world is a void It can yield me no more. Then, Master of Life, take back thy boon : I have tasted such bliss as is under the moon : I have lived I have loved I would die!" Thy tears, O Forsaken ! Are gushing in vain ; Thy wail shall not waken The Buried again : But all that is left for the desolate bosom, The flower of whose Love has been blasted in blossom, Be granted to thee from on high ! Then pour like a river Thy tears without number! The Buried can never Be wept from their slumber : But the luxury dear to the Broken-hearted, When the sweet enchantment of Love hath departed, Be thine the tear and the sigh ! . SCHILLER. 73 QHje ITament of Ceres. HAS the beamy Spring shone out anew ? Reassumes the Earth her primal mien? Yes, once more the rivulets are blue : Yes, once more the sunny hills are green. On the mirror-floor of Ocean's wave Cloudlessly the face of Phoebus lies ; Blandlier the Zephyr-pinions wave ; Bud and plantling ope their little eyes. Music trills from every grove and glen, And I hear the Oread in the grot Sing, " Thy flowers, indeed, return agen, But thy Daughter, she returneth not!" Ah ! how long I wander sadly over, Desolately over Earth's bare lield ! Titan ! Titan! canst thou not discover Where my Loved, my Vanished, lies concealed? None of all thy lamps, of all thy rays, Lights the dear, dear Countenance for me ; Even the Day, which all on earth displays, Nowhere shows me her I sigh to see. Hast thou, Jupiter, from these fond arms Pitilessly torn my lovely one ? Or has Pluto borne away her charms To the death cold Flood of Acheron ? Downwards to the blackly-rolling River Who will bear my message-word of woe ? Into Charon's bark, which floats for ever, None save spectral shadows dare to go. GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Hidden from each flesh-imprisoned soul Lies alway the nightbegirdled Shore: Long as Styx hath yet been known to roll, Shape of Life his waters never bore. Thousand headlong pathways hurry thither Back alone to Light is no return ; Scarce a sigh comes faintly wafted hither, Whispering of her lot for whom I mourn. Earthsprung mothers, of an earthly name, Doomed to die because of Pyrrha born, Follow joyously through Death and Flame, Nurslings from their loving bosoms torn. Thus doth reigning Jupiter command "None of Mine shall pass the Phantomportal :" Wherefore, Parcae, must your iron hand Sternly spare the God and the Immortal ? Ah ! down, down into the Night of Nights Rather hurl me from Olympus' brow: Why revere in me the Goddess' rights ? Are they not the Mother's tortures now ? Sways my child in joyless pomp beneath On the throne, beside her sable Spouse ? Gladly, gladly would I plunge in Death, There to seek the Queen of Pluto's House. Ah ! her eyes, a very Fount of Tears, Aching for the goldbright Light in vain, Wandering wistfully to far-off Spheres, Fain would meet the Mother's glance again. Never! never! till the Depths rejoice In the awakened might of Pity's spoil ; SCHILLER. 75 Never! never! until Mercy's voice Echoes through the sunken Dome of Hell. Vain, vain wish, and idly-wasted wailing ! Ever in the one bright Track away Phrebus calmly wheels his never-failing Chariot ; Jupiter is Lord for aye ; Lord, and Lord of Happiness and Light : Darkness flung no shadow on his throne When I lost her in the dead of Night, "When my soul was left to weep alone, Till above the black abysmal Well Young Aurora's fairy tints shall glow, And till Iris gilds the gloom of Hell By the glory of her painted Bow. And is naught remaining by the Mother? No fond pledge of reminiscence here? Naught to say the Severed love each other? Naught in memory from the Hand so dear? Is there, then, no holy link of union Found between the Child and Mother more ? Hold the Left-in-Life no sweet communion With the wanderers on the Phantomshore ? No ! nor sundered for eternal years Must we languish she shall yet be mine : Lo ! in pity to the Mother's tears, Heaven accords a Symbol and a Sign. Soon as Autumn dies, and Winter's blast From the North is chillily returning, Soon as leaf and flower their hues have cast And in nakedness the trees are mourning, 76 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Then from out Vertumnus' lavish Horn Slowly, silently, the Gift I take Overcharged with Life the golden Corn As mine Offering to the Stygian Lake. Into Earth I sink the Seed with sadness, And it lies upon my daughter's heart ; Thus an emblem of my grief and gladness, Of my love and anguish I impart. When the handmaid Hours, in circling duty, Once again lead round the bowery Spring, Then upbounding Life and newborn Beauty Unto all that died the Sun shall bring. Lo ! the germ that lay from eyes of Mortals Longwhile coffined by the Earth's cold bosom, Blushes as it bursts the clayey Portals, With the dyes of Heaven on its blossom. While the stem, ascending, skyward towers, Bashfully the fibres shun the Light, Thus to rear my tender ones the Powers Both of Heaven and Earth in love unite. Halfway in the Land where Life rejoices, Halfway in the Nightworld of the tomb, These to me are blessed Herald-voices, Earthward wafted up from Orcus' gloom. Yea, though dungeoned in the Hell of Hells, Would I from the deep Abyss infernal Hear the silver peal whose music swells Gently from these blossoms, young and vernal, Singing that where old in rayless blindness Darklingly the Mournerphantoms move, SCHILLER. 77 Even there are bosoms filled with kindness, Even there are hearts alive with love. O, my Flowers! that round the mead so sunny, Odonrloaded, freshly bloom and blow, Here I bless you! May redundant honey Ever down your chalicepetals flow ! Flowers! I'll bathe you in celestial Light, Blent with colours from the Rainbow borrowed; All your bells shall glisten with the bright Hues that play around Aurora's forehead ! So, whene'er the days of Springtime roll, When the Autumn pours her yellow treasures, May each bleeding heart and loving soul Read in you my mingled pains and pleasures ! f% totalities. AND dost thou faithlessly abandon me ? Must thy cameleon phantasies depart? Thy griefs, thy gladnesses, take wing and flee The bower they builded in this lonely heart? O, Summer of Existence, golden, glowing! Can nought avail to curb thine onward motion? In vain ! The river of my years is flowing, And soon shall mingle with the eternal ocean. Extinguished in dead darkness lies the sun That lighted up my shrivelled world of wonder; Those fairy bands Imagination spun Around my heart have long been rent asunder. 7* GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Gone, gone forever is the fine belief, The all-too-generous trust in the Ideal : All ray Divinities have died of grief, And left me wedded to the Rude and Real. As clasped the enthusiastic Prince 1 of old The lovely statue, stricken by its charms, Until the marble, late so dead and cold, Glowed into throbbing life beneath his arms, So fondly round enchanting Nature's form, I too entwined my passionate arms, till, pressed In my embraces, she began to warm And breathe and revel in my bounding breast. And, sympathizing with my virgin bliss, The speechless things of Earth received a tongue ; They gave me back Affection's burning kiss, And loved the Melody my bosom sung: Then sparkled hues of Life on tree and flower, Sweet music from the silver fountain flowed ; All soulless images in that brief hour The Echo of rny Life divinely glowed! How struggled all my feelings to extend Themselves afar beyond their prisoning bounds! O, how I longed to enter Life and blend Me with its words and deeds, its shapes and sounds ! This human theatre, how fair it beamed While yet the curtain hung before the scene ! Uprolled, how little then the arena seemed ! That little how contemptible and mean ! i Pygmalion. SCHILLER. 79 How roamed, imparadised in blest illusion, With soul to which opsoaring Hope lent pinions, And heart as yet unchilled by Care's intrusion, How roamed the stripling-lord through his do- minions! Then Fancy bore him to the palest star Pinnacled in the lofty aether dim : Was nought so elevated, nought so far, But thither the Enchantress guided him ! With what rich reveries his brain was rife! What adversary might withstand him long? How glanced and danced before the Car of Life The visions of his thought, a dazzling throng! For there was FORTUNE with her golden crown, There flitted LOVE with heart-bewitching boon, There glittered starry-diademed REXOWN, And TRUTH, with radiance like the sun of noon! But ah! ere half the journey yet was over, That gorgeous escort wended separate ways ; All faithlessly forsook the pilgrim-rover, And one by one evanished from his gaze. Away inconstant-handed FORTUNE flew; And, while the thirst of Knowledge burned alway, The dreary mists of Doubt arose and threw Their shadow over TRUTH'S resplendent ray. I saw the sacred garland-crown of FAME Around the common brow its glory shed : The rapid Summer died, the Autumn came, And LOVE, with all his necromancies, fled, 80 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. And ever lonelier and silenter Grew the dark images of Life's poor dream, Till scarcely o'er the dusky scenery there The lamp of HOPE itself could cast a gleam. And now, of all, Who, in my day of dolor, Alone survives to clasp my willing hand? Who stands beside me still, my best consoler, And lights ray pathway to the Phantom-strand ? Thou, FEIENDSHIP! stancher of our wounds and sorrows, From whom this lifelong pilgrimage of pain A balsam for its worst afflictions borrows ; Thou whom I early sought, nor sought in vain! And thou whose labours by her light are wrought, Soother and soberer of the spirit's fever, Who, shaping all things, ne'er destroyest aught, Calm OCCUPATION ! thou that weariest never ! Whose efforts rear at last the mighty Mount Of Life, though merely grain on grain they lay, And, slowly toiling, from the vast Account Of Time strike minutes, days, and years away. SCHILLER. 81 &0 miT Jrienbs. BELOVED friends! More glorious times than ours Of old existed : men of loftier powers Than we can boast have flourished : who shall doubt it? A million stones dug from the depths of Earth Will bear this witness for the ancient worth, If History's chronicles be mute about it. But, all are gone those richly-gifted souls That constellation of illustrious names : For Us, for Us, the current moment rolls, And We, We live, and have our claims. My friends ! The wanderer tells us and we own That Earth shows many a more luxuriant zone Than that whereunder we sedately live ; But, if denied a paradise, our hearts Are still the home of science and the arts, And glow and gladden in the light they give; And if beneath our skies the laurel pines, And winter desolates our myrtle boughs, The curling tendrils of our joyous vines Shed freshest greenness round our brows. May burn more feverish life, more maddening pleasures, Where four assembled worlds exchange their treasures, At London, in the world's Commercial Hall ; A thousand stately vessels come and go, And costly sights are there, and pomp and snow, And Gold is lord and idolgod of all ! 82 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. But will the sun be mirrored in the stream Sullied and darkened by the flooding rains? No ! On the still smooth lake alone his beam Is brightly imaged, and remains. The beggar at St. Angelo's might gaze With scorn upon our North, for he surveys The one, lone, only, everliving Rome All shapes of beauty fascinate his eye; He sees a brilliant heaven below the sky Shine in Saint Peter's wonderwaking dome. But, even while beaming with celestial glory, Rome is the grave of long-departed years ; It is the green young plant and not the hoary And time-worn trunk that blooms and cheers. Prouder achievements may perchance appear Elsewhere than signalize our humble sphere, But newer nowhere underneath the sun. We see in pettier outlines on our stage, Which miniatures the world of every age, The storied feats of bypassed eras done. All things are but redone, reshown, retold, Fancy alone is ever young and new ; Man and the universe shall both grow old, But not the forms her pencil drew ! 33 SCHILLER. 83 &Jje Paib of Orleans. AT thee the Mocker 1 sneers in cold derision, Through thee he seeks to desecrate and dim Glory for which he hath no soul or vision, For "God" and "Angel" are but sounds with him. He makes the jewels of the heart his booty, And scoffs at Man's Belief and Woman's Beauty. Yet thou a lowly shepherdess ! descended Not from a kingly but a godly race, Art crowned by Poesy ! Amid the splendid Of Heaven's high stars she builds thy dwellingplace, Garlands thy temples with a wreath of glory, And swathes thy memory in eternal Story. The Base of this weak world exult at seeing The Fair defaced, the Lofty in the dust ; Yet grieve not! There are godlike hearts in being Which worship still the Beautiful and Just. Let Momus and his mummers please the crowd, Of nobleness alone a noble mind is proud. !je Secret SHE could not whisper one least word ; Too many listeners hovered nigh ; But, though her dear lips never stirred, I well could read her speechful eye : i Voltaire. 84 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. And now with stealthy step I come And seek thy shades, thou darkling grove ! Here will I build my hermit-home, Here veil from prying eyes my love. The city's voice of many tones Resoundeth in the sweltering Day; Wheels roll, as 'twere, o'er muffled stones, And far-off hammers faintly bray: So wring the o'er anxious Crowd with toil From Earth's hard breast their bitter bread, "While blessings flow from Heaven like oil On each serene Believer's head ! Yet, breathe it not, what holy joy, What bliss in Love and Faith may be ; The world will mock thee, and destroy The inmost Life of Heaven in thee ! Not in thy words, not on thy brow, Should glow the soul of thy desire ; Deep in thy heart's recesses thou Must feed, unseen, the Sacred Fire. Flee where nor Light nor Man intrudes ! Love lives for Night and Silentness ; Love's dearest haunts are Solitudes Where sandalled feet tall echoless. Love's home is in the Land of Dream, For, there, through Truth's eternal power, Its life is glassed in every stream, And symbolized by every flower ! SCHILLER. 85 Cfje S&orbs of |Ua% I NAME you Three Words which ought to resound In thunder from zone to zone : But the world understands them not they are found In the depths of the heart alone. That man must indeed be utterly base In whose heart the Three Words no longer find place. First, MAN is FREE, is CREATED FREE, Though born a manacled slave : I abhor the abuses of Liberty I hear how the populace rave, But I never can dread, and I dare not disdain, The slave who stands up and shivers his chain ! And, VIRTUE is NOT AN EMPTY NAME : 'Tis the paction of Man with his soul, That, though balked of his worthiest earthly aim, He will still seek a heavenly goal ; For, that to which worldling natures are blind Is a pillar of light for the childlike mind. And, A GOD, AN IMMUTABLE WILL, EXISTS, However Men waver and yield : Beyond Space, beyond Time, and their dimming mists, The Ancient of Days is revealed ; And while Time and the Universe haste to decay, Their unchangeable Author is Lord for aye ! 86 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Then, treasure those Words. They ought to resound In thunder from zone to zone ; But the world will not teach thee their force ; they are found In the depths of the heart alone ; Thou never, O Man ! canst be utterly base While those Three Words in thy heart find place! Cjje flSlorbs of THREE Words are heard with the Good and Blameless, Three ruinous words and vain Their sound is hollow their use is aimless They cannot console and sustain. Man's path is a path of thorns and troubles So long as he chases these vagrant bubbles. So long as he hopes that Triumph and Treasure Will yet be the guerdon of Worth : Both are dealt out to Baseness in lavishest measure ; The Worthy possess not the earth They are exiled spirits and strangers here, And look for their home to a purer sphere. So long as lie dreams that On clay-made creatures The noonbeams of Truth will shine: No mortal may lift up the veil from her features; On earth we but guess and opine: Wo prison her vainly in pompous words: She is riot our handmaid she is the Lord's. , SCHILLER. 8*7 So long as he sighs for a Golden Era, When Good will be victress o'er III: The triumph of Good is an idiot's chimera; She never can combat nor will : The Foe must contend and o'ermaster, till, cloyed By destruction, he perishes, self-destroyed. Then, Man! through Life's labyrinths winding and darkened, Take, dare to take, Faith as thy clue! THAT WHICH EYE NEVER SAW, TO WHICH EAR NEVER HEARKENED, THAT, THAT is THE BEAUTEOUS AND TRUE ! It is not without let the fool seek it there It is in thine own bosom and heart the Perfect, the Good, and the Fair! 1 &(je Course of im,e. TIME is threefold triple three: First and Midst and Last; Was and Is and Yet-To-Be ; Future Present Past. Lightning-swift, the Is is gone The Yet-To-Be crawls with a snakelike slowness on; Still stands the Was for aye its goal is won. l The classical reader need hardly be informed that the epithets in this line are from Plato. 88 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. No fierce impatience, no entreating, Can spur or wing the tardy Tarrier ; No strength, no skill, can rear a barrier Between Departure and the Fleeting: No prayers, no tears, no magic spell, Can ever move the Immovable. Wouldst thou, fortunate and sage, Terminate Life's Pilgrimage? Wouldst thou quit this mundane stage Better, happier, worthier, wiser? Then, whate'er thine aim and end, Take, Youth! for thine adviser, Not thy working-mate, The Slow ; Oh, make not The Vanishing thy friend, Or The Permanent thy foe ! $reabl!j Htt GENTRY there be who don't figure in History ; Yet they are clever, too deucedly I All that is puzzling, all tissues of mystery, They will unravel you lucidly. Hear their oracular dicta but thrown out, You'd fancy those 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 : SCHILLER. 89 Lone, unbeheld, he by slow but incessant Exertion extracts for the Future the pith of the Past and the Present. Look at yori 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 incloses the kernel Whence shoots with round bole and broad boughs the green giant whose youth looks eternal ! figjjt mtb Stamtjj. THE Noblehearted sees in Earth A paradise before his eyes ; The dreams to which his soul gives birth He fondly hopes to realize ; He dedicates his burning youth To glorify the majesty of Truth. But ah ! before he gazes long, So mean, so paltry ajl appears, Self soon becomes, amid the throng, The loadstar of his hopes and fears, Enthusiastic feeling flies, And Love is chill'd, and droops his wings, and dies. Truth's beams are pure, but, like the moon's, They warm not with the light they shed : 8* 90 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Where Knowledge is, her brightest boons Illumine less the heart than head. Blest, therefore, they who best ally The Visionary's hope and Worldling's eye! (%cla: g, fotce from % ^lorlb of %iriis. " WHERE I am, and Whitherward I fleeted, When my spirit was from Earth removed ?" Wherefore ask me? Is not all completed? I have lived, lived long, for I have loved! Tell me where the nightingale reposes Which with soulful music fugitive Charmed thy dolour in the Days of Roses ! When she ceased to love she ceased to live. " Have I found anew the dear Departed ?" Oh, believe me, I am blent with him, There, where Peace unites the Faithfulhearted, Where no sorrow makes the bright eye dim. There thou too, if meek in mind and lowly, Mayest behold us when thy Night is o'er, There embrace our father, 1 healed and holy, Whom the bloody steel can reach no more. There he sees how truthful were the feelings Born of gazing on yon starry sphere :* allenstein. 2 An allusion to Wallenstein's astrological studies. SCHILLER. 91 Blest are they who cherish such revealings ! Unto them the Holy One is near, Far above the sapphire spaces yonder Souls achieve what Men in vain essay Therefore venture thou to dream and wander Mysteries often lurk in childish play. THE Future is Man's immemorial hymn : In vain runs the Present a- wasting; To a golden goal in the distance dim In life, in death, he is hasting. The world grows, old, and young, and old, But the ancient story still bears to be told. Hope smiles on the Boy from the hour of his birth To the Youth it gives bliss without limit; It gleams for Old Age as a star on earth, And the darkness of Death cannot dim it. Its rays will gild even fathomless gloom, When the Pilgrim of Life lies down in the tomb. Never deem it a Shibboleth phrase of the crowd, Never call it the dream of a rhymer ; The instinct of Nature proclaims it aloud WE ARE DESTINED FOR SOMETHING SUBLIMER. This truth, which the Witness within reveals, The purest worshipper deepliest feels. 92 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. LUDWIG UHLAND. WITH a wondrous host, serene and bold, I tarried as a boarder lately ; His sign was an Apple of the brilliantest gold, At the which men marvelled greatly. It was under the boughs of the goodly Apple-tree, Which from time immemorial has flourished, That I gathered yellow honey like the blithe summer-bee, And was tenderly warmed and nourished. Through the day, my hours, however they might pass, Ever flitted, like butterflies, lightly ; And I slept upon soft luxuriant grass In a roomy summer-house nightly. There came to the bowery Elysium of mine host So many a wild wood ranger ! And he laughed as they banqueted by millions at his cost, For he never saw the face of a stranger. After months I asked him how much was to pay, But he said he was no attorney ; All benisons be therefore on his head I pray, While the green Earth goes her journey ! 1 This is an allegorical poem on the Sun. UHLAND. 93 FARE thee well, fare thee well, my dove ! Thou and I must sever ; One fond kiss, one fond kiss of love, Ere we part forever ! And one rose, one red rose, Marie, Choose me from the bowers ; But no fruit, oh ! no fruit for me, Nought but fragile flowers. % (ilorn Ijas bcprteb. I BIDE 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-ftinning my brow, And the gold of the sunshine glowing. I roarn by a gloomy Garden-wall ; The deathstricken 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! 94 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. 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. Spirits A MANY a summer is dead and buried Since over this flood I last was ferried ; And then, as now, the Noon lay bright On strand, and water, and castled height. Beside me then in this bark sat nearest Two companions the best and dearest ; One was a gentle and thoughtful sire, The other a youth with a soul of fire. One, outworn by Care and Illness, Sought the grave of the Just in stillness; The other's shroud was the bloody rain And thunder-smoke of the battle plain. Yet still, when Memory's necromancy Robes the Past in the hues of Fancy, Medreameth I hear and see the Twain With talk and smiles at my side again! UHLAND. 95 Even the grave is a bond of union ; Spirit and spirit best hold communion ! Seen through Faith, by the Inward Eye, It is after Life they are truly nigh ! Then, ferryman, take this coin, I pray thee, Thrice thy fare I cheerfully pay thee ; For, though thou seest them not, there stand Anear me Two from the Phantomland ! GREEN-LEAFY Whitsuntide was come, To gladden many a Christian home: Spake then King Engelbert, u A fitter Time than this we scarce shall see For tournament and revel rie : Ho ! to horse, each valiant Kitter!" Gay banners wave above the walls, The herald's trumpet loudly calls, And beauteous eyes rain radiant glances! And of all the knights can none Match the Monarch's gallant son, In the headlong shock of lances ! Till, at the close, a Stranger came, Japan-black iron cased his frame ; 96 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. In his air was somewhat kingly : Well I guess, that stalwart knight Yet will overcome in fight All the hosts of Europe singly. As he flings his gage to earth You hear no more the sound of mirth, All shrink back, as dreading danger: The Prince alone defies the worst Alas! in vain! He falls, unhorsed: Sole victor bides the Sable Stranger! Boots now no longer steed or lance : "Light up the hall ! a dance! a dance!" Anon a dazzling throng assembles; And then and there that Dark Unscanned Asks the Koyal Maiden's hand, Whilk she gives, albeit it trembles. And as they dance the Dark and Fair In the Maiden's breast arid hair Every golden clasp uncloses, And, to and fro that way and this Drops dimmed each pearl and amethyss Drop dead the shrivelled yellow roses. But who makes merriest at the feast ? Not he who furnished it at least! Sad is he for son and daughter ! Fears that reason cannot bind Chase each other through his mind, Swift and dark as midnight water! UHLAND. 97 So pale both youth and maiden were ! Whereon the Guest, affecting care, Spake, " Blushful wine will mend your colour," Filled he then a beaker up, And they they drank ; but oh ! that cup Proved in sooth a draught of dolour! Their eyelids droop, and neither speaks ; They kiss their father ; and their cheeks, Pale before, wax white and shrunken : Momently their death draws nigher, He, the while, their wretched sire, Gazing on them, terror-drunken ! "Spare these! Take me!" he shrieked, and pressed The stone-cold corpses to his breast; When, to that heart-smitten father Spake the Guest, with iron voice, " Autumn-spoils are not my choice ; Roses in the Spring I gather !" % libeller's gaug^er. THE Jeweller's Daughter sat in her father's booth Gems, gold, and diamonds dazzled around : " But the richest treasure I ever found," He lovingly whispered in her ear, "O Helen, was and is, in sooth, Thyself, my daughter dear !" 98 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Thereon stepped into the Jeweller's booth a Knight, A Knight of stately apparel and air " I greet thee, maiden young and fair ! I greet thee, Jeweller, courteouslie! And make me a coronal rich and bright For rny bride that is to be." Eftsoons, I ween, the glittering pearls were strung Was never beheld a brillianter show! Poor Helen ! she saw it, and sighed as though Her youth and beauty had lost their charm ; Alas, poor Helen ! she sighed as she hung The ornament on her arm. Ah! blest is the bride supremely blest!" she said, " Who, bright as a star, in the nuptial hall, Shall wear this beautiful coronall ! Ah ! would the Ritter but offer to me A chaplet only of roses red, How joyful I should be!" Ere long came into the booth again the Knight " Thanks, worthy friend ! thy pearls outshine The sparkling droplets of the mine : Now make me, Jeweller, speedilie, A ring, ingemrned with a chrysolite, For my bride that is to be !" Eftsoons was ready that gay gold ring, I ween, And mildly shimmered its paler stone. Alas, poor Helen ! Left all alone, She sighed anew as she tried the ring On her own fair finger, where its sheen In truth was a beauteous thing ! UHLAND. 99 Ah! blest, she thought, how blest as a happy bride, How doubly blest as a happy wife, Is she who shall wear this ring for life! Ah! would the Ritter but give to me A lock of his hair and nought beside, How joyful I should be ! Ere long the Knight appeared in the booth once more > " O Jeweller ! words are poor to praise The taste and finish thy work displays; A ring and a chaplet bright as these Might lie on the loftiest shrine before Which Love ever bent his knees ! " But as I would fain behold them dazzle and glow From Beauty's finger and Beauty's brow, Come hither, enchanting damsel, thou ! And let me try them first on thee ; So will they become my bride, I trow, For thou art fair as she ! Now this, it chanced, was all on a Sunday morn ; And Helen, to meetly honour the day, Had dressed herself in the prettiest way, In the holiday garb of the burgher class, The silken suit she had always worn, "When going, as now, to Mass. There, then, she stands in that graceful silken dress, Deep blushes dyeing her face and neck : Meanwhile, the Ritter proceeds to deck With the wreath of pearls her flowing hair, And draws, unheeding her bashfulness, The ring on her finger fair. 100 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Then, taking her hand in his he tenderly said, " Helena dear, Helena sweet, Forgive, I pray, this little deceit ; My heart has ever been thine alone, And thou art the bride I hope to wed, And the wreath and the ring are thine own ! " 'Mid gold and gems, and all that's precious and rare, The opal's hues and the ruby's blaze, Thy lot has been cast from Childhood's days To thee be this a symbol and sign That thou wert born to shine elsewhere Wert born to charm and shine!" ${je Cnstle obti % ta* " SAWEST thou the castle that beetles over The wine-dark sea? The rosy sunset clouds do hover Above it so goldenly ! "It hath a leaning as though it would bend to The waves below ; It hath a longing as though to ascend to The skies in their gorgeous glow." " Well saw I the castle that beetles over The wine-dark sea; And a pall of watery clouds did cover Its battlements gloomsomely." UHLAND. 101 " The winds and the moonlit Weaves were singing A choral song ? And the brilliant castle-hall was ringing With melody all night long?" " The winds and the moonless waves were sleeping In stillness all ; But many voices of woe and weeping Rose out from the castle-hall." " And sawest thou not step forth so lightly The King and the Queen, Their festal dresses bespangled brightly, Their crowns of a dazzling sheen? u And by their side a resplendent vision, A virgin fair, The glorious child of some clime elysian, With starry gems in her hair ?" " Well saw I the twain by the wine-dark water Walk slower and slower ; They were clad in weeds, and their virgin daughter Was found at their side no more!" 9* 102 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Jtorattb 0f TOWARDS the lofty walls of Balbi, lo ! Durand of Blonden Lies ; Thousand songs are in his bosom ; Love and Pleasure light his eyes. There, he dreams, his own true maiden, beauteous as the evening-star, Leaning o'er her turret-lattice, waits to hear her knight's guitar. In the lindenshaded courtyard soon Durand begins his lay. But his eyes glance vainly upwards ; there they meet no answering ray. Flowers are blooming in the lattice, rich of odour, fair to see. But the fairest flower of any, Lady Blanca, where is she? Ah ! while yet he chants the ditty, draws a mourner near and speaks u She is dead, is dead forever, whom Durand of Blonden seeks!" And the knight replies not, breathes not : darkness gath- ' ers round his brain : He is dead, is dead forever, and the mourners weep the twain. In the darkened castle-chapel burn a many tapers bright : There the lifeless maiden lies, with whitest wreaths and ribands dight. UIILAND. 103 There . . . But lo ! a mighty marvel ! She hath oped her eyes of blue ! All are lost in joy and wonder! Lady Blanca lives anew ! Dreams and visions flit before her, as she asks of those anear, "Heard I not my lover singing? Is Durand of Blonden here?" Yes, O Lady, thou hast heard him ; he has died for thy dear sake ! He could wake his tranced mistress : him shall none for- ever wake ! He is in a realm of glory, but as yet he weets not where ; He but seeks the Lady Blanca: dwells she not already there ? Till he finds her must he wander to and fro, as one be- reaven, Ever calling, "Blanca! Blanca!" through the desert halls of Heaven. FORWARD ! Onward ! far and forth ! An earthquake shout upwakes the North ! Forward ! Prussia hears that shout so proud, She hears and echoes it aloud, Forward ! 104 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Ancient Austria ! Nurse of Mind! Sublime land, lag not thou behind ! Forward ! Warriors of the Saxon land, Arouse ! arise ! press hand in hand Forward ! Swabia ! Brunswick ! Pomeraine ! Wild Yagers from the Meuse and Main ! Forward ! Holland ! thou hast heard the word, Up ! Thou too hast a soul and sword ! Forward ! Switzerland thou Ever-free ! Lorraine, Alsatia, Burgundy ! Forward ! Albion! Spain! A common cause Is yours your liberties and laws ! Forward ! Onward ! Forward ! each and all ! Hark, hark to Freedom's thundercall I Forward ! Forward ! Onward ! far and forth ! And prove what gallant hearts are worth ! Forward ! TIEK. 105 LUDWIG TIEK. Jfife is % gwerl anb % Stofitato. 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 ! 106 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. How yearns and burns for evermore My heart for thee, thou blessed shore ! And shall I never see thy fairy Bowers and palace-gardens near ? Will no enchanted skitf 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, Koams each fonder Yearning yonder, There, where wander Golden stars in blest existence ! TIER. 107 A LITTLE bird flew through the dell, And where the failing sunbeams fell He warbled thus his wondrous lay. " Adieu ! adieu ! I go away : Far, far, Must I voyage ere the twilight star !" It pierced me through, the song he sang, With many a sweet and bitter pang : For wounding joy, delicious pain, My bosom swelled and sank again. Heart! heart! Is it drunk with bliss or woe thou art ? Then, when I saw the drifted leaves, I said, "Already Autumn grieves! To sunnier skies the swallow hies : So Love departs and Longing flies, Far, far, Where the Radiant and the Beauteous are." But soon the Sun shone out anew, And back the little flutterer flew : i It was the Translator's custom to alter sometimes the titles selected by the Authors themselves. Generally the present Editor does not interfere with this : but in the present case the name prefixed by Mangan was evidently a mistake. In the original it is simply " Herbstlied." 108 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. He saw my grief, he saw my tears, And sang, " Love knows no Winter years ! No! no! While it lives its breath is Summer's glow!" ftotire. OH, 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. 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. TIER. 109 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. f igfet mtb THE gayest lot heneath By Grief is shaded : Pale Evening sees the wreath Of Morning faded. Pain slays, or Pleasure cloys ; All mortal morrows 10 110 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. 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. KERNE K. Ill JUSTINUS KEENER. DRIED, as 'twere, to skeleton chips, In the Madhouse found I Four : From their white and shrivelled lips Cometh language never more. Ghastly, stony, stiff, each brother Gazes vacant on the other ; Till the midnight hour be come ; Bristles then erect their hair, And the lips all day so dumb Utter slowly to the air, "Dies irce, dies ilia, Solvet seclum in famlla," Four bold brothers once were these, Riotous and reprobate, Whose rakehellish revelries Terrified the more sedate. Ghostly guide and good adviser Tried in vain to make them wiser. On his deathbed spake their sire " Hear your father from his tomb ! 112 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Kouse not GOD'S eternal ire ; Ponder well the day of doom, ' Dies irce, dies ilia, Solvet seclum in famlla." 1 " So spake he, and died : the Four All unmoved beheld him die. Happy he ! his labors o'er, He was ta'en to bliss on high, While his sons, like very devils Loosed from Hell, pursued their revels. Still they courted each excess Atheism and Vice could dare ; Ironhearted, feelingless, Not a hair of theirs grew grayer. "Live," they cried, "while life enables! GOD and devil alike are fables !" Once at midnight as the Four Eiotously reeled along, From an open temple-door Streamed a flood of holy song. "Cease, ye hounds, your yelling noises!" Cried the devil by their voices. Through the temple vast and dim Goes the unhallowed greeting, while Still the singers chant their hymn. Hark ! it echoes down the aisle " Dies irce, dies ilia, Solvet seclum infavilla." KERNER. 113 On the instant stricken as By the wrath of GOD they stand, Each dull eyeball fixed like glass, Mute each eye, unnerved each hand, Blanched their hair and wan their features, Speechless, mindless, idiot creatures ! And now, dried to skeleton chips, In the Mad-cell sit the Four, Moveless : from their blasted lips Cometh language never more. Ghastly, stony, stiff, each brother Gazes vacant on the other ; Till the midnight hour be come ; Bristles then erect their hair, And their lips, all day so dumb, Utter slowly to the air, "Dies irce, dies ilia, Solvet seclum in % Jfaitfeful Stofr. GRAF TTTKNECK, after a toilsome ride By night, in a chapel desired to bide. The chapel stood in a greenwood deep : In this, thought the Graf, may I safely sleep. 10* 114 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. There lay in the vault of the chapel narrow A king who had died of a poisoned arrow. The Graf he sprung from his horse on the plain, And he said, u Graze here till I come again." The portal oped with a gnarring sound; Deep stillness reigned in the vault around. The Graf in a niche of the aged wall Discovered a coffin and crumbling pall. " Here by the Dead may the Living be borne ; I rest on this coffin till dawn of morn." The Graf lay down, a stranger to fear, On the mouldering planks of the royal bier. The sun came over the mountains red ; The Graf came never the Graf was dead. Three hundred years have rolled and more, And the steed still tarries before the door. The chapel is hasting to swift decay, But the steed grazes yet in the moon's blue ray, &|je febeit %t faks not u WHERE dost thou idly wander ! What doest thou moping yonder; Leave those bald peaks and join thy friends below ! KEENER. 115 Thy garden-bowers look chilly : Rose, hyacinth, nor lily, Can bud where mists are thick and bleak winds blow. " The valley-gardens flourish : Rich rains and sunbeams nourish The laughing children of the meads and dells. Each bud outblooms the other ; And sister-flower and brother Tinkle in Zephyr's ear their sweetest bells. " But on the mountains wither All flowers thou takest thither : Lifeless they lie, and will revive no more. Doth not their fate dismay thee! Come down, come down, I pray thee, And leave the wreck thou vainly mournest o'er!" The gardener heard, unheeding, The valley-tenant pleading ; Spell-fettered, as in some dim dream he stood, Until the gold and dun light Which tracks the waning sunlight Shed o'er the floor of Heaven its gorgeous flood. And, as the shades descended, And Day and Dusk were blended, And Fancy shaped wild wonders in the sky. And each cloud-woven streamer Floated aloft, the dreamer Gazed on the firmanent with tranced eye. 116 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. " There, earth-enamored stranger," He cried, u thy mountain-ranger His garden only glories to behold ! Appear these bowers so chilly ? Can hyacinth nor lily Spring up in yon full fields of blue and gold? " These be the bowers rny spirit Shall one bright day inherit ; There stands for me an undecaying dome. Seest not its pillars gleaming? Seest not its pennons streaming? Go, grovel in thy vale ! 1 know my home I" gJiIL HAEK ! through the midnight lonely How tolls the convent-bell ! But ah ! no summer-breeze awakes the sound ; The beating of the heavy hammer only Is author of the melancholy knell That startles the dull ear for miles around. How such a bell resembles The drooping poet's heart ! Thereon must Misery's hammer drearily jar, Ere the deep melody that shrinks and trembles Within its daedal chambers can impart Its tale unto the listless world afar. KEENER. 117 And, woe is me! too often Hath such a bell alone, At such an hour, with such disastrous tongue, Power to disarm the heart's despair, and soften Its chords to music ; even as now its tone Inspires me with the lay I thus have sung. &|re Umtkrer's <%nl. MAY sparkle for others Henceforward this wine ! Adieu, beloved brothers And sisters of mine, My boyhood's green valleys, My fathers' grey halls ! Where Liberty rallies My destiny calls. The sun never stands, Never slackens his motion ; He travels all lands Till he sinks in the ocean ; The stars cannot rest ; The wild winds have no pillow, And the shore from its breast Ever flings the blue billow. So Man in the harness Of Fortune must roam, And far in the Farness Look out for his home ; 118 GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. Unresting and errant, West, East, South, and North, The liker his parent, The weariless Earth ! Though he hears not the words of The language he loves, He kens the blithe birds of His Fatherland's groves : Old voices are singing From river and rill, And flowrets are springing To welcome him still. And Beauty's dear tresses Are lovely to view, And Friendship still blesses The soul of the True : And love, too, so garlands The wanderer's dome That the farthest of far lands To him is a home. be poet's Consolation:. WHAT, though no maiden's tears ever be shed O'er my clay bed, Yet will the generous Night never refuse To weep its dews. KERNEU. 119 And though no friendly hand garland the cross Above my moss, Still will the dear, dear moon tenderly ?hine Down on that sign. And if the saunterer-by songlessly pass Through the long grass, There will the noontide bee pleasantly hum, And warm winds come. Yes you at least, ye dells, meadows, and streams, Stars and moon-beams, Will think on him whose weak meritless lays Teemed with your praise. THEEE 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 ! GERMAN ANTHOLOGY. 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 ! (0 % (iljosi-semss of Ipnborsi, as slje lag on: \pt geatjj-btb. YET lingerest thou! but I have ceased repining; Through thy long nights I see GOD'S brightness shining ; For, though our Scene world 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, waylayed 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! KEENER. 121 a % dlljost-sccrcss of Iprefarrsf, after Ijtr $