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POEMS 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS Ki$t 
 
 EtJtteU bs 
 PROFESSOR KARL SCHRATTENTHAL 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 CranslatcU 
 By MARY J. SAFFORD 
 
 FROM THE TWENTY-SIXTH EDITION 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 1897 
 

 Copyright, 1896, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 
 Untbersttg -JPress: 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
-V 
 
 TO 
 
 THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 271448 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IN making this English version of the poems of 
 Johanna Ambrosius, the translator's aim has been 
 to reproduce the work of the author as faithfully as 
 the transfer from one language to another would per- 
 mit, retaining not only the thought, but the alterna- 
 tions of rhyme, the number of syllables in each line, 
 etc. If a smoother flow of the English verse would 
 sometimes have resulted from a less accurate render- 
 ing, it is believed that the readers of this volume 
 will prefer the closer following of the writings of this 
 remarkable woman. Instances of exceptions to this 
 rule are the poems, " The Blind Woman and the Deaf 
 Mute," and "Our Weakness ; " where, more closely to 
 follow the thought of the poetess, — which has invari- 
 ably been the first consideration, — the lines are all 
 ten syllables in length, while in the original they are 
 alternately ten and eleven. 
 
 MARY J. SAFFORD. 
 
TO 
 
 EJje lEmpregg of Germans, 
 
 THE PRINCESS WHO IN HER PALACE HEARD AND HELD 
 
 A HELPING HAND TO HER SISTER-WOMAN, 
 
 THE PEASANT IN HER HUT, 
 
 THE AMERICAN EDITION OF THE POEMS OF 
 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS IS DEDICATED. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Introduction xxv 
 
 SONG AND SORROW. 
 
 Invitation 3 
 
 At the Fireside 5 
 
 It is Enough 7 
 
 Ejaculatory Prayer 8 
 
 My Friend 9 
 
 Conflict and Peace 10 
 
 The Poet 11 
 
 My Muse 13 
 
 Dost thou Ask? 15 
 
 My Song 17 
 
 My Love 19 
 
 For Thee 21 
 
 PICTURES OF LIFE. 
 
 The Blind Woman and the Deaf Mute .... 25 
 
 Let her Sleep 28 
 
 The Old Maid 31 
 
 A May Night 33 
 
 The Fairest Spring 35 
 
 My World 37 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Little Gold Ring 39 
 
 A Summer Night 40 
 
 Home 41 
 
 My Native Land 43 
 
 "Village by the Spring" 45 
 
 PICTURES OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Good Luck 
 
 5i 
 
 Peace 54 
 
 Sweet Little Marie 56 
 
 A Public Dance 58 
 
 A Poem of Spring 60 
 
 Once Fared I forth into the World 62 
 
 The Luncheon 64 
 
 Little Bernhard 66 
 
 The Last Letter 68 
 
 y 
 
 LYRICS OF LOVE. 
 
 Thy Kiss 71 
 
 My Part thou hast aye Taken 72 
 
 Passed by 73 
 
 Oh, Torture not my Soul 74 
 
 My Loyal Love 75 
 
 Why I Weep 77 
 
 ? 78 
 
 Ah, Bind my Hands 79 
 
 Thou 80 
 
 I have Loved 81 
 
 Ah, had I Seen thee sooner 82 
 
 Thus it Is 83 
 
 The Sound of the Bell . . : 84 
 
 Weep not, for I Love Thee 85 
 
 Memento Mori : 86 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 VOICES OF REVERENCE. 
 
 Page 
 
 To the Empress 91 
 
 Carmen Sylva 93 
 
 To Karl Stieler 94 
 
 To my Revered Teacher 98 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 I WOULD BE THE SUN I03 
 
 Past 104 
 
 Before the Judgment-Seat 106 
 
 Through the Field I Wandered Dreaming . . 109 
 
 To a Young Girl 111 
 
 A Question 112 
 
 Farewell 113 
 
 Not in the Gloomy Lap of Earth 115 
 
 Oh, Mother Dear! 117 
 
 While thou wert Sitting sadly 119 
 
 In the Water 120 
 
 The Skiff 122 
 
 Retaliation 124 
 
 The Song of my Little Lad 125 
 
 My Boy 127 
 
 To my Daughter 129 
 
 Beautiful Eyes 130 
 
 Night 133 
 
 Open thy Heart 134 
 
 Oh, Love thou too 135 
 
 To my Rose 137 
 
 I am Freezing 139 
 
 I Greet thee 140 
 
 Disappointed 141 
 
 No Song can I succeed in Singing 142 
 
 Until we Meet again 143 
 
 Stars the Sky are Filling 144 
 
XVI CONTENTS, 
 
 Page 
 
 What I Love 145 
 
 Pain you 've Given 147 
 
 Would I were Dead 148 
 
 Vanished 150 
 
 Hush 151 
 
 The Delusion of Grandeur 152 
 
 Autumn 153 
 
 Poetic Trifles 155 
 
 In an Album 157 
 
 Some Day 158 
 
 The Village Hospital 159 
 
 Full 161 
 
 Refuge 163 
 
 The Leaves are Falling 164 
 
 I have Seen 165 
 
 The Maid-Servant in Mourning 166 
 
 Free 167 
 
 My Life 168 
 
 A Child is Weeping 169 
 
 To the Moon 171 
 
 My Heart 173 
 
 Found 174 
 
 In the Forest 176 
 
 Homeless 177 
 
 Thou and I 179 
 
 For my Child 180 
 
 Parted 182 
 
 At Parting 184 
 
 To a Rich Man 185 
 
 To my Daughter on her Confirmation Day . . 187 
 
 My Happiness 189 
 
 An Autumn Night 191 
 
 Thy Picture 192 
 
 To the Szeszuppe 193 
 
 To my Erich 195 
 
 Vindication 197 
 
CONTENTS. XVll 
 
 Page 
 
 The Butterfly 198 
 
 To my Readers 199 
 
 First Love 200 
 
 The Last Song 201 
 
 The Return Home 203 
 
 To Literary Criticism 204 
 
 Lock whatsoe'er Moves thee 206 
 
 Weary 207 
 
 Fata Morgana 208 
 
 I Happiness would fain Call mine 209 
 
 After Years 211 
 
 I have Prayed 213 
 
 The Ringing of the Bell 214 
 
 By Looking in thine Eyes I See 216 
 
 My Wish 217 
 
 Our Weakness 218 
 
 Lost Happiness 219 
 
 Johanna Ambrosius : A Review by Herman Grimm 221 
 Johanna Ambrosius 237 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 Page 
 
 A butterfly splendid 198 
 
 Admit into thy silent breast 134 
 
 A gleaming pearl lay on the strand 141 
 
 Ah, bind my outstretched hands, I pray 79 
 
 Ah, had I thee but sooner seen • . . . 82 
 
 Ah, let me too, among the children ling'ring 98 
 
 Ah 1 Marie, my own sweet Marie so dear 56 
 
 Ah, not in forest, nor moorlands sun-lighted 120 
 
 Ah, wouldst thou e'en once at me gaze 80 
 
 A little heart to judgment-seat was brought 106 
 
 All my life long I 've wandered on so sadly 168 
 
 All tell me that thou art not fair 43 
 
 Art thou, poor rich man, happiness pursuing ? . . . . 185 
 
 As from the bush a rose we break 19 
 
 As guerdon for my songs, to me you 've given .... 199 
 
 Askest thou why in mine eyes 15 
 
 A sky always cloudless 145 
 
 A song of my creating 201 
 
 At dawn of ev'ry morning 85 
 
 Autumn night, in moonlight lying 191 
 
 A warm thatched roof, 'neath which peer windows small . 37 
 
 By looking in thine eyes I see 216 
 
 " Can't the child yet walk alone ? " 112 
 
 Close by the churchyard, in narrow vale 159 
 
 Come to my heart, rose lightly swaying 137 
 
XX INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 Page 
 
 Died away, in silence endless 150 
 
 E'en as the wand'rer for the forest's shadow 130 
 
 Even though vales and mounts may sever 182 
 
 Fain would I see thee silken garments wearing .... 129 
 
 For thee, my child, oft I lie waking 180 
 
 From hills so gently sloping 45 
 
 Full many songs forth I 've been sending 125 
 
 Give me one more clasp of thy hand 184 
 
 God bless thee, German Empress fair ! 91 
 
 Grave by grave and cross by cross' 161 
 
 He comes with breezes blowing 60 
 
 Her soft, cool arms extending 40 
 
 How colorless the sky and dreary 133 
 
 How in thy sweet songs ringing 94 
 
 How long, how long for thee I Ve sought 174 
 
 How long without wilt thou waiting stand ? 3 
 
 Hush, hush! ..." 151 
 
 I bear a joy, a lofty joy . . 167 
 
 I happiness would fain call mine . , 209 
 
 I have drunk deep of the flaming 81 
 
 I lay upon my mother's breast 177 
 
 I love the dusky twilight hour 5 
 
 In dreams I once — I cannot now help smiling .... 152 
 
 In winter's cold I sat my window near 35 
 
 I see thee in the water clear 208 
 
 Is this really my own roof -tree 211 
 
 It is enough ! Cease thine assailing 7 
 
 It lies in the dust, my fair jewel bright 204 
 
 " I 've borne so much already " 73 
 
 I Ve seen the delicate golden-haired child 165 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. xxi 
 
 Page 
 
 Join not the ranks of poets, my son 195 
 
 Known are we women as the weaker sex 218 
 
 Lock whatsoe'er moves thee 206 
 
 Love so fair in vernal beauty 200 
 
 Many have written on this book's fair pages . . . . . 1 57 
 
 Midst a crowd disorderly 58 
 
 Midst the fields of growing crops encircled 54 
 
 Mid sunshine's glow I freezing stand 139 
 
 Mid tempest's roar and the rain's white foam .... 64 
 
 Mother, once more set the bench by the hearth .... 203 
 
 My child, be good 1 187 
 
 My daughter, be the rich man's wife 51 
 
 My dear child, canst thou recall 84 
 
 My heart is strong as a sturdy oak 173 
 
 My native land I will not leave 41 
 
 My part thou hast aye taken 72 
 
 My pilgrim staff is close at hand 113 
 
 My song I will not sell for gold 17 
 
 My verse to thee I 'm dedicating 9 
 
 "Naught can with breeze of Spring compare" . . . 117 
 
 No one 'mong children good me named 124 
 
 No song can I succeed in singing 142 
 
 Not even once have I looked on thy face 93 
 
 Not in the gloomy lap of earth 1 15 
 
 " Now the address " — words from her wan lips slipping . 68 
 
 Oh, come, fair moonlight that I love 171 
 
 Oh, could I but once more have gazed into 86 
 
 Oh, do not torture thus my soul 74 
 
 Oh, kindred soul, I give thee greeting 140 
 
 Oh, say ye not always, the North-land is poor .... 197 
 
 Once again, o'er all the land 153 
 
XX11 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 Page 
 
 Once fared I forth the evil world into 62 
 
 Once I lived from day to day 13 
 
 Once unto me a rose thou gavest 83 
 
 Pain you 've given, bitter pain 147 
 
 Sitting, one fair, bright spring morning 66 
 
 So dearly I love thee, beyond belief 21 
 
 Some day this brain with thoughts that blaze .... 158 
 
 Some laugh as she goes by — and some deride .... 31 
 
 Stars the sky are filling ! 144 
 
 Strife for a quarter-century 10 
 
 Sun, the sun, I fain would be 103 
 
 That thou mightst happy be, I once did pray .... 213 
 
 The day was closing now, after its fierce contending . . 214 
 
 The days of youth passed swiftly by 104 
 
 The kiss which rested on thy lips 71 
 
 The leaves are falling, so soft and light 164 
 
 The moon is rising ! With one more breath gasping . 33 
 
 The nightingale 's sighing 75 
 
 The sons of many other mothers 127 
 
 There is no grief on earth, however fell 8 
 
 The townfolk hold their yearly fair to-day 25 
 
 The waves are all whisp'ring 135 
 
 They laugh at me because, a servant-maid 166 
 
 Thou askest why I 'm weeping ? 77 
 
 Thou movest onward with drooping head 179 
 
 Through the field I wandered dreaming 109 
 
 To Heav'n I 've raised my cries appealing 163 
 
 To me thy picture 's dearer far 192 
 
 Until we meet again ! it hopeful rings 143 
 
 Waves, where are ye going 193 
 
 What aileth thee, O red rose blushing 207 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. XX111 
 
 Page 
 
 What can afflict the child thus weeping ? 169 
 
 What is it here within my breast 78 
 
 What I would wish for is nor praise nor fame .... 217 
 
 What needs the poet for his singing ? 11 
 
 Where happiness, still, calm, and pure 155 
 
 Where shall I take my love ? I 'm weary 189 
 
 Where the golden corn is rustling and theiorest's shadow 28 
 
 Where to its rest the sun is hasting in 
 
 While thou wert sitting sadly grieving 1 19 
 
 Why lurest thou with golden glitter 39 
 
 With happiness its precious freight 219 
 
 Within the forest shades to live and die 176 
 
 With low clanking, a chain 's holding 122 
 
 Would I were dead I How sweet must sleep be, lying . 148 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 TN my vplume, " German Women in Modern Lyric 
 ■*■ Poetry," I have already ventured to express the 
 opinion that, in view of the remarkable poetic and 
 literary productions of many German women of the 
 present time, this might be termed a brilliant epoch 
 of feminine literature. I should be reluctant to have 
 this statement misunderstood. It by no means refers 
 to the fact, in many respects a lamentable one, that it 
 is women who, especially in the domain of fiction, are 
 displaying an activity which scarcely permits even the 
 most zealous observer to make an adequate record; 
 nor to the circumstance that women authors predomi- 
 nate in the family papers. I merely wish to assert 
 that, among the large number of the literary women 
 of the last decades of this century, there are many 
 who, by the value of their poetic work, the peculiarity 
 of their intellectual creations, demand the recognition 
 not only of the great reading public, but also of the 
 serious worshipper of art, as well as the historian of 
 literature who judges with keen objectivity. So the 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 statement is not caused by the mass of literary pro- 
 ductions, nor by the great number of women who are 
 striving for the laurels of poetry, but by the actual 
 importance of the productions themselves, which ought 
 not to be overlooked in any history of letters, and 
 which show us the feminine literature of our own time 
 in its full florescence. 
 
 That many critics and historians of literature hold a 
 different opinion, we can daily convince ourselves. 
 
 I seek and find the basis of such phenomena, not in 
 the fact that the critic in question reaches adverse 
 opinions in consequence of his view or conviction of 
 woman's capacity in the domain of intellect, nor even 
 that the fear of a competition, which may indeed arouse 
 anxiety, in some degree incites him to the warfare 
 against women's writings, — no ! the former would 
 be very narrow-minded, the latter unlovely and ignoble. 
 I find the source of these phenomena solely in the fact 
 that these critics have not properly surveyed the un- 
 deniably over-large field of feminine literature. Were 
 this done, many verdicts would become more lenient. 
 
 I willingly admit, nay, I have even frequently said, that 
 during the examination of the lyric poetry of the 
 women of our day, in the presence of the countless 
 volumes in which equally numberless women perpet- 
 uate — that is, seek to perpetuate — their well or ill 
 scanned joys and woes, one may with justice despair- 
 ingly exclaim : " The spirit of God did not hover over 
 
introduction: xxvii 
 
 these waters ! " But even the critic whose demands are 
 the most rigid and exacting cannot help readily admit- 
 ting — that is, if he has surveyed the field — that the 
 lyrical productions of the recently deceased Betty Paoli, 
 of Countess Wickenburg-Almasy, also dead, as well as 
 of the poetesses Ada Christen, Carmen Sylva, Helene 
 von Engelhardt, Use Frapan, Giinther von Freiberg, 
 Amara George, Amelie Godin, M. E. delle Grazie, 
 M. Hellmuth, Angelika von Hormann, Ricarda 
 Huch, M. Janitschek, Agnes Kayser-Langerhauss, 
 Isolde Kurz, M. von Najmajer, Alberta von Puttkammer, 
 Emil Roland, Frida Schanz, and Countess S. Wald- 
 burg, at least should not be overlooked in the history 
 of the poetry of the present day. 
 
 The most patient and unprejudiced reader will 
 cheerfully admit that if, according to Berthold Auer- 
 bach's prescription, we should discharge canister shot 
 into a million pianos to check the wretched piano epi- 
 demic, we might with full reason first stuff these jin- 
 gling boxes with women's novels ; but the objective 
 critic or historian of literature will with equal readiness 
 acknowledge that the epic works of many German 
 women shine as ornaments in the wreath twined by 
 the narrative poetry of the present day. The names 
 of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, M. E. delle Grazie, 
 Ada Christen, Ida Boy-Ed, Marie von Haustein, E. 
 von Dincklage, Wilhelmine von Hillern, Ossip Schubin, 
 E. Marriot, Johanna Niemann, Louise von Francois, 
 
XXviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 B. von Suttner, and others cannot be mentioned with 
 the customary shrug of the shoulders ; for what they 
 have accomplished in the domain of epic fiction will 
 not be merely catalogued, but will have its poetic 
 merits duly set forth. Nay, when we judge impar- 
 tially, we reach the conviction that, especially in Austria, 
 women have already contended for literary precedence 
 with men. Of the masculine leaders Robert Hamer- 
 ling * is already dead, and a woman, Marie Eugenie 
 delle Grazie, has taken his place. Her magnificent 
 epic, " Robespierre," has afforded us the consolation 
 that the place where Hamerling stood is not deserted, 
 but occupied by a sister of equal birthright in Apollo, 
 whose name must be mentioned in the history of 
 German poetry with the foremost. Marie Euge'nie 
 delle Grazie is at present the greatest poet of Austria, 
 and Marie von Ebner Eschenbach the best novelist. 
 
 I have apparently wandered somewhat widely from 
 my purpose of passing to the creative work of a woman 
 of the people whose poetic productions I am giving 
 to the public in this book ; but I cannot refrain from 
 pointing out that, in the present development of 
 women's literature, not only these representatives of 
 the gentler sex who have had the blessing of a higher 
 education are entering the arena of intellect, but that, 
 even in the lower ranks of the people, poetic voices 
 
 1 Best known in America by his romance of Greek life, 
 " Aspasia." — Tr. 
 
introduction: xxix 
 
 are being raised which it would be a sin to leave un- 
 heard. In the first line stood the poetess of nature, 
 Katherina Koch, of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria, now 
 dead. I published several years ago a portion of her 
 beautiful, thoughtful, and national poetry, and am now 
 giving to the reading world the whole literary legacy of 
 this woman of the people, who for sixteen years per- 
 formed the duties of a maidservant, and yet was a 
 genuine poetess. I will devote the net profits to the 
 erection of a simple monument in her home, Orten- 
 burg in Lower Bavaria, or use it to found a Katharine 
 Koch Institute. 
 
 With the present book, " Poems by Johanna Am- 
 brosius," I am permitted to introduce to literature a 
 woman who, born the daughter of a poor artisan, gave 
 her hand in wedlock to a peasant, and, in spite of 
 the hard labor required in the house and fields, can 
 always find an hour to receive the visit of the Muse 
 who has imprinted the kiss of consecration on her 
 brow. I now commit the book anew to the public, in 
 the joyous belief that others will be as much uplifted by 
 this voice from the people as I was when I examined 
 the poems. My task is twofold. First, I would fain, 
 as has already been mentioned, win for the work of 
 this poetess a little nook in the history of the poetry 
 of our own times, — poetesses of the people and of 
 nature are rare ; secondly, the purpose of this 
 volume is to procure for the invalid, needy woman a 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 net profit which will somewhat lighten the burdens of 
 her peasant life and, it is to be hoped, from the suc- 
 cess thus far obtained, secure a future competence. 
 
 When, just before the Christmas holidays of the year 
 1894, I published the first edition, I was so gener- 
 ously supported that, ere they were over, I could send 
 the poetess a considerable sum. A warm " May God 
 reward you ! w to all who answered with a subscription 
 the appeal I published in the newspapers ! Yet I 
 must confess that I had not hoped for so rapid a sale 
 of the books. Within a few days I had not a single copy 
 at my disposal. Then, especially after the publication 
 of the work was transferred to Konigsberg, Prussia, 
 edition followed edition in the most rapid succession, 
 until now, eighteen months after the appearance of 
 the first, the twenty-sixth is called for. This is cer- 
 tainly a rare and unexpected success ; probably scarcely 
 ever before has a poetess received so swift a rec- 
 ognition and such universal approbation as Johanna 
 Ambrosius. She has been unanimously welcomed by 
 all the critics, and many foreign periodicals — English, 
 American, French, Dutch, and Italian — have lauded 
 her in long articles. This successful run caused a 
 discussion of the volume by Heinrich Hart in No. 29 1 
 of the "Taglichen Rundschau," issued December 13, 
 1894, from which I am permitted to make an extract. 
 The popular poet says : — 
 
 "It is a heartfelt pleasure to announce in the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 ' Taglichen Rundschau,' the paper whose readers will 
 especially appreciate what causes me such joyful 
 emotion, a little volume which has just appeared : 
 1 Johanna Ambrosius, a German Poetess of the People.' 
 I began to read the booklet somewhat distrustfully, for 
 I have had many an untoward experience with persons 
 who boastfully assumed the title of Poet of the People ; 
 but I needed only to glance at a few pages ere deep 
 sympathy mastered me, and I read the book with 
 eager interest to the end. It is one of the most 
 beautiful evidences of the wealth of soul, intellectual 
 yearning, ideal aspiration, which are hidden in our 
 nation, even in the classes where the blast expect 
 only psychical dulness and mental inertia; but also 
 a testimonial of the various ways in which stunted 
 development threatens this aspiration, because it is 
 and must remain so completely in obscurity. The 
 young Italian poetess, Ada Negri, who, amid oppres- 
 sive poverty and seclusion from the world, has devel- 
 oped a marvellous poetic talent, is already a lauded 
 personality in German literary circles ; but who among 
 us has ever heard of the German poetess Johanna 
 Voigt, born Ambrosius, who, amid still more difficult 
 circumstances than the Italian's, discovered and re- 
 vealed her talent ? As an individual, Ada Negri is 
 probably a more marked character than her German 
 sister, who lacks the vigorous self-consciousness, the 
 bold social views of the Italian ; but as a poetess Johanna 
 
XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ambrosius need scarcely shun comparison with Negri : 
 whatever advantage the latter has in form, the German 
 possesses in genuineness of feeling. Without any 
 external encouragement, burdened by severe manual 
 daily labor, Johanna Ambrosius was obliged to make 
 herself what she has become ; now, for the first time, 
 she has found in Karl Schrattenthal a friend who has 
 compiled and published the poems of the woman 
 bowed by toil and illness. 
 
 " But the poetess still maintains her mental health, 
 and song after song still flows forth, even now. Only 
 a small portion are contained in the Schrattenthal 
 collection ; but these few will suffice to awaken 
 admiration for a woman who, thus burdened, thus 
 secluded from the world, not only so fully expanded 
 her heart and soul, but even developed a rare delicacy 
 of feeling for rhythm and expression. 
 
 " Very infrequently does she regard poverty as some- 
 thing unendurable ; she always struggles on to renun- 
 ciation and submission, and often extols sorrow, as 
 did Saint Francis of Assisi ; for instance, in the pro- 
 foundly thoughtful poem of ' Bridegroom Pain and 
 Sister Sorrow.' * Therefore even her own need did 
 not harden her against the poverty which oppressed 
 the people around her, but rather deepened her com- 
 passion. Like those of Negri, many of the poems of 
 Ambrosius also have a socialistic sympathy, but they 
 
 1 The poem in this volume bears the title " My Friend." — Tr. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXX111 
 
 wholly lack the Italian's revolutionary, daring spirit ; 
 the German laments, but she neither assails nor 
 defies. 
 
 " Genuine poesy also emanates from the love poems 
 and songs of home, which reveal an ardent apprecia- 
 tion of nature, coupled with a kindly German temper- 
 ament. It is to be hoped that many will purchase the 
 little work of this * fettered yet inwardly free soul.' " 
 
 I should like to thank Herr Heinrich Hart here 
 most heartily, but he would reject it with the words, 
 4< I have done my duty as a conscientious critic." 
 
 I derived special pleasure from the numerous letters 
 of recognition that reached the authoress in the little 
 East-Prussian village, and which she permitted me 
 to read. They afford many proofs of a favorable 
 though not professional criticism, and I will allow 
 myself — the authoress ought not to take offence — to 
 publish a poetic greeting which is especially graceful. 
 
 TO JOHANNA VOIGT-AMBROSIUS. 
 
 Far off upon the barren moors, 
 
 There blooms a flow'ret fair ; 
 Its fragrance sweet, like springtide glow, 
 
 All lands of earth may share. 
 
 Within the deepest forest shades 
 
 Echoed a seraph's tone, 
 And on the angel wings of grief 
 
 To God himself hath flown. 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 From out of the World-Spirit's cup 
 
 A shining drop swift sank, 
 Which, lo ! thy beauty-thirsting lips, 
 
 O German Sappho, drank ! 
 
 In heartfelt reverence and sincere admiration, 
 
 A German Sister in England. 
 
 I will remark, by way of introduction, that for the 
 .purpose of procuring a tolerably clear view of the 
 character and circumstances of the peasant poetess, 
 I applied to all her relatives or acquaintances who 
 presumably could afford me many interesting par- 
 ticulars. I was not disappointed in my expectation ; 
 assistance was most kindly rendered, and I take this 
 opportunity of thanking them for their willingness and 
 labor. If I do not use the most attractive and pecu- 
 liar contributions to the modest picture I wish to 
 sketch, — the letters which the poetess wrote to me, — 
 the command of discretion must plead my apology. 
 
 Johanna Ambrosius (Frau Johanna Voigt, born 
 Ambrosius) was born on the 3rd of August, 1854, at 
 Lengwethen, a village in the district of Ragnit in East 
 Prussia, as the second child of a poor artisan. Of 
 course she was permitted to attend only the little 
 village school, and that merely until she was eleven 
 years old ; from that time, for a long period, she was 
 acquainted with nothing except hard work. 
 
 Johanna remained at home with her elder sister 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 Martha ; and as her mother was ill for years, the young 
 girls, scarcely beyond childhood, were obliged to 
 perform every kind of labor, even the hardest and 
 most menial. So they were forced to struggle 
 through that year of destitution, 1867, in which their 
 parents both succumbed to illness. 
 
 The father read a great deal, and allowed the chil- 
 dren to have the " Gartenlaube ; " and the young girls 
 with joyful hearts sacrificed everything in order to be 
 able to obtain food for their minds. When they had 
 spun till their fingers were bleeding, and had hung the 
 allotted number of skeins on the nail, they stretched 
 out their hands for their beloved paper. 
 
 At twenty Johanna married a peasant. So she lived 
 in a most wretched hut, and had no companions except 
 among the people. 
 
 Two children — Marie, now nineteen, and Erich, 
 sixteen years old — were given to her and increased 
 her cares. By means of a small legacy the husband and 
 wife found it possible to buy a little house and a piece 
 of land in Gross-Wersmeninken. But the young wife's 
 hopes were not realized. Physical and mental suffer- 
 ings assailed her. Grief forced a passage, and Johanna 
 became a poetess. In the autumn of the year 1884 
 her first poem was written. Her sister Martha became 
 the confidante of this secret, and sent Frau Anny 
 Wothe, the editor of the periodical " Von Haus zu 
 Haus," several poems which were accepted and pub- 
 
XXXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lished. Yet though several other papers also accepted 
 the poetical productions of the ardent soul forced into 
 such narrow circumstances, unfortunately no one 
 thought of rendering the poor woman's beautiful gift 
 its just due and making her poems known in larger 
 circles ; and so Johanna remained obscure. And how 
 gladly she would have sent the children of her brain 
 out into the world, not for the sake of idle fame, but 
 to be able to do something for her beloved children ! 
 
 Then I made the attempt, and it succeeded. But 
 it was quite time ; for the poetess is supporting her 
 son away from home, and is ill and feeble. At New 
 Year's in 1890, influenza brought her to a sick-bed, 
 inflammation of the lungs set in, and when, without 
 medical aid, she was again able to rise, she knew that 
 her health was forever shattered. Her body is feeble, 
 and it is only with pain and suffering that she is able 
 to fulfil her duties as a much harassed country woman. 
 And yet new poems are still written ! What a power- 
 ful imagination must exert its sovereignty ! Yet the 
 poetess has never seen mountain, lake, or palace, — 
 in short, has never beheld any other magnificence than 
 the beauty of her own home. But she has gazed at 
 this little with a poet's eyes. I think I may feel sure 
 every unprejudiced reader will draw from what is 
 offered that this is a noteworthy, and in part a strongly 
 poetic talent. But it is particularly surprising that, 
 under circumstances so unfavorable, the woman could 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 
 
 soar to such an intellectual height. She herself, of 
 course, considers it all perfectly natural and simple. 
 "Only I cannot write to order/' she says naively 
 enough, in one of her letters; "and when I am 
 not impelled to write poetry, the Muse bites my 
 finger." 
 
 I myself, while reading the poems sent me, could 
 not repress my surprise ; yet the poor woman's letters 
 informed me that before her illness she regularly 
 swung the flail on the threshing-floor \ nay, I learned 
 at the same time that, in her husband's absence, she 
 attended to house, field, and stable, and three years 
 ago mowed the hay with the scythe and bound the 
 sheaves in the harvest season ! Now her weak back 
 no longer permits such heavy labor. Her only leisure 
 time for writing is on Sunday, and when does she 
 compose ? In the fields, in the garden, while cooking, 
 in the stable. And she is aided by a remarkable 
 memory. She can repeat all her poems, perhaps five 
 hundred, by heart. 
 
 Her reading from her thirteenth to her twentieth 
 year, as has already been mentioned, was the " Garten- 
 laube " and a few books supplied by her sister Martha ; 
 then for twelve years she remained without any mental 
 stimulus, neither newspapers nor books, Bible nor 
 hymnbook. During recent years she first read the 
 poetry of Karl Stieler and Fritz Reuter. 
 
 When I decided to publish a selection from the 
 
XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 poems of this gifted woman, it was of course to the 
 " Gartenlaube " I applied. Herr Ad. Kroner was kind 
 enough to take a poem, "Let her Sleep." To this 
 circumstance I owed a letter from a lady living in 
 Pillkallen, East Prussia, which I will insert here 
 because it makes us acquainted with the circum- 
 stances of the poetess. It is dated October 9, 1894, 
 and runs as follows : — 
 
 " Through one of the last numbers of the * Garten- 
 laube ' you directed my attention to the talented 
 poetess, Frau Ambrosius-Voigt, and my interest was 
 awakened. As the place of residence you named is 
 only about three miles from my native city, I sought 
 her out, and shall fulfil her wishes if I describe how 
 and where I found her. 
 
 " Not far from a larger church-village, Lasdehnen, on 
 a broad, monotonous plain, stretches a dark, solemn 
 fir wood, now and then varied by the lighter green of 
 the deciduous trees. Here is solitude, the stern soli- 
 tude of the forest, of which the poetess writes in her 
 verse and has the power to interpret. Here, even in 
 our usually monotonous East Prussia, a poetic spirit 
 can rejoice and find sustenance for its glowing emotions. 
 I was letting my eyes wander rapturously over the 
 gloomy tops of the trees, then I suddenly saw the sun 
 illumine the edge of the woods, and a short distance 
 before me appeared the modest little houses of a 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 village ; it must be Gross- Wersraeninken. People 
 were at work near the road digging their potatoes, 
 who answered my questions whether this was the 
 village I supposed it to be, and where Frau Voigt 
 lived. I was really near the end of my drive, and, 
 after a short time, I turned into the village street, 
 scanning every farmhouse which might perhaps be 
 worthy of sheltering the mind of a poetess. 
 
 " One plain little house, almost exactly like its neigh- 
 bor, succeeded another ; but one was different, wholly 
 different, almost more modest than the rest, the win- 
 dows small, the roof low, the plain gray wooden walls 
 scarcely visible, for they were covered to the roof with 
 vines which made the tiny windows seem still smaller. 
 In front of the house was a little garden where a few 
 autumn flowers, in spite of the lateness of the season, 
 still maintained their blooming existence. She must 
 live here ! Yet, notwithstanding this conviction, I 
 first stopped at the tavern, and learned from its land- 
 lady, also a Frau Voigt, that I had made no mistake. I 
 traversed the short distance on foot, and reached the 
 vine-covered dwelling. A little watchdog barked, and 
 a thin, sickly, poorly clad woman, stooping in her 
 walk, crossed the threshold to meet me. It was 
 Johanna Ambrosius-Voigt. After learning my desire, 
 she ushered me into the house. I passed through a 
 low door into a room more than plain ; it lacked every 
 ornament and every comfort, only it was neat, but 
 
xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nothing would have suggested the asylum of a poet- 
 ess. On the table, scoured till white, stood a well-filled 
 inkstand, and beside it lay a penholder which one 
 saw was fit for use and was used. The latter fact 
 could not fail to be noticed by any one who knows 
 how difficult it is to obtain available writing-materials 
 among people of her class in our neighborhood. 
 
 " Frau Voigt herself was very poorly clad, as simply as 
 the poorest laborer's wife in our region. A plain skirt, 
 a jacket, and a dark kerchief tied over her head cer- 
 tainly did not aid in leading one to expect more from 
 her than from others similar in appearance. But I had 
 talked only a few minutes with this singular woman, 
 and now and then during our conversation had seen her 
 eyes sparkle, ere I knew in whose presence I stood. 
 
 " I spent nearly two hours with her, and could scarcely 
 tear myself away from our stimulating conversation. 
 When we parted we shook hands as if we had shared 
 joy and sorrow for years. She told me many things 
 about her misunderstood existence, for the whole 
 circle of her neighborhood is ill-suited to share her 
 interests and tastes. So she stands alone and un- 
 comprehended, with her ardent, sensitive heart, and 
 moreover in poverty and need. She loves her two 
 children tenderly." 
 
 As I have already mentioned, I shall renounce the 
 best means of presenting a correct picture of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 poetess's character, — that is, the publication of the 
 letters she has written to me. I do so with a heavy 
 heart, but from well-considered reasons, — with a heavy- 
 heart, because these letters produce an effect almost 
 more immediate than the poems, and because they are 
 a little jewel casket of charming descriptions and origi- 
 nal thoughts. But I do not wish to deprive my newly 
 won friend of unrestricted freedom in correspondence ; 
 and this would inevitably occur if she wrote every letter 
 with the disturbing thought that it might be published. 
 So for the description of her characteristics I will 
 confine myself to the contributions made by her 
 relatives and friends. First, there is a letter from her 
 beloved sister Martha, which I quote here because it, 
 too, proceeds from the pen of an artisan's daughter, 
 who, like Johanna, enjoyed only the instruction of the 
 village school. In reply to my request for a few data 
 of her sister's life, she wrote September 3rd, 1894, 
 among other things, the following : — 
 
 4 'Yes, describe her nature ! Now more than ever 
 a simile would suit Johanna ! Pegasus dying in har- 
 ness ! As a beautiful and clever child she was be- 
 loved by all who knew her, an embodied sunbeam. 
 The influences exerted by her education, warping, and 
 domestic circumstances to make her what she has 
 become, Johanna herself has perhaps already indi- 
 cated. It would be going too far, were I to describe 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 everything, — her sunny, care- free early childhood, how 
 her active mind was left to itself, while her delicate, 
 nay, fragile body was burdened with the hardest, most 
 menial tasks in the field and stable. At that time 
 she still looked with untroubled, trusting eyes into the 
 world, which in youth seems so beautiful ; yet we both 
 felt how unlike we were to our companions in the 
 village. Our souls were beginning to retire into 
 themselves. Sparks were commencing to flash from 
 Johanna's little brain; the longing for liberty, light, 
 Life, resistlessly forced a pathway. Johanna had out- 
 grown the obedience required by her parents, but 
 crushing to body and soul ; she often manifested her 
 own will, and half in pursuit of her own inclinations, 
 half yielding to the pressure of circumstances, she 
 entered the service of strangers. Perhaps she hoped 
 to find in the outside world what her soul missed. 
 Oh, disappointment ! So she returned home, and, 
 to gain liberty as she thought, gave her hand to a 
 plain but kind and honest peasant, who had been 
 loyally and ardently attached to her from childhood. 
 Johanna went open-eyed with the husband of her 
 choice into poverty and the hardest toil. Proudly 
 and uncomplainingly she endured her self-chosen 
 destiny, until her health failed. She had compre- 
 hended the misery, the full woe of a vainly struggling, 
 terribly impoverished life, and from the darkness of 
 this limitless suffering rose — the poetess. The poverty 
 
INTR OD UCTION. xli i i 
 
 and menial labor to which my poor beloved sister has 
 been bound have destroyed her health. True, her only 
 thought is for her two children, to be permitted to live 
 and work for them ! Work with a body emaciated 
 to a mere skeleton ! Her sole answer to every en- 
 treaty for care and caution is a faint smile." 
 
 I may probably regard as an equally characteristic 
 contribution to the description of the nature of the 
 poetess a selection of sentences from her own letters : 
 
 Whoever, like me, has sat at the same board with 
 want, and drunk from the same cup with penury, 
 knows what life is. 
 
 In my hands ornament would be irony. 
 
 I have my children, the Muse — what care I for 
 the world? 
 
 I withdraw from mere gayety, but music and sing- 
 ing can fairly snatch me away from earth. 
 
 I am accustomed to judge my own faults severely, 
 yet always to extenuate those of others with " If and 
 But." 
 
 What is the best thing for poor people? Sound 
 limbs. 
 
 In my youth I often wept from longing and home- 
 sickness for knowledge. 
 
 Wealth is a luxuriant plant which every one 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 admires; but no one asks from what soil it has 
 sprung. 
 
 In Germany death is the poet's best letter of 
 introduction. 
 
 Yes, I, too, wish I had bags of money, — not for 
 myself; but I would like to give to all who suffer want. 
 
 Nothing is so insatiable as the human heart. If it 
 has enough to eat and drink, it longs for costly gear ; 
 and if it obtains that also, it would fain have the blue 
 sky for a table-cloth. 
 
 Woman's greatest misfortune is — to be obliged to 
 rule. 
 
 A woman who complains is despised. 
 
 When I write a poem, I am so excited, so carried 
 away from the world, that I seem a stranger to myself. 
 
 God knows what is good ; He had compassion upon 
 my burden and sent me the angel of comfort (the 
 
 Muse). 
 
 How sorrowful the half-blown roses look to-day 
 (after a hoar-frost) ! Probably it is the same with a 
 late love. 
 
 Never flatter me, always speak the truth ; it is harsh, 
 but healthful. 
 
 I will never give up my faith ; I may be bruised, 
 but not broken. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 My method of writing is as follows : either I freely 
 pursue my own way without stopping across hedge and 
 ditch, or I stumble over the first blade of grass. Most 
 of the poems are written at one dash ; others, where I 
 have to improve and correct, show the traces of it. 
 
 To be poor is hard, to be ill is harder ; and yet what 
 are all physical sufferings compared to those which a 
 fettered soul endures ? 
 
 It costs a great deal to be a Christian. 
 
 Often an hour is enough to grow old. 
 
 To him who can quench his thirst at the spring it is 
 incomprehensible how the poor man, who only catches 
 drops from fragments of vessels, can laud them as a 
 cordial. 
 
 The heart dictates, the mind does the work, and the 
 soul sings the rhythm. 
 
 My modest appeal to the German nation had thus 
 far met with unexpectedly good success. In East 
 Prussia, especially, people vied with one another in 
 obtaining, by means of charitable performances, money 
 with which to alleviate the hard fate of the gifted 
 poetess. In Konigsberg large sums were obtained, 
 and in Erfurt the results were equally favorable. Con- 
 siderable amounts came from individual benefactors, to 
 whom, in the name of the poetess, I express my warm- 
 est thanks. My petition to the Tiedge Institution was 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 answered with the grant of liberal assistance, and the 
 Schiller Institution promised similar aid. So it is to 
 be hoped that the sadly impaired health of the poetess 
 may be strengthened, if not fully restored, by the 
 money now at her disposal, for she will be able to do 
 more for the relief of her physical sufferings. 
 
 It is my duty to prove that, in the numerous discus- 
 sions of Johanna Ambrosius's poems which have 
 hitherto appeared, most critics have laid too much 
 stress upon what our poetess has read. Some of her 
 verse is compared with Goethe's, — she has only now 
 become acquainted with the poems of Goethe and 
 Schiller through the kindness of a lady. Yet it is cer- 
 tain that she derived a thousand-fold more profit from 
 her limited reading than do many others who devour 
 books. She writes thus in one of her letters to me : 
 " So even one description from the ' Gartenlaube ' was 
 enough for me to live upon for months. If during the 
 twelve mute years I had had annually a single volume 
 of Lessing, Goethe, or Schiller, how rich I should be 
 now ! Yes, reading lay open before me, but without 
 words or printer's ink." 
 
 Many of her poems within this brief period have 
 been set to music. Up to this time the following 
 have been made known to me : " Invitation," " My 
 Love," "Not within Earth's Gloomy Bosom," "Oh, 
 Love Thou too," "For my Child," "Parted," "De- 
 fence," " Shut what Moves Thee \ * " Fata Morgana," 
 
introduction: xlvii 
 
 by Ed. Meier in Carlsruhe j "At the Fireside;" 
 " Open thy Heart," by the leader of the royal band, 
 Wolff, in Tilsit ; " It is Enough ; " " For Thee," by 
 Otto Steinwender in Memel ; "A Summer Night;" 
 "For Thee," by Dr. Robert Laser in Lasdehnen; 
 "Home," for a quartette of male voices, by Georg 
 Schmerberg in Berlin; "My Native Land," by Dr. 
 Robert Laser of Lasdehnen, by Ballet Director A. 
 Falkenhagen, by Frau Magdalene Charisius, and as 
 a march by Herr Ohnesorg, Director of the orchestra 
 in Konigsberg, Prussia ; " The Sound of the Bells ; " 
 and " What I Love," by Ed. Dubsky of Pressburg. 
 
 In conclusion, I cannot omit to insert here my dear 
 friend's poetic thanks to the Dramatic Amateur So- 
 ciety of Konigsberg, because, though only an occa- 
 sional poem, its simple beauty is specially charming. 
 
 How soon, how soon I shall forgotten be ! 
 
 How swiftly clouds of incense fade away, 
 
 How swiftly withers fairest laurel leaf, 
 
 And no one asks or where or whence it came. 
 
 It will be well. — I shall go forth again 
 
 Unto my daily task, and see the grain, 
 
 The blades of grass grow ever higher, higher, 
 
 Shall listen to the lark's sweet matin song, 
 
 And shake from off my skirts the glistening dew. 
 
 Into the wood's green shades gaze thirstily, 
 
 And peace and solitude drink in once more. 
 
 Toil here and there, with hands long trained, as ever, 
 
 In house and fields, the little garden visit, 
 
xlviil INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Perchance, from an old habit, lightly kiss 
 
 The tender leaves of the young cherry-trees 
 
 I planted, lift the vine's luxuriant arms, 
 
 That they may twine into an arbor fair 
 
 Shelter to give in summer's burning heat. 
 
 No sigh will e'er escape for vanished days, 
 
 Those days when high aloft was I exalted, 
 
 Days when the waves of happiness, high-surging, 
 
 Flung up to my poor heart gold-glitt'ring spray, 
 
 When veiled was I, as though in a bright halo, 
 
 By incense sweet of many a human heart. 
 
 'T is past, 't is past ! On earth all things soon vanish, 
 
 And no long time hath happiness to dwell ; 
 
 Their chiming now the vesper-bells have ceased. 
 
 The notes so eloquent no longer sound — 
 
 How soon, how soon I shall forgotten be! 
 
 But faithful memory will I ever hold 
 
 Of ye, all ye, who once to me have given 
 
 Joy's brimming beaker for my lips to quaff. 
 
 By day and night I '11 hold ye in my heart, 
 
 And often talk with ye while at my work, 
 
 How dear to me ye 've been, how kind, how friendly, — 
 
 Greeting will I send to ye by my song, 
 
 Till comes the day when heart and lips are mute ! 
 
 February 22, 1895 
 
 I am animated by but a single wish, — that an equally 
 auspicious destiny may attend this new edition. It 
 would be incomprehensible to me if a voice so poetic 
 as that of our authoress should not be heard ; incom- 
 prehensible if a great nation should permit such a 
 poetess to perish in poverty, sorrow, and anxiety. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlix 
 
 I express with confidence what I have already once 
 believed myself justified in saying, — namely, when I 
 published the poems of Katharina Koch, — Proud may 
 well be the nation from whose lower classes such poetic 
 voices echo. 
 
 Karl Weiss-Schrattenthal. 
 
 Pressburg, Kisfaludygasse 22, 
 June, 1895. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 At the close of this volume is an interesting criticism 
 by Herman Grimm ; also a graphic description is reprinted, 
 from the pen of an American journalist, of the visit of 
 a messenger from the Empress of Germany conveying 
 donations and honors to the peasant poetess. 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 Not by form and rhythm judge me. 
 Nothing have I learned of them, — 
 These are wildling flowers only, 
 Sometimes decked with dew-drop's gem; 
 Blasted here and there by tempest, 
 As they grow in moor and fields, 
 All are torn from out my heart's nest, 
 Like those Mother Nature yields. 
 
 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 Gr. Werstneninken, near Lasdehnen 
 (East Prussia), July 2, i8gf, 
 
SONG AND SORROW. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 SONG AND SORROW. 
 
 INVITATION. 
 
 TTOW long without wilt thou waiting stand? 
 A ■*■ Come in, thou dear and welcome guest ; 
 Too fiercely the winds sweep o'er the land, — 
 
 Come, for a brief hour with me rest. 
 In vain for shelter humbly pleading, 
 
 From door to door long didst thou roam : 
 How thou hast suffered while help needing! 
 
 Come, rest at last within my home. 
 
 In comfort sit thou down beside me, 
 
 Lay thy dear head my hands within ; 
 Then will the peace return full surely 
 
 Reft by this evil world of sin. 
 With the soft whir of wings unfolding, 
 
 From thy heart's depths sweet love will rise, 
 With magic touch thy grave lips moulding, 
 
 Till their loved smile doth greet my eyes. 
 
.< 4'^ 
 
 ' : . , ' POEMS. 
 
 Come, rest : close my embrace will hold thee ; 
 
 So long as but one pulse beats yet, 
 Ne'er will my heart turn from thee coldly, 
 
 Or even in the grave forget. 
 Thou look'st at me with timid longing ; 
 
 Mute still, despite the promised rest ; 
 Thy sole reply is tears swift thronging : 
 
 Come, weep thy fill upon my breast. 
 
AT THE FIRESIDE. 
 
 AT THE FIRESIDE. 
 
 T LOVE the dusky twilight hour 
 ■*- When at my fireside I sit, 
 And watch its jaws of flame outpour, 
 Light, graceful forms, which upward flit 
 
 Like living flowers swift they rise, 
 
 Where its red heart most deeply glows, 
 
 And deck, like maids with laughing eyes, 
 Their breasts with a golden rose. 
 
 Their curls — gay, glitt'ring serpents sleek — 
 
 Mount writhing, dart toward me, 
 And breathe upon my faded cheek 
 
 Youth's vanished sorcery. 
 
 And higher mid the radiance, see, 
 
 Their arms they stretch into the night, 
 
 In a wild dance of elfin glee 
 
 Which stirs the heart with keen delight. 
 
 While burning kisses fervid glow, 
 And still the whirling dance goes on, 
 
 Ere longing doth fulfilment know — 
 
 By their own flames consumed, they 're gone. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 My head upon my hand I rest, 
 
 Gaze at the hearth, so dull, so dark ) 
 
 Would that the fire within my breast 
 Might die as soon to its last spark ! 
 
IT IS ENOUGH. 
 
 IT IS ENOUGH. 
 
 TT is enough ! Cease thine assailing, 
 
 In dust my limbs lie wearily. 
 Thou calm'st the meanest creature's wailing : 
 
 Must I alone forgotten be ? 
 Wouldst thou destroy me? Well, here stand I, 
 
 Awaiting still thy sword-blade's sough ; 
 But torture not with blows so sorely, 
 
 And stay thy hand. It is enough ! 
 
 It is enough ! These chains inflaming 
 
 With hellish fire my aching heart, — 
 All powerless are words in naming 
 
 The boundless anguish of their smart. 
 From gyves the criminal aye loose we, 
 
 When dragged to doom by jailers rough : 
 Wilt thou not cast one glance in mercy 
 
 My guilt upon ? It is enough ! 
 
 It is enough ! All earth's woes feeling, 
 
 I 've suffered till my soul is sick ; 
 Have fought till, bleeding, bruised past healing, 
 
 Wounded I lie unto the quick. 
 See through my hands the tremor gliding ; 
 
 My feeble breath full soon will cease : 
 Thou Judge, o'er life and death presiding, 
 
 It is enough ! Oh, grant me peace ! 
 
POEMS. 
 
 EJACULATORY PRAYER. 
 
 '"PHERE is no grief on earth, however fell, 
 * Within whose heart no spark of joy doth dwell. 
 Yet mine hath not even that ray of pleasure ! 
 Who can it measure ? 
 
 To still keep silence when, in fiercest anguish, 
 The heart must unto death with longing languish ; 
 Against the bruised breast the hard rocks clasping, 
 And sharp thorns grasping ! 
 
 In bonds to lie, incapable of movement, 
 No spot to lay the head for sleep's balm potent, 
 No drop of cordial to parched lips to proffer, 
 Yet battle offer ! 
 
 So strive we onward to the grave's dark portal, 
 Until we speak our last words with lips mortal ; 
 Until the soul doth from the body sever, 
 Peace cometh never ! 
 
 But in the boundless space beyond earth glowing 
 Lies the true happiness I 'm sure of knowing ! 
 A thousand suns with rays of joy are beaming 
 Beyond my dreaming ! 
 
MY FRIEND. 
 
 MY FRIEND. 
 
 TV TY verse to thee I 'm dedicating, 
 ■*■***■ Mine own familiar friend, 
 O Pain ! who shares my couch while waiting 
 For dawn with night to blend. 
 
 Before the door of my house standing, 
 
 He bares his shining blade, 
 And challenges all : hence commanding 
 
 Those unasked who invade. 
 
 To be our guest he doth full often 
 
 His sister Sorrow press ; 
 Long does she rest in house and croft then, 
 
 And stitches me a dress. 
 
 Of all companions he 's most constant ; 
 
 My wine to pour he 's fain ; 
 And a fresh cup, aye vigilant, 
 
 He fills when one I drain. 
 
 Now envy ye not my estate 
 Who such a friend hath found ? 
 
 Death only can us separate, 
 So closely are we bound. 
 
10 POEMS. 
 
 CONFLICT AND PEACE. 
 
 OTRIFE for a quarter-century, 
 ^ With nor sword-thrust, nor battle-cry, 
 Nor powder-smoke, nor victory, 
 Nor St. John's Knight in the melee. 
 Yet many were the conflicts hot, 
 Of which the idle world recked naught ; 
 How dire the peril often grew 
 God only knew. 
 
 E'en to the depths of my soul rent, 
 With wounds in hands and feet sore spent, 
 Crushed beneath many a cruel heel, 
 How sharp the pangs they made me feel ! 
 How I have wept and moaned and sighed, 
 While my foe's cruel taunts replied ; 
 How to the mark each keen shaft flew, 
 God only knew. 
 
 Evening draws near, a cool breeze blows, 
 The stress of battle feebler grows ; 
 Sometimes the lips which pain has blanched, 
 Utter a sigh — the blood is stanched — 
 Past is the anguish of the fray, 
 A star shines with a gentle ray, 
 Peace comes — the path of trial trod — 
 Bestowed by God. 
 
THE POET. II 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 TITHAT needs the poet for his singing ? 
 ™ ■ What knowledge must he call his own ? 
 Comfort to thousand hearts he 's bringing : 
 He surely has a magic stone. 
 
 Yet little is required for fitting 
 
 The poet to perform his task, • 
 The while in spirit he is flitting 
 
 In sunbright upland meads to bask. 
 
 When, daily labor terminating, 
 Sleep doth thee to its arms entice, 
 
 He groans in fierce throes of creating, 
 And strives for the lost Paradise. 
 
 His breast is filled with eager yearning, 
 Nor peace nor rest doth he e'er find \ 
 
 With all men's tears his eyes are burning, 
 He bears the burdens of mankind. 
 
 Deep into beauty's fountain diving, 
 He seeks the noblest treasure there 5 
 
 In heartfelt prayers forever striving % 
 With God to grant ye flow'rets fair. 
 
12 POEMS. 
 
 Not for himself he asketh blessing ; 
 
 Content is he if, in his song, 
 He bringeth aught for your refreshing : 
 
 For gold or thanks he doth not long. 
 
 With his heart's blood he dyes the roses, 
 His hot tears blanch the lilies pale ; 
 
 The smallest leaf which here reposes 
 Doth from his heavy sighs exhale. 
 
 The gray hairs in his locks unheeding, 
 He cares not for his own deep grief; 
 
 The cordial other hearts are needing, 
 To bring, his genius deemeth chief. 
 
 Therefore his songs in your hearts treasure 
 As fondly as your child you hold ; 
 
 None know what anguish beyond measure 
 Each birth has cost, what grief untold ! 
 
MY MUSE. 13 
 
 MY MUSE. 
 
 /^\NCE I lived from day to day, 
 ^^ Nor joy nor sorrow felt ; 
 Scarcely knew myself, so like 
 Were all with whom I dwelt. 
 
 But as this I realized, 
 
 And 'gan o'er it to fret, 
 Yawned my heart as if weary : 
 
 Something may happen yet. 
 
 Some one tapped lightly. " Enter, 
 
 I called, almost dismayed. 
 " What ! Is it you, my old friend, 
 
 Pain ? Hast thou hither strayed ? " 
 
 "Yes, my child," softly stroking 
 My cheeks the while he spake : 
 
 " Tell me, for whom with longing 
 So great doth thy heart ache ? " 
 
 " For my Muse, who once taught me 
 
 To sing full many a song. 
 Without a single visit 
 
 For months I Ve waited long. 
 
14 POEMS. 
 
 " Now sit thee down beside me ; 
 
 Else shall I be alone. 
 We two have talked together 
 
 Oft while the pale moon shone." 
 
 So sat he down beside me, 
 Kissing me o'er and o'er ; 
 
 E'en as the first he gave me, 
 I found my songs once more : 
 
 " Let the Muse farther wander, 
 
 If only thee I have! " 
 A smile of secret meaning 
 
 Rests on his lips so grave. 
 
 " Take back that sentence hasty, 
 For, lo ! your Muse am I ; 
 
 Always have I been faithful." 
 I kissed him tenderly. 
 
DOST THOU ASK? 1 5 
 
 DOST THOU ASK? 
 
 A SKEST thou why in mine eyes 
 ^"*- The tears so thickly spring? 
 Wherefore I do wail and sigh ; 
 
 What grief my heart doth wring ? 
 Ah ! if within the presence 
 
 Of my woe thou couldst stand, 
 Thou wouldst pity me ; but, ah ! 
 
 Thou dost not understand ! 
 
 Whate'er these lips, so pallid, 
 
 May breathe in sorrow deep, 
 They ne'er can voice the anguish 
 
 Which doth my whole heart steep. 
 If it could only tell thee 
 
 How, 'neath Fate's iron hand, 
 T is breaking, thou wouldst pity : 
 
 Thou canst not understand ! 
 
 No recent sorrow is it, 
 
 No common daily smart, 
 When thus by vulture talons 
 
 Torn fiercely is my heart. 
 Whoe'er is, while still living, 
 
 Quartered by headsman's hand, 
 These hellish tortures knoweth, 
 
 Thou canst not understand 1 
 
1 6 POEMS. 
 
 Easy it is to censure, 
 
 When we the guilt know not, — 
 Or fan to fiercer blazing 
 
 A fire already hot. 
 Who ne'er at night hath wandered 
 
 In darkness through the land, 
 Can never comprehend me : 
 
 Thou dost not understand ! 
 
 Then leave me to my weeping 
 
 O'er all that stirs me so ; 
 Full soon the night eternal 
 
 Brings rest to us below. 
 Some day, to all His children, 
 
 God will their fate allot : 
 He only can condemn them ; 
 
 But thou — thou mayest not ! 
 
MY SONG. 17 
 
 MY SONG. 
 
 TV If Y song I will not sell for gold ; 
 *•**' Nor fame nor honor '11 buy it ; 
 I sing it for myself alone, 
 
 Or praise ye or decry it. 
 No master e'er hath taught the art, 
 
 Nor have I learned one feature ; 
 The music came direct from God, 
 
 The words were writ by Nature. 
 
 Full oft the breeze of morning bears 
 
 A page from distant regions ; 
 I marvel when I note the things 
 
 Which men must learn in legions. 
 If rhyme be faulty, all condemn ; 
 
 And if 't is not quite flawless, 
 One poet's work another blames 
 
 With judgment far too lawless. 
 
 A foot 's here missing, there a rhyme ; 
 
 Then undue flourish grieves them. 
 Full eagerly they strive and toil 
 
 Until the turf receives them. 
 My song of solitude I sing, 
 
 With all its many errors ; 
 T is for myself and for my God : 
 
 The critic hath no terrors. 
 
1 8 POEMS. 
 
 Therefore, kind friends, strive not to teach 
 
 Me learning's strict rules narrow ; 
 The nightingale's notes do not ask 
 
 From throat of northern sparrow. 
 Yet thanks I give for fame and praise, 
 
 With all their fleeting glitter ; 
 From practice as a cook, I know 
 
 The laurel's leaf is bitter. 
 
MY LOVE, 19 
 
 MY LOVE. 
 
 A S from the bush a rose we break, 
 "*"*■ Thou 'rt gone to thy repose ; 
 Thine eyes did my whole life-light make, 
 My hands their lids must close. 
 
 They loudly grieved, watched thy last sleep, 
 
 To thee with kisses clung ; 
 Naught did I, but, in darkness deep, 
 
 My hands in anguish wrung. 
 
 They brought thee flowers to enwreath 
 
 Thy form with garlands fair ; 
 I laid my heart thy feet beneath, 
 
 Within the tomb's chill air. 
 
 They planted a green willow-tree 
 
 To beautify thy grave ; 
 But I its branches with a sea 
 
 Of hot tears watered have. 
 
 Then placed they there a tombstone fine, 
 
 With date of year and name ; 
 Unseen in my heart's depths doth shine 
 
 One marked with words of flame. 
 
20 POEMS. 
 
 They wander oft thy grave unto ; 
 
 I sit and weep alone. 
 How fervent was my love, and true, 
 
 Only to God is known ! 
 
FOR THEE. 21 
 
 FOR THEE. 
 
 QO dearly I love thee, beyond belief. 
 ^ Yet ne'er must thou know the secret. 
 Fain would I once, drawing near like a thief, 
 A kiss from thy hands in thy sleep get. 
 
 Fain would I once from the spirit-world flit, 
 The tale of my love thee telling ; 
 
 With eyes untroubled I 'd then submit 
 To tortures my death-doom knelling. 
 
 But when no longer on earth thou hast place, 
 And none here do still bewail thee, 
 
 Full loudly I '11 shriek to the worlds of space ! 
 My love to express, words would fail me. 
 
PICTURES OF LIFE 
 
 FROM NATURE, FROM HOME. 
 
PICTURES OF LIFE 
 
 FROM NATURE, FROM HOME. 
 
 THE BLIND WOMAN AND THE DEAF 
 MUTE. 
 
 H^HE townfolk hold their yearly fair to-day, 
 **" The bright sun laughs from sky without a cloud, 
 And long did I beside the fountain stay 
 
 Watching the movements of the noisy crowd. 
 Whips loudly crack, men shout in hoarse, deep tones ; 
 
 The rich upon their velvet cushions lean, 
 And one of the bleak Pussta's ragged sons 
 
 With spurs struck in his horse's flanks is seen. 
 Here the gay laugh of happy childhood rings, 
 
 There angry tears and curses fierce upbraid ; 
 Here a glad greeting from friends new-met springs, 
 
 There for the lost a hasty search is made. 
 A voice amid the tumult reached my ear 
 
 From 'neath the ancient linden's branches low, 
 Above the medley often ringing clear : 
 
 " Oh, pity take upon the blind one's woe ! 
 
26 POEMS. 
 
 My greatest treasure I have wholly lost, 
 
 The fairest gift which we in life obtain, — 
 Oh, do not coldly pass me at my post, 
 
 Let me not plead to ye to-day in vain. 
 The blessed light of Heav'n I cannot see, 
 
 Into my child's eyes can I never gaze ; 
 And, until death doth set my spirit free, 
 
 Eternal darkness must shroud all my days ! n 
 From people simple both in heart and mind, 
 
 Falls coin on coin, soft as compassion's balm ; 
 From such alone her prayers an answer find. 
 
 Rejoiced was I to see her store increase. 
 But near a man with angry glance did stand, 
 
 He would have wished this woman's luck to cease ) 
 Full rarely alms was flung into his hand, 
 
 Yet still his large eyes asked as plain as words, 
 The while he ever rang his little bell, 
 
 " Why do ye all add to this woman's hoards ? 
 Do ye deem my infirmity less fell? 
 
 Am I not robbed of the sweet gift of speech ? 
 Are not my ears from sound forever sealed ? 
 
 Why should this woman's woes alone by each 
 Be pitied ? That the world 's from sight concealed ? 
 
 To all the earth her sufferings she can shriek, 
 While I must shut mine in my inmost heart ; 
 
 From the alms begged to-day she '11 comfort seek, 
 And with them can relieve her sorrow's smart." 
 
 Thus thinks the poor wretch, and at once he slips 
 His meagre gains upon the scales of woe, — 
 
 The balance toward the woman slightly dips ; 
 
THE BLIND WOMAN AND DEAF MUTE. 27 
 
 Whoe'er hath larger wealth, content must know. 
 
 E'en as wan Envy's talons interlace 
 And firmer hold strive on his heart to lay, 
 
 His little daughter looks into his face ; 
 A loving greeting her sweet eyes convey. 
 
 Then suddenly upon his soul dawns clear 
 The revelation of his better hap ; 
 
 And swiftly to the woman drawing near, 
 He lets a penny fall into her lap. 
 
 Lifting his child, again and yet again 
 He clasps her, the while gazing o'er and o'er. 
 
 He still can see / What joy amid his pain ! 
 As down his cheeks the hot tears burning pour, 
 
 He firmly moves — not once irresolute — 
 On past the linden with its branches low, 
 
 His glance still pleading, though his lips are mute : 
 " Oh, pity take upon the blind one's woe! " 
 
28 POEMS. 
 
 LET HER SLEEP! 
 
 TirHERE the golden corn is rustling and the 
 • forest's shadow ceases, 
 
 Where bright children of the summer barter kisses 
 with the breezes, 
 
 Where the chaste eyes of the timid roe are through 
 the leafage gazing, — 
 
 By the roadside sleeps a little girl in the fierce noon- 
 tide's blazing. 
 
 Her golden curls are glittering like the sunbeams on 
 them streaming, 
 
 Her shoulders bare through many a rent in ragged 
 gown are gleaming ; 
 
 With tender touch the grass-blades green her sun- 
 burned wee feet cover, 
 
 Gay butterflies, like brilliant gems, above them flit 
 and hover. 
 
 Save the bees' hum, sound there is none ; but the elfin 
 
 whispers wooing, 
 From the green dusk of the dense woods comes the 
 
 hidden dove's faint cooing ; 
 
LET HER SLEEP! 29 
 
 Their silken locks from off their brows the ears of 
 
 corn are sweeping, 
 All things breathe the happiness and peace : the child 
 
 smiles e'en while sleeping. 
 
 Her dreams are like the quiet scene by fair Nature's 
 
 hand created, 
 By no foe as yet 'tis menaced, by no tempest 
 
 devastated; 
 Happy is she as the flowers which no thought take for 
 
 the morrow, 
 Soaring upward on light bird-wings, all untouched by 
 
 care or sorrow. 
 
 Playmates of the radiant angels sees she in each child 
 
 of mortal, 
 From the palace to the hovel to one family belong 
 
 alL 
 Days of childhood, with thy dreams lead all the little 
 
 lambkins tender, 
 Whether clad in rags or silk, in the same fairy mead to 
 
 wander. 
 
 Long before the little maid I stood and deeply 
 
 meditated, 
 Gazing at the lovely vision till my soul was fully 
 
 sated; 
 With gesture stern a boy waved back, the noisy lad's 
 
 plan thwarting. 
 For his own sport to see the child at his touch from 
 
 slumber starting. 
 
30 POEMS. 
 
 Gayly singing, roved he onward, while with footsteps 
 
 light I glided 
 'Neath the pines, amid whose branches solemn 
 
 murmurs ne'er subsided. 
 Grant to youth its peaceful slumber, leave the fair 
 
 child to her dreaming, 
 Nor think Life's hand will fail to do its duty — save 
 
 in seeming. 
 
THE OLD MAID. 3 1 
 
 THE OLD MAID. 
 
 SOME laugh as she goes by — and some deride — 
 From her night-watch the couch of pain beside ; 
 All whom she sees, for moments howe'er fleeting, 
 Sneer, " Sleet spoiled her luck-harvest " at the 
 meeting. 
 
 Once thou wert young j a slender little bird 
 Carolling forth each joy thy young heart stirred ; 
 Thy Spring-tide cheer hath poverty swift taken, — 
 'T was done ere thou didst to thy loss awaken. 
 
 Fair Summer came, and to thee found her way ; 
 But all too soon snapped Pleasure's slender stay. 
 How deep soe'er thy heart with grief was flooded, 
 It bled in silence, and complaint eluded. 
 
 And now before thy door stern Autumn stands, 
 Thinning thy scanty locks with ruthless hands, 
 Yielding thee up to the sharp fangs of sorrow, 
 While thou dost anxious wait for Winter's morrow. 
 
 The light of former days thy glance doth lack ; 
 No longer look'st thou forward, scarce e'en back ; 
 Only when suff 'ring is for aid appealing, 
 Thy noble heart impels thee to bring healing. 
 
32 POEMS. 
 
 Thy ready hand to help is ever strong, — 
 No day for thee too hot, no road too long ; 
 Though for reward but hate thou wast receiving, 
 Loyal to deeds of charity still cleaving. 
 
 Then go thy way, O woman much disdained, 
 With beauteous soul in body worn contained ! 
 From mock'ry undeserved and bitter scorning 
 Will bloom a myrtle wreath for thy adorning. 
 
A MAY NIGHT. 33 
 
 A MAY NIGHT. 
 
 T^HE moon is rising ! With one more breath 
 A gasping, 
 
 To rest doth lay him down the weary wind ; 
 The flowerets, their hands devoutly clasping, 
 Their eyes close slowly, sweet repose to find. 
 An atmosphere of peace the wood and wold sways, 
 Millions of pearls the lake's bright waters strew ; 
 Along the forest's green and moss-grown pathways 
 With flying feet hastens the timid roe. 
 
 A silver rain drips from the smallest wavelet 
 Whereon the water-lily's head doth lean ; 
 By longings urged, which no fulfilment have yet, 
 The nixie rises through the cool tide's sheen. 
 From hedge and willow a sweet song entrances, 
 The nightingale's love-notes float through the air, — 
 The nixie hears, and to its music dances, 
 Twining the fairest roses in her hair. 
 
 What whispers low, what secret mystic signals, 
 Faint, bell-like chimes echo from star to star ! 
 Meseems that Heaven has flung wide its portals, 
 And angel voices reach me from afar. 
 
 3 
 
34 POEMS. 
 
 Stirred by her calm and quiet breathing only, 
 
 Our kindly mother Nature's breast appears ; 
 
 And from Day's burning cheeks, prostrate and weary, 
 
 Is kissed away the last trace of her tears. 
 
 And thou, my heart ! ah, cease thy troubled weeping, 
 As if thy future held but storm and noontide-blaze ; 
 See'st thou not love's eternal banner sweeping 
 Its outstretched folds o'er the sun-chariot's rays ? 
 So, too, for thee the fields now scorched by sorrow 
 One day will lie beneath the moon's mild sheen, 
 E'en as, within the crystal waters' still flow, 
 The image of eternal peace is seen. 
 
THE FAIREST SPRING. 35 
 
 THE FAIREST SPRING. 
 
 TN winter's cold I sat my window near, — 
 
 *• Broad fields, snow-whitened, lay in stillness drear ; 
 
 A row of icicles hung from the roof; 
 
 A rest old Grand'ther North had ta'en, the proof. 
 
 In silence deep my woods beloved stood, 
 
 No bird-notes sweet trilled in melodious flood ; 
 
 The white flakes drift where dark the gray sky low'rs, 
 
 Spectral and soft as fragrance of dead flow'rs. 
 
 An angry glance toward my garden strayed, — 
 
 Dead, dead, all dead ! Sad thoughts my spirit 
 
 swayed. 
 Ah, why is Summer's joy so quickly past ? 
 Why do the roses sweet no longer last ? 
 Why must such radiance of bloom be all 
 Enshrouded 'neath pale wreath and fun'ral pall ? 
 I will admit my heart with rancor swelled ; 
 I closed my lids, beneath which tear-drops welled : — 
 But, hark ! what voices rise so clear and strong, 
 Ringing like bells the frozen street along ? 
 A merry giggle, and the glad refrain 
 Of laughter. Raise the window I would fain. 
 Two children these, of fifteen, sixteen years ; 
 With long, thick locks, and eyes undimmed by tears. 
 
36 POEMS. 
 
 The tall brunette — dear little daughter mine, 
 
 Slender and lithe as her own native pine — 
 
 Her arm close round her little friend has drawn, 
 
 Who glances round her like a sportive fawn. 
 
 No sooner have they seen me than both come, 
 
 Like snowflakes blown into my little room. 
 
 Dream I ? Can it be real ? This spring-tide scent, 
 
 Perfume of violets and jasmine blent? 
 
 Whence flew so many thousand birdlings bright, 
 
 So gayly twittering to greet the light ? 
 
 Does not the stream flow through the meadows green, 
 
 While butterflies flit o'er of varied sheen ? 
 
 And yonder do not — scarlet treasure sweet — 
 
 Strawberries mid the flowery grass us greet ? 
 
 Ah, no ; not something here ye both do bring, — 
 
 Ye are the whole incarnate radiant Spring ! 
 
 Like rosebush with a wealth of buds ye stand, 
 
 Or the green crops, a promise to the land ! 
 
 From the clear light of joy within your eyes 
 
 Unconscious beams the glory of May skies ! 
 
 Abashed and penitent I recognize : 
 
 Ye are the fairest Spring God can devise. 
 
MY WORLD. 37 
 
 MY WORLD. 
 
 A WARM thatched roof, 'neath which peer windows 
 ** small ; 
 
 A lush green vine, thick clust'ring o'er the wall ; 
 And level, flower-gemmed, low-lying meads ; 
 A narrow path which to the cornfields leads \ 
 The little plain encircled by pine woods, 
 Where it is bliss to rest in dreamy moods ; 
 Blithe birds that cheer the heart with roundelay ; 
 The peaceful graveyard a few steps away ; 
 A glimpse of the blue sky, like azure shrine, — 
 How small, how poor doth seem this world of mine ! 
 
 Yet as, when vesper bells their summons peal, 
 Returning home I weary, hungry, feel ; 
 See from my hut the smoke's light column rise, 
 While in the glowing west day, flaming, dies ; 
 My child springs toward me with exulting shout, 
 And from the hearth a cheerful blaze gleams out ; 
 When everything breathes evening's sweet repose, 
 And with hand on the bolt my door I close ; 
 When in the heav'ns star after star doth shine, — 
 How grand, how glorious is this world of mine ! 
 
38 POEMS. 
 
 I envy not the rich man's splendor rare, 
 
 His marble tables, golden goblets fair. 
 
 Chimes of sweet bells, the stately steeple's pride, 
 
 Or the cool flow of ocean's wondrous tide ; 
 
 I know that happiness lies everywhere, 
 
 Perchance most willingly the cot doth share ; 
 
 The blossom's fragrance is borne on the wind ; 
 
 In narrow confines sweetest fruits we find. 
 
 Well for me if my home doth God enshrine, 
 
 For naught then would I change this world of mine ! 
 
THE LITTLE GOLD RING. 39 
 
 THE LITTLE GOLD RING. 
 
 YTTHY Iurest thou with golden glitter, 
 
 O little ring, the maiden's eye ? 
 Who pledges troth to thee, with bitter 
 Anguish and grief must freedom buy. 
 
 With blissful pain the fair girl presses 
 Thee to her lips, unfeeling thing ! 
 
 To hearts betrayed, when shame distresses, 
 Last anchor, hope, to which they cling ! 
 
 The bond of every true love sealing, 
 When soul to soul doth find its way ; 
 
 Many thy hoop a bolt are feeling, 
 
 Which bars them from their heaven for aye. 
 
40 POEMS. 
 
 A SUMMER NIGHT. 
 
 TTER soft, cool arms extending, 
 ■*■*■■ Night comes anew ; 
 Fields, woods, and meadows clasping 
 Her heart unto ; 
 
 With mantle light enwrapping 
 
 Each tree and bush, 
 While murmuring tones the world 
 
 To dreams doth hush. 
 
 The earth hath now forgotten 
 
 Day's misery ; 
 Mine eyes I lift in longing 
 
 Toward the sky. 
 
 I see a wee bird soaring 
 
 In sunset's glow : 
 Ah, would my heart, so weary, 
 
 With it might go ! 
 
HOME. 41 
 
 HOME. 
 
 TV TY native land I will not leave, 
 IfX Whatever may be told j 
 Above all other countries it 
 
 Doth shine like purest gold. 
 Let Fortune smile in other realms, 
 
 In richer pomp of hue, 
 Nowhere save in my native land 
 
 Laughs sun from skies as blue. 
 
 My native land I will not leave 5 
 
 My parents' home is here, 
 A quiet sanctuary which 
 
 I draw in rev'rence near. 
 Each foot of soil is hallowed ground, 
 
 More sacred naught can be ; 
 E'en with no priestly ritual, 
 
 The tears spring to mine e'e. 
 
 My native land I will not leave, 
 No matter what may come, 
 
 Although all suddenly should dawn 
 The final day of doom. 
 
42 POEMS. 
 
 I know that then the world will pass 
 Away in smoke and dust ; 
 
 But my loved Germany will shine 
 A star in Heav'n, I trust. 
 
MY NATIVE LAND. 43 
 
 MY NATIVE LAND. 
 
 A LL tell me that thou art not fair, 
 ■*~^ Beloved native land ! 
 No crown of mountain heights dost wear, 
 
 No robe of vines' green band ; 
 No eagle in thy sky appears, 
 
 No palm-tree greets the eye ; 
 But the primeval world's bright tears 1 
 
 Along thy coast-lines lie. 
 
 No metals dost thou give the king, 
 
 Diamonds nor purple robe ; 
 The truest hearts thy offering 
 
 That beat in all earth's globe. 
 For battle thou dost bring the steed 
 
 Worth tons of shining gold, 
 Strong men to curb the charger's speed 
 
 And the keen sword to hold. 
 
 And when I walk in dreamy hour 
 Through sombre fir-woods wide, 
 
 And see the mighty oak-trees tow'r 
 Aloft in royal pride ; 
 
 1 Amber. 
 
44 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 When, echoing from Memel's strand, 
 
 Floats song of nightingale, 
 And o'er the distant dune's white sand 
 
 The snowy gull doth sail, — 
 
 Such blissful raptures o'er me throng 
 
 No language can convey ; 
 I pour my joy forth in a song 
 
 Attuned to music gay. 
 E'en though thy robe is simple, and 
 
 No mountains crown thy brow, 
 Long live East Prussia ! Native land, 
 
 How wondrous fair art thou ! 
 
©rofcSSerSmenmfen* 
 
 "VILLAGE BY THE SPRING." 
 
 T^ROM hills so gently sloping, 
 
 Thy clear eyes widely oping, 
 Thou front'st the world, O village mine ! 
 No walls for thy adornment, 
 Naught save the German peasant, 
 In straw-thatched hut of rude design. 
 
 Where the bright spring clear gushes, 
 
 And to the valley rushes 
 
 Through meadows green, with course so fleet j 
 
 The azure flowers sprinkling, 
 
 Like eyes of maidens twinkling, 
 
 Each thirsty wanderer to greet. 
 
 While round ye close advances, 
 
 Like hundred thousand lances, 
 
 The dark pine-forest's sombre edge, 
 
 Within whose depths soft cooing 
 
 Is heard of wild doves wooing, 
 
 And happy dreams are each one's privilege. 
 
46 POEMS. 
 
 Fair art thou when, while meadow 
 
 And pastures still the dews show, 
 
 Thou 'rt roused by larks' sweet matin lays ; 
 
 When through the forest branches 
 
 The sun his bright rays launches 
 
 With flashing eyes into thy face to gaze. 
 
 When quiet eve comes stealing, 
 Sunset's last glow concealing, 
 Like thank-offerings skyward cleaves 
 The smoke from chimneys streaming, 
 While, like the bright stars beaming, 
 Light after light shines through the leaves. 
 
 Still and secluded lying, 
 
 When from faithful labor hieing 
 
 Thy wearied ones sweet slumber seek ; 
 
 No mill-wheel's noisy whirring, 
 
 Thee from thy slumber stirring, 
 
 Is heard ; no engine's piercing shriek. 
 
 Fair art thou always, whether 
 
 Dewdrops or snowflakes gather, 
 
 Or in the golden harvest's state. 
 
 Ah ! peerless is thy beauty 
 
 When 'neath the glowing Spring sky, 
 
 Mid thousand blossoms, thou dost wait. 
 
 Then on thy breezes blowing 
 
 Comes sweet scent of flowers growing ; 
 
 'Neath snows of bloom thy houses stand, 
 
"VILLAGE BY THE SPRING? 47 
 
 While over the cool highway, 
 And every narrow byway, 
 Lies richest carpet in the land. 
 
 From their rooms swiftly slipping, 
 The girls and boys are skipping, 
 With merry dance they Spring salute ; 
 From the woods ring cuckoo's notes, 
 From the neighboring hillside floats 
 The music of the shepherd's flute. 
 
 When on Sunday softly stealing, 
 
 Sweet tones of bells appealing, 
 
 From distant steeple call, Come ! Come ! 
 
 Thy pious people hasten — 
 
 Or gray their locks or gold — then 
 
 Devoutly to their Father's home. 
 
 Our German manners ancient 
 
 Thou hold'st with fond attachment, 
 
 My village ! here still blooms faith's flower ; 
 
 Here girlish hearts are dwelling, — 
 
 Chaste snowdrops, sin repelling, 
 
 Guarded by fairy good in every hour. 
 
 From hills so gently sloping, 
 Long, long, thy clear eyes oping, 
 The world confront, O village mine ! 
 No artist e'er will paint thee, 
 Yet always radiantly 
 A gem in Germany thou 'It shine. 
 
PICTURES OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
PICTURES OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 I. 
 
 GOOD LUCK. 
 
 TV TY daughter, be the rich man's wife, 
 ^ A Provided then thou 'It be for life, 
 
 And need not hunger more. 
 His house can with a castle vie, 
 His purse is full, his standing high, 
 
 His fields with sheaves run o'er. 
 
 Two dresses he has also brought ; 
 This hat — is n't it splendid ? — bought. 
 
 How fine your clothes will be ! 
 I '11 joy in your good fortune, too, 
 While thinking of the poor girls who 
 
 Envy your finery. 
 
 The lovely child, with cheeks as pale 
 As cherry blooms which young boughs veil, 
 Looks downward dreamily. 
 
52 POEMS. 
 
 O tender bud in morn's soft glow, 
 Not yet love's fervor dost thou know, 
 Thy heart is calm and free ! 
 
 She sees the gewgaws, the tale hears 
 Her mother dins into her ears, — 
 
 Life will be joy alone. 
 And almost ere she is aware 
 Before the altar stand the pair : 
 
 Her " Yes " has made them one. 
 
 She trembles with a thrill of fear 
 
 When bends her husband's gray head near, 
 
 And she his kiss doth wait. 
 A curious custom 't is, in sooth, 
 To give cold age the bloom of youth, — 
 
 Winter and Spring to mate. 
 
 Fair, very fair, she looks, and good, — 
 Girl-wife with face like milk and blood, — 
 
 Faithful in all is she. 
 Her eyes, of heaven's deepest blue, 
 No tears dim with their misty dew, 
 
 No shapes of horror see. 
 
 Her lips smile as in former days, 
 Not e'en a whisper e'er betrays 
 
 If her chains burn like flame. 
 Though 't were in the confessional, 
 No word of disrespect doth fall 
 
 Blent with her husband's name. 
 
GOOD LUCK. 53 
 
 Only when, shut within her room, 
 She opes her closet door, doth come 
 
 Cry shrill as lyre's snapped string : 
 " Two dresses and a showy hat, — 
 My mother thought me worth just that ! 
 
 How small a price brides bring ! " 
 
54 POEMS. 
 
 II. 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 A yTIDST the fields of growing crops encircled by 
 
 *^ green pine-trees sombre, 
 
 World-forgotten, world-secluded, lies a home of 
 
 peasant farmer. 
 Pleasantly its gables white peer through the emerald 
 
 green branches, 
 Peace incarnate ; every breath says, Sorrow here no 
 
 sharp dart launches. 
 
 Softly from the pipe the water o'er the mossy gray 
 stones rushes ; 
 
 On the threshold lies a kitten, blinking in eve's glow- 
 ing blushes; 
 
 Doves are in the dove-cotes cooing, swallows to and 
 fro are soaring ; 
 
 High above both dove and swallow larks their joy in 
 song are pouring. 
 
 Straight as sacrifice of Abel, rising in eve's gold and 
 
 crimson, 
 From the thatched roofs narrow chimney mounts the 
 
 smoke's light airy column. 
 
PEACE. 55 
 
 Where are all the busy farm hands, where does the 
 
 young mistress linger? 
 Through the bending grain she 's coming, her child 
 
 clinging to her finger. 
 
 White as marble and grief-shadowed are the young 
 
 wife's lovely features, 
 As the fragments of her pottery from off the ground 
 
 she gathers. 
 Has a tempest fierce swept through the house with 
 
 frantic fury raging? 
 Had the garden, courtyard, farm, no guard 'gainst a 
 
 foe such warfare waging? 
 
 But her hand she lifts for silence ; mid the ruins she 
 
 is weeping ; 
 In the jasmine arbor lies her husband, with his bottle 
 
 sleeping. 
 O fair Nature ! even where thy peace so happily has 
 
 nested, 
 Ever has the serpent sin from thee thy innocence 
 
 thus wrested. 
 
56 POEMS. 
 
 III. 
 
 SWEET LITTLE MARIE. 
 
 A H ! Marie, my own sweet Marie so dear, 
 ** If thy promise my wife to be I could hear !' 
 E'en though as poor as beggars we, 
 Yet arm in arm both warm will be. 
 Become my wife, that I a heart 
 May have to share each joy and smart. 
 If thou wilt bless me with thy " Yes," 
 I '11 grudge no king his happiness. — 
 The organ sounds, and the bells ring their peal : 
 In borrowed coat the young bridegroom doth kneel ; 
 He has not even boots of his own, 
 The handsome lad thinking of pleasure alone. 
 And on his arm leaning, with golden hair, 
 And eyes as bright as the sunlight fair, 
 The prettiest maid in the land comes now, — 
 Marie, joy throned on her snowy brow. 
 What care these young hearts for pasture or plough ? 
 Each other they have, and that is enow. — 
 Five years have passed by, and four children small 
 Long-legged Madam Stork has brought and let fall. 
 The mother sits late in the night at her toil, — 
 Her husband too often from work doth recoil ; 
 
SWEET LITTLE MARIE. $J 
 
 For howe'er they may strive, with e'en the best will, 
 
 Not always they manage their hunger to still. 
 
 The husband grows peevish ; abroad he doth roam ; 
 
 The crying children for bread ask at home. 
 
 Marie for strangers her needle plies ; 
 
 The old witch Trouble to her side hies : 
 
 She looks around with malignant eyes, 
 
 And to find some cause of discord tries. 
 
 The husband comes from a wild carouse, 
 
 Stagg'ring at midnight to his house : 
 
 A spider's web would his rage now excite ; 
 
 His hand Marie's toil with a blow doth requite. 
 
 The aim was true ; another stroke fell ; 
 
 Happiness founded on love — farewell ! 
 
 The old witch Trouble laughs in her sleeve, 
 
 And steals away through the mists of eve. 
 
 Who wails so sadly, while bright stars shine ? 
 
 Alas ! Marie, sweet little Marie mine ! 
 
58 POEMS. 
 
 A PUBLIC DANCE. 
 
 1\ TIDST a crowd disorderly 
 
 J -'- L Walked a dreamer, angels seeking : 
 
 Then in sorrow turned away, 
 
 While men ribald oaths were shrieking. 
 
 Sadly then his prophet glance, 
 Soulless void so vacant scanning, 
 
 Vainly sought to find a trace 
 
 Where God's breath a spark was fanning. 
 
 Vapor all ! He strove to slip, 
 From the bestial throng escaping, 
 
 Through the gate. A woman sat 
 Midst the press, her pleasure taking. 
 
 Vulgar sensuality 
 
 From her saucy glances gazes, 
 As, with many a coarse jest, 
 
 Her cheap oranges she praises j 
 
 From the goblet of sweet wine 
 
 Often secretly she 's tasting, 
 And her scarlet lips to kiss 
 
 All who '11 pay, to give she ? s hasting. 
 
A PUBLIC DANCE. 59 
 
 But what 's clinging to her breast? 
 
 Under dirty rags for cover, 
 Like the golden sunlight falls 
 
 Her child's curls her bosom over. 
 
 Downward, upward, and beside 
 
 Waves of sin and shame are meeting : 
 
 See how pure and free from stain, 
 In this child, God thee is greeting ! 
 
 On the brow so lily fair 
 
 Sweet innocence doth peace impress, 
 Such as only saints above 
 
 Heaven's blue star-strewn vault can bless. 
 
 Slowly now its eyes unclose, 
 
 Wondrous azure depths unfolding : 
 
 Bend thou lower, then thou canst 
 Gaze, bliss most divine beholding. 
 
 Smiles not a pure Paradise 
 
 Midst these pastimes base, infernal? 
 Where no cherubim prevents 
 
 Sating thy soul with joys eternal. 
 
 Pool of mire is ne'er so deep 
 
 Sunbeam cannot reach with kisses ; 
 
 Never is there wilderness 
 
 Which every green oasis misses. 
 
60 POEMS. 
 
 A POEM OF SPRING. 
 
 TTE comes with breezes blowing, 
 ** O'er hills and valleys showing 
 
 His sunny, beaming face. 
 Whoe'er should seek to question 
 Why? Answer he would have none, 
 
 Save : Fool, love ever keeps his place. 
 
 With manners sweet and smiling 
 The earth he kisses, wiling 
 
 To open her dark eyes. 
 Love, from thy couch arising, 
 Robes on in any guise fling, — 
 
 Our marriage-day dawns in the skies ! 
 
 Himself doth bring the silken 
 Robe and glittering gems, then 
 
 For bridal dowry there ; 
 Mid gay jests and caresses, 
 Wreath of white roses presses 
 
 On her long locks of silken hair. 
 
 Then calls he : Up ! make ready ! 
 Let music sound and all vie, 
 Led by gay Madam Lark ! 
 
A POEM OF SPRING. 6l 
 
 In the elder, nightingale 
 For a solo will not fail, 
 And give each melting note due mark. 
 
 Come, come, lads ! leaping, springing, 
 Wedding gifts hither bringing, 
 
 To glad my lovely bride ! 
 Swiftly then little elf-hands 
 Drag forth bright silver ribbons, 
 
 With diamonds thickly strewn, in pride. 
 
 Clear tapers' flame now up-pours, 
 From thousand hearts of flowers, 
 
 Which fragrant honey bear ; 
 The notes of sweet bells ringing 
 Through all the world are swinging, 
 
 And smoke of incense fills the air. 
 
 The banners green are glimmering, 
 And precious stones are shimmering, 
 
 On ev'ry smallest bough ; 
 The flowers and the grasses 
 Grateful pray'rs repeat, when passes 
 
 The stripling Spring with radiant brow. 
 
 The Lord himself is blessing 
 The nuptial bond. Joy, pressing 
 
 On, sweeps o'er all the land, 
 Upon the wedding morning 
 Grief and care give no warning — 
 
 With wedlock they come hand in hand. 
 
62 POEMS. 
 
 ONCE FARED I FORTH INTO THE 
 WORLD. 
 
 /^\NCE fared I forth the evil world into, 
 ^-^ A child in heart and mind, still pure and blame- 
 less; 
 Beside me from my home no angel flew, 
 
 To guard me lest I sin with purpose aimless. 
 Surrounded by the Tempter's hordes I slipped 
 
 And fell. Alas ! how vain was all my praying, 
 With pangs how keen anguish my poor soul gripped, 
 
 When sin me to the very dust was weighing ! 
 
 Oh, evil days ! full oft do I recall 
 
 How I was shunned and scornfully derided ; 
 What contumely and sneers were heaped by all, — 
 
 No one with peace or comfort to me glided. 
 How sorely my sad heart my guilt did rue, 
 
 While friends and foes alike away were turning, 
 And every hour to my lips anew 
 
 The cup of wormwood pressed, mid jeers and 
 spurning ! 
 
 Not e'en one mortal gave me pity mild ; 
 
 My father's heart seemed unto stone congealing ; 
 Even my mother did condemn her child ; 
 
 My life was wholly crushed, no hope revealing. 
 
ONCE FARED I FORTH INTO THE WORLD. 63 
 
 Then came a message which my full heart fired : 
 Arise ! cast off the snares around thee twining ! 
 
 Although to doom thee all the world conspired, 
 Thy God will lead thee where His sun is shining. 
 
 Then fared I forth into the world again, 
 
 My heart and all my limbs for conflict steeling ; 
 No kind farewell or hand-clasp soothed my pain, — 
 
 My eyes were lowered, their hot tears concealing. 
 The sin committed I have now atoned, 
 
 Can meet the gaze of God and man unbending ; 
 And those who once on me so sharply frowned 
 
 Now smiling come, their ready hands extending. 
 
 Free is my glance, joyous as spring my heart ; 
 
 My laughing lips of many things are prating ; 
 In every youthful jest I play my part ; 
 
 No grief to sickly love I ? m dedicating. 
 But deep within my breast there is one scar 
 
 Which will ache on till I in death am lying, — 
 The thought that those who so self-righteous are 
 
 The child attacked, stoning and crucifying. 
 
64 POEMS. 
 
 THE LUNCHEON. 
 
 TVyf ID tempest's roar and the rain's white foam 
 *;" My little boy from his school came home, 
 Breathlessly calling outside the door : 
 " Mother ! some bread, my hunger 's sore ! " 
 
 " What ! did you eat all your knapsack contained ? " 
 In truth not even a mouthful remained. 
 " Two slices of bread, an apple so red, — 
 Yet hungry as though you had not been fed? 
 
 " Dear me, my boy ! did it taste so good? " 
 " Yes," said he, softly. With school-book he stood, 
 His eyes on the page : he knows that he lies. 
 Suddenly truth conquers ev'ry disguise. 
 
 His hand on mine with caressing touch lies ; 
 He gazes at me with questioning eyes : 
 " Oh, mother, don't scold ! my lunch I gave 
 To a poor little boy — no food did he have ; 
 
 " Nothing to eat for six whole weeks long ; 
 His father is dead, his mother not strong ; 
 And so to the beggar I gave my mite. 
 Now, tell me quick, was it wrong or right ? " 
 
THE LUNCHEON. 65 
 
 With tears the fair boy to my heart I caught : 
 " My child, you have done just as you ought ; 
 For know he only our Father can love 
 Whose heart the poor with pity doth move. 
 
 " And shouldst thou in life e'er wander, my son, 
 God will thy footsteps guide from His throne ; 
 While the bread thou didst give to the starving boy, 
 To efface all thy faults He will one day employ." 
 
66 POEMS. 
 
 LITTLE BERNHARD. 
 
 CITTING, one fair, bright spring morning, 
 ** On my house's threshold idly, 
 Gazing rapturously toward heaven, 
 
 While the sunbeam's gold glowed widely, 
 
 Comes a woman toward me shuffling, 
 Dark her face with care and sorrow, 
 
 Lightly a boy baby nestles 
 
 In the crook of her lean elbow. 
 
 " Why, where found you this fine fellow? 
 
 Good dame, let me see him, prithee ; 
 Such bright glances round him throwing, 
 
 Yet no strength for walking hath he ? " 
 
 " 'T is the child of my poor Lena ; 
 
 She from Herr Count's service creeping, 
 When deserted by the noble, 
 
 Now in grass-grown grave lies sleeping. 
 
 " He nor father has nor mother ; 
 
 Starve we both must, I well foreknow. 
 Such a burden when one 's aged 
 
 Brings a sea of care and sorrow. 
 
LITTLE BERNHARD. 6/ 
 
 " To the keen winds I expose him, 
 From the cold protect him, never, 
 
 Hoping that he '11 be death's victim ; 
 But he lives on, ever, ever ! " 
 
 Then she grasps the little creature, 
 
 Like a bundle roughly shaking ; 
 But he lifts his lips for kisses, 
 
 Into shouts and laughter breaking. 
 
 While aloft his arms he tosses, 
 
 Showing how tall he is growing. 
 Twitching strangely are the dame's eyes, 
 
 Tear-drops from their lids are flowing. 
 
 Now once more, with heavy sighing, 
 Burden on her back she 's raising, 
 
 While amid her woe and hatred 
 Still the goddess Love is gazing. 
 
68 POEMS. 
 
 THE LAST LETTER. 
 
 " IV ^^ ^ e a dd ress " — words from her wan lips 
 
 -^ slipping, — 
 
 A woman, ill, and very sorely tried. 
 " First just a little of the potion sipping 
 
 I '11 take, to give me strength my pen to guide. 
 With effort I have from my bed arisen ; 
 
 My heart is throbbing rapidly and wild ) 
 But mother-love no sickness can imprison. 
 
 Once more I '11 write to my own darling child." 
 
 With pen in hand they found her prostrate lying, 
 
 The letter, undirected, by her side, — 
 Maternal love, though to the last defying, 
 
 Vanquished by death, with want and woe allied. 
 Sleep calmly, loyal heart, by angels tended, 
 
 Who thee have lulled to the eternal sleep ; 
 They thy unfinished letter now have ended, 
 
 With diamond in thy child's heart written deep. 
 
LYRICS OF LOVE. 
 
LYRICS OF LOVE. 
 
 THY KISS. 
 
 THE kiss which rested on thy lips 
 "*■ For mine own I have captured ; 
 Whatever haps I care not now ! 
 I sing like bird enraptured. 
 
 To whom the gods their beaker give 
 Should make no long delaying, 
 
 Or they fair fortune's glass might break, 
 Their holy wrath displaying. 
 
 E'en should death's icy form now lie 
 Beside me, my couch sharing, 
 
 The lips which once to thine were pressed 
 Will greet him, bright smiles wearing. 
 
72 POEMS. 
 
 MY PART THOU HAST AYE TAKEN. 
 
 1VTY part thou hast aye taken, 
 •*■*'*■ E'en when all from me turned ; 
 When even my own mother 
 Her poor child coldly spurned. 
 
 Deserted and forsaken, 
 
 I wandered through the night, — 
 A leaf whirled by the tempest, 
 
 But. not lost from thy sight. 
 
 The darts of scorn were pouring 
 
 On my defenceless head ; 
 Contempt was never ending ; 
 
 Thy trust in me ne'er fled. 
 
 By this one thought of comfort 
 
 The path to peace I found. 
 May blessings, my good angel, 
 
 Forever thee surround ! 
 
PASSED BY. 73 
 
 PASSED BY. 
 
 " T J VE borne so much already," 
 * A little flow'ret moans ; 
 
 " So oft rough hands have pelted 
 My head with sand and stones ! 
 
 " Oft, too, have footsteps heavy 
 Caused me such anguish keen, 
 
 It seemed for long, long hours 
 Destroyed my life had been ! 
 
 u But when, your way pursuing, 
 You calmly passed me by, 
 
 All pain that I have suffered 
 The pangs you dealt outvie ! " 
 
74 POEMS. 
 
 OH, TORTURE NOT MY SOUL! 
 
 /^H, do not torture thus my soul, 
 ^-^ Because, so calm and still, 
 Even beneath thy sunlike kiss 
 It opes not at thy will. 
 
 For love is a peculiar thing, 
 
 Oft unawares may come ; 
 Who seeks it on far mountain peaks 
 
 May find it 'neath sea foam. 
 
 Oh, do not torture thus my soul, 
 To blossom leave it free ; 
 
 Perchance, beneath the flood of rain, 
 'T is dreaming now of thee. 
 
MY LOYAL LOVE. ?$ 
 
 MY LOYAL LOVE. 
 
 'THE nightingale ? s sighing 
 A Mid elder leaves, 
 Coquetting and toying 
 
 With soft spring breeze. 
 He flew to the rose, 
 
 His love to prove : 
 To me ope thy chalice, 
 
 My loyal love. 
 
 Beside garden hedge stood 
 
 Two children fair ; 
 They talked of a parting 
 
 To meet elsewhere. 
 Weep not, little maiden, 
 
 I '11 fears disprove ; 
 On earth thou 'It be ever 
 
 My loyal love ! 
 
 Up rises the lily 
 
 From azure lake, 
 With yearning ascending 
 
 The moon to seek. 
 
y6 poems. 
 
 With silvery pencil 
 
 He writes above : 
 " For me live thou and die, 
 
 My loyal love ! " 
 
 Long, long, stood I pond'ring, 
 
 Silent, alone ; 
 A rustling from fragrant 
 
 Woodlands was blown. 
 Yet though louder growing, 
 
 No thief did move. 
 His arms close, close hold me, 
 
 My loyal love ! 
 
WHY I WEEP. I*] 
 
 WHY I WEEP. 
 
 ^PHOU askest why I 'm weeping ? 
 •* From me hast thou ne'er known 
 Why, tryst in moonlight keeping, 
 The nightingale makes moan? 
 
 She gazes at its brightness, 
 
 Her breast with yearning swells ; 
 
 Within that rippling lightness 
 Of silv'ry waves joy dwells. 
 
 When all the flow'rs are blooming, 
 
 So spectral and so fair, 
 In love's sweet pangs consuming, 
 
 She fain would perish there. 
 
 She loves him ; yet all vainly 
 Her singing doth prolong, 
 
 The tears for all life's mis'ry 
 Outpouring in a song ! 
 
78 POEMS. 
 
 YX J HAT is it here within my breast 
 
 * Keeps springing, rushing, flowing ? 
 The sounds both grief and joy suggest, 
 Like palms in soft winds blowing. 
 
 'T is like the lark's exultant strain 
 In blue spring heavens soaring, 
 
 And organ tones in holy fane 
 Through Christmas incense pouring. 
 
 It is a jubilant accord 
 
 Of harmonies most fair ; 
 It is — now I have found the word — 
 
 Love's melodies so rare. 
 
AH, BIND MY HANDS. ?g 
 
 AH, BIND MY HANDS. 
 
 A H, bind my outstretched hands, I pray, 
 *** With heavy fetters chaining, 
 Or they might else on my breast lay 
 A loved head, rest attaining. 
 
 And wall up, too, this heart of mine, 
 
 In closest dungeon keeping ; 
 Already through the windows shine 
 
 Love's bright flames upward leaping. 
 
 Oh, make me deaf ! Oh, make me blind ! 
 
 No glimpse of joy receiving ! 
 'T is hard for the forsaken child 
 
 To bear her sore heart's grieving. 
 
80 POEMS. 
 
 THOU. 
 
 A 
 
 H, wouldst thou e'en once at me gaze, 
 Thy eyes their spell swift weaving, 
 With joyful courage I would raise 
 Life's burdens, no more grieving. 
 
 If thou wouldst grant me but one kiss, 
 Into the sea's depths diving, 
 
 The fairest pearl in its abyss 
 I M bring thee, from it riving. 
 
 Could gift of all my songs avail 
 To aid thy love in bringing, 
 
 I 'd perish like the nightingale 
 Who dies amid her singing. 
 
/ HAVE LOVED. 8 1 
 
 I HAVE LOVED. 
 
 T HAVE drunk deep of the naming 
 * Sun's all-consuming glow ; 
 I 've lain absorbed in dreaming 
 'Neath the moonbeams silv'ry flow. 
 
 On tempestuous winds, wild roaring, 
 
 Over all the world I Ve sped, 
 And, heaven's blue vault exploring, 
 
 The stars have my playmates made. 
 
 The songs elves and nixies were singing 
 Reached me in notes sweet and clear, 
 
 And clouds, their soft hues mingling 
 In roseate tints, floated near. 
 
 Then joined moon and sun in the asking : 
 Was aught more fair where I roved ? 
 
 I answered, in joy's rapture basking, 
 " Yes, yes ! I have loved, have loved ! " 
 
82 POEMS. 
 
 AH, HAD I SEEN THEE SOONER! 
 
 A H, had I thee but sooner seen, 
 ** Though e'en for one brief hour, 
 That happy moment would I bless 
 While dying lips had pow'r ! 
 
 Ah, had I thee but sooner loved, 
 
 Thou pure light of my soul ! 
 I 'd envy not the fate of those 
 
 Whom angel hosts enroll. 
 
 Ah, had I thee but sooner loved, 
 
 Although in dreamland free, 
 My hope's fair blossoms would not hang 
 
 All withered on Life's tree ! 
 
THUS IT IS. 83 
 
 THUS IT IS. 
 
 /^VNCE unto me a rose thou gavest, — 
 " Meseems to-day again I take 
 The bud j and as a sharp thorn pierced me, 
 You trembling asked : " Oh, does it ache? " 
 
 You took your kerchief, that wound binding, 
 'T was white and soft as fair snowflake ; 
 
 I laughed away your childlike terror, 
 And only said : " It does not ache." 
 
 But when you bruised my heart so sorely, 
 
 I longed my kind all to forsake, 
 Like stricken deer, you never thought of 
 
 Asking the question : " Does it ache ? " 
 
84 POEMS. 
 
 THE SOUND OF THE BELL. 
 
 TV/TY dear child, canst thou recall 
 ***" How, as we said sad farewell, 
 Clearly through the evening air 
 Came the sound of vesper bell ? 
 
 Not one word did we exchange, 
 Only, hands still closer linking, 
 
 Waited there all breathlessly 
 
 Till died the notes, in silence sinking. 
 
 Let this thought a warning bear, 
 With mem'ry of that hour blending ; 
 
 And, parted by the world's gay throng, 
 Godward our steps be ever tending. 
 
WEEP NOT, FOR I LOVE THEE I 85 
 
 WEEP NOT, FOR I LOVE THEE! 
 
 A T dawn of ev'ry morning 
 "■ The red sun smiles in glee, 
 The dewy earth consoling : 
 " Weep not, for I love thee ! " 
 
 'Neath waves, from home far distant, 
 
 Some one sleeps quietly ; 
 A nixie his cheek stroketh : 
 
 "Weep not, for I love thee! " 
 
 The butterfly doth hover 
 The rose above, with plea 
 
 Of ardent love caressing : 
 
 " Weep not, for I love thee ! " 
 
 But thou and I, we only, 
 Lack courage to feel free ; 
 
 We say not, save while dreaming : 
 " Weep not, for I love thee ! " 
 
86 POEMS. 
 
 MEMENTO MORI. 
 
 /^\H, could I but once more have gazed into 
 
 ^-^ Thy hazel eyes, which, like the flame eternal, 
 
 The worn and weary soul doth penetrate ! 
 
 From distant childhood's days 
 
 Still echoes in mine ear 
 
 Tones of thy voice so sweet, 
 
 With which thou so oft didst greet 
 
 Me in the twilight hour, 
 
 When, with their secret fibres, 
 
 My thoughts and all my dreaming 
 
 To thee clung ! 
 
 When thou didst press my hand so warmly, 
 
 With all the ardor of thy heart, 
 
 How woke in mine the joyous dawning 
 
 Presentiment of some great future bliss ! 
 
 Then Fate thee summoned forth into Life's whirlpool. 
 
 With joy didst thou obey ; 
 
 Its fullest draught of pleasure 
 
 Didst quaff, and in the golden wealth of Fortune 
 
 Only too soon forgotten 
 
 Was vow, which, weeping, thou in 
 
 Parting mad'st. 
 
 For, ah ! full soon didst thou another flow'r 
 
 Cherish thy heart within, 
 
MEMENTO MORI. 87 
 
 Exulting sang to her the self- same 
 Songs which my own still, peaceful chamber 
 To holy temple erst transformed. 
 Upon thy knees she sat, from thy white 
 Brow the raven silky locks so gently stroking, 
 As I so oft had done in former 
 Years, when, of thy woes to me complaining, 
 With kisses sweet the words 
 I fain would speak from my lips taking. 
 Could I have seen thee only once again, 
 As thou, by joy encompassed, 
 Standing on Fame's proud heights, 
 All sudden sank the night of death into ! 
 Within Love's arms thou wilt sleep on forever. 
 Unboding wert thou, like a victor 
 Who, on his home's dear threshold 
 Stricken by death, falls prone. 
 How many tears have flowed 
 To mourn thy death untimely, 
 How thy deserted love her hands in grief has wrung, 
 Are things I cannot know. 
 I can but pray in morning, noonday, evening : 
 Oh, could I but once more into thine eyes have 
 gazed ! 
 
VOICES OF REVERENCE. 
 
VOICES OF REVERENCE. 
 
 TO THE EMPRESS. 
 
 (~* OD bless thee, German Empress fair ! 
 ^-* God bless thee, noble as thy state ! 
 Thou know'st the flow'ret growing where 
 
 Thy native meadows thee await ; 
 The hue of thine own eyes it wears, 
 
 Forget-me-not the name it bears, — 
 Of love and faith the emblem. 
 
 To-day by thousands we do bring 
 And at thy feet its bloom present ; 
 
 Scorn not our humble offering, 
 The nation's richest ornament. 
 
 To God the Lord for thee to-day, 
 
 Our crown's most radiant star, we pray, 
 
 Thy people's kind, good mother ! 
 
92 POEMS. 
 
 May God bless thy anointed head, 
 Each hour to thee His favor show ; 
 
 May diadem ne'er press like lead, 
 To bruise and chafe thy royal brow. 
 
 If days of sorrow thou must bear, 
 Remember, each heart-throb to share 
 
 Thy people stand beside thee ! 
 
CARMEN SYL VA. 93 
 
 CARMEN SYLVA. 
 
 NOT even once have I looked on thy face ; 
 Yet when all cloudless beams the sky's blue 
 space, 
 I think as deep, as pure, serene, and clear, 
 Thine eyes may be as this fair azure sphere. 
 
 When earth in all her pomp of bloom beguiles, 
 And from each flower-cup an angel smiles, 
 When breath of love through all the world goes forth, 
 I think e'en thus bewitching is thy mouth. 
 
 All beauty which the heav'n and earth enfold, 
 I could, O noble Queen, in thee behold ! 
 In very joy and rapture I must weep, 
 Because the earth and heaven in thee tryst keep. 
 
94 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 TO KARL STIELER. 
 
 I. 
 
 HOW in thy sweet songs ringing 
 My own heart's tones I hear ! 
 Around me ever clinging, 
 Familiar and so dear. 
 
 There sounds the same emotion, 
 There the same pang once more ; 
 
 A burning smart and balsam 
 For heart so sick and sore. 
 
 Thy lyre now is silent; 
 
 Thy lips, beneath death's spell, 
 Have long been hushed j but present 
 
 In mem'ry dost thou dwell. 
 
 When ice-bonds Spring has riven, 
 
 Unto the lark I say : 
 " Hath not Karl Stieler given 
 
 Thee one more roundelay? " 
 
TO KARL STIELER. 95 
 
 II. 
 
 Not once in life did I e'er meet thy glance, — 
 I, who devoutly listened to thy song : 
 
 When hither borne by wand'ring breeze of chance, 
 Methought I heard one of the angel throng. 
 
 In all thy melodies thou hast inwoven 
 
 A quiv'ring anguish, like my own grief bleeding : 
 Bewailest happiness, but ashes proven : 
 
 The joy whose loss I weep, no comfort heeding. 
 
 Yet came the Muse for all thy wounds balm bringing, 
 Which from thy songful lips doth freely pour ; 
 
 To me no angel that redemption off 'ring : 
 I mute remain ; my pain will ne'er be o'er ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Full oft I Ve gained refreshment, when weary was my 
 
 soul 
 Of wand'rings long and hot, from thy song like waters 
 
 cool j 
 Full often hath it soothed my heart-throbs swift and 
 
 wild, 
 Like day of tempest followed by evening soft and 
 
 mild. 
 
g6 poems. 
 
 As God once in the desert Israel manna gave, 
 
 Thy treasured songs I garnered for Life's sweet bread 
 
 to have ; 
 Throughout the world thick scattered, like precious 
 
 pearls they lie, 
 Each one hath stirred my pulses till my heart with joy 
 
 throbbed high. 
 
 Thy teaching made me patient amid all cark and care ; 
 I learned to love my fellows, rejoice in all things 
 
 fair; 
 From off my soul thou liftedst the gloomy thrall of 
 
 pain : 
 The blessings thou hast given to tell I strive in vain. 
 
 But now, alas! thy lyre's chords are shattered all, 
 
 I know ; 
 Around thy grass-grown grave-mound cool evening 
 
 breezes blow j 
 The night is softly falling, — hot tears bedim my 
 
 sight. 
 Sweet be thy rest and peaceful ; may earth on thee 
 
 lie light. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Alas that thou must die ! " ye all exclaim, 
 
 When any youthful heart has ceased its beating ; 
 
 Yet ye yourselves in culling do the same, 
 
 And choose the blossoms perfume still secreting. 
 
TO KARL STIELER. gy 
 
 No doubt the mother-bush doth moan and weep, 
 As at each sharp cut anguish keen she 's bearing ; 
 
 But the soft night-breeze bringeth comfort deep : 
 " Some human heart thy fair child now is wearing." 
 
 Then neither weep ye when God claims this son, 
 Patient whate'er the Father now requireth ; 
 
 He needed him to deck His heav'nly throne, 
 And with the ripe ears flowers, too, desireth. 
 
98 POEMS. 
 
 TO MY REVERED TEACHER, 
 
 Precentor Kerner, of Lengwethen, on his 
 Seventy-sixth Birthday. 
 
 A H, let me too, among the children ling'ring 
 **■ Who all have gathered round thy seat to-day, 
 Express the wishes my full heart is bringing, 
 
 For Heaven's blessings on thee warmly pray. 
 With candle-light the school-room 's brightly gleaming, 
 
 All honor on thy natal day to pour ; 
 Fain would I once more enter it, in seeming 
 
 Returned to scenes sacred in days of yore. 
 
 There stands the bench, ne'er from my mem'ry 
 banished ; 
 
 Thou cam'st to me, thy hand caressed my hair. 
 Oh, dear delight, once mine, but long since vanished, 
 
 When I the gaze of thy clear eyes could share ! 
 When thou didst lead to learning's fair green meadows, 
 
 And gave to drink of thy own spirit's light, 
 Though love unto thy soul was joy o'erflowing, 
 
 With thy life-duty thou didst it unite. 
 
TO MY REVERED TEACHER. 99 
 
 How oft thou " Little chatterbox " hast called me, 
 
 When my low whisper thy repose disturbed ! 
 But though my ready, nimble tongue oft galled thee, 
 
 Thou didst not silence, only gravely curbed. 
 For, lo ! a chatterbox I still continue, — 
 
 And now my voice to the wide world imparts 
 The news of great and noble love we all knew, 
 
 Which thou hast scattered in a thousand hearts. 
 
 No doubt long since thou hast from thy book stricken 
 
 My name, and yellow doubtless is the page ; 
 But never has my heart from thee turned, even 
 
 When life did all my time and thoughts engage. 
 The days of childhood and thy face were shining 
 
 Before me like a star in black night's van, 
 The magic splendors of its rays combining 
 
 My spirit's fire into a blaze to fan. 
 
 And now farewell ! Before thee humbly kneeling, 
 
 Thy blessing I implore, Friend kind and wise : 
 Though love for me a thousand hearts were feeling, 
 
 Thy blessing still would be my highest prize. 
 In thought with gratitude thy hands I 'm kissing, 
 
 Bedewing them with tears of purest love. 
 God grant, until thee from this life dismissing, 
 
 Thy hours all happy, never sad may prove ! 
 

 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 I WOULD BE THE SUN. 
 
 CUN, the sun, I fain would be, 
 
 *** Not the moon with stars coquetting, 
 
 From each stone by sorcery 
 
 Red and sweet May-roses getting. 
 
 Lips of flame I fain would press 
 
 On the icy souls of mortals, 
 Till the world with eagerness 
 
 Sought for wedlock churches' portals. 
 
 And amid this sea of fire, 
 
 Sacred waves of pure love seething, 
 Upward borne, would I desire 
 
 Slowly, softly, to cease breathing. 
 
. , t! ' . ' ' . ' • 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 PAST. 
 
 r PHE days of youth passed swiftly by 
 •*■ Almost ere I was 'ware ; 
 My breast has heaved with many a sigh, 
 
 I Ve grieved o'er many a care. 
 But glow of spring or winter's snow, 
 
 Falsehood or fealty, 
 Exultant joy or bitter woe, 
 
 Are now the same to me ! 
 
 Not even one green twig of hope 
 
 My pilgrim staff grows on ; 
 The hand of Fate did gently lop 
 
 Its blossoms, one by one. 
 No doubt my tears then fell like rain, 
 
 Half broken was my heart ; 
 But now what care I for the pain? 
 
 In naught, have I a. part ! 
 
 All dark and drear now dawns the day 
 And cold the north-wind blows, 
 
 I urge my life-boat on its way, 
 Though tempests wild oppose. 
 
PAST. 105 
 
 Though I were whelmed the tide beneath, 
 
 No cry upon the blast 
 Would warning give of my last breath, 
 
 And all would then be past. 
 
 So let the world go as it will, 
 
 And make not thou much moan ; 
 My heart, keep thyself calm and still, 
 
 Nor in despair lie prone ! 
 Like foam from tossing wave-crest torn, 
 
 Winter will flit like May ; 
 To narrow chamber thou 'It be borne, — 
 
 And all be past for aye. 
 
106 POEMS. 
 
 BEFORE THE JUDGMENT-SEAT. 
 
 A LITTLE heart to judgment-seat was brought, 
 "^ Because no longer Duty's mandate owning ; 
 Its dark eyes gazed with anxious boding fraught 
 
 Into Fate's face, black-veiled, and doubtless frowning. 
 Beside her Duty stood, of giant form, 
 
 With eyes lack-lustre, from which tears were 'scaping ; 
 The tireless worker held within her arm 
 
 A bunch of iron rods, for pastime shaping : 
 "What didst thou lack," Fate's thunder tones began, 
 
 "To win the greatest joy in Life's awarding? 
 To lift thy soul to heaven is Duty's plan, 
 
 Thy steps the while from all temptations guarding ; 
 In hope and faith will bloom to fullest beauty — 
 
 E'en as the stake the flower's stalk doth stay — 
 The heart which is forever leal to duty, 
 
 Nor, like the flower unbound, in each wind sway ! " 
 At words so stern the poor heart shudders, bleeds ; 
 
 With quiv'ring lips she strove to check her weeping : 
 " Ah, grant me joy," with anguish keen she pleads, 
 
 " One moment, only one, life's pleasures reaping ! 
 I 'm always shiv'ring in the scanty dress 
 
 Which Duty made. Alas ! I cannot wear it, 
 
BEFORE THE JUDGMENT-SEAT. 107 
 
 It is too tight, and causes sore distress ; 
 
 Yet I dare don no other, so must bear it. 
 See'st thou how beautiful its dye, and fresh? 
 
 With my own blood she hath it lately colored ; 
 Each bitter word cut deep into my flesh, 
 
 There thou canst aye behold her maxims' record. 
 Like barren desert is her dreary face, 
 
 Her scourge upon my hands she lays not lightly, 
 Upon my brow a crown of thorns doth place 
 
 Which pierce, though I my head turn e'er so slightly. 
 On my robe's hem she fetters hangs which seem 
 
 Too heavy for my feet to carry farther j 
 Free am I only in night's deepest dream, — 
 
 Then joy's rose-ladder mount we two together ; 
 The palm-grove greets me with its rustling low, 
 
 And melody of harps draws me to dances 
 Of happy mortals, pleasure once I know, 
 
 And, as her child, joy's draught my soul entrances. 
 Once only let me see with open eyes 
 
 What dreams in hues of fainter lustre offer, 
 Once only sip the draught divine that lies 
 
 In cups the fairies to each fair bride proffer ; 
 Only once let me cool my burning breast 
 
 In surges sweet of love's sea ever flowing ; 
 Once only let me feel in all its zest 
 
 Joy's kiss upon my lips with fervor glowing, — 
 My soul's salvation take, I '11 give it thee, 
 
 Remain an outcast throughout all the future ; 
 Ope once the door of happiness to me, 
 
 Then crush me 'neath thy foot's unfeeling pressure ! " 
 
108 POEMS. 
 
 And, weeping bitterly, the heart fell prone : 
 
 " Change thou thy stern intent, cruel Fate ! " crying, 
 Clasping meanwhile its weak arms round the throne, — 
 
 " Have mercy on the heart for pity sighing ! " 
 Fate waved her hand : " So be it." A breeze here 
 
 Swept o'er the steps, with incense sweet enthralling ; 
 In tones of warning from the church tow'r near 
 
 The vesper bells softly to prayer are calling. 
 In silence Duty doth at once obey, 
 
 With holy zeal her pallid cheeks are flushing. 
 A shriek rings shrilly through the room : " Oh, stay ! " 
 
 The heart cries, " With you I '11 pray too ! " and 
 rushing 
 Forward to the stern form, sinks on its breast : 
 
 " Oh, fairy realm of happiness, farewell! " — 
 Closer upon her brow the thorns she pressed, — 
 
 " With this fair, cruel sister I will dwell ! " 
 
THROUGH THE FIELD I WANDERED. 109 
 
 THROUGH THE FIELD I WANDERED 
 DREAMING. 
 
 ^PHROUGH the field I wandered dreaming, 
 * All alone was I ; 
 Roses on my cheeks were gleaming, 
 Stained by sunset sky. 
 
 Here and there a bird was singing, 
 
 Flow'rs hung their heads ; 
 Like bright pearls the dew-drops clinging 
 
 Rested on their lids. 
 
 With the sunset's glories waning, 
 
 Pallid my cheeks grew ; 
 Breezes, their melody sustaining, 
 
 Bell notes to me blew. 
 
 " Gone forever ! gone forever ! " 
 
 Called their peal tome; 
 " Song of birds, rose-cheeks, can never 
 
 More your portion be ! " 
 
1 10 POEMS. 
 
 Died the sweet tones, softly blending, 
 Sunset's fires were spent ; 
 
 Homeward then my footsteps bending 
 Wearily I went. 
 
 In my heart one wish is present, 
 
 Ne'er to slumber won ; 
 Though all other chords were silent, 
 
 It will still sound on. 
 
 This from sanctifying fires 
 Strong and pure arose ; 
 Not until it rest desires, 
 I '11 seek death's repose. 
 
TO A YOUNG GIRL. Ill 
 
 TO A YOUNG GIRL. 
 
 Tl fHERE to its rest the sun is hasting, 
 " * A little rosy cloud still floats, 
 Like Youth's last dream on fair cheeks casting 
 A glow which happy thoughts denotes. 
 
 The bright days swiftly passed, conveying 
 Their fairy scents and bird-songs clear 
 
 To where joy's golden scales were swaying, 
 And sunk, like sun when night draws near. 
 
 The little cloud will soon be soaring, 
 If leal, once more in sunshine bright ; 
 
 But who, thy happiness restoring, 
 
 Poor maid, will give thee back its light ? 
 
112 POEMS. 
 
 A QUESTION. 
 
 " /^AN'T the child yet walk alone?" 
 
 ^ I hear where people gather, 
 " Is it always falling prone, 
 
 Can't it say ' Dear father > ? " 
 See the happy mother smile, 
 
 In her child's eyes reading 
 That within but a brief while 
 
 Its steps will need no leading. 
 
 Thus have I questioned my heart : 
 
 " Canst thou not yet gather 
 Strength to bear thy sorrow's smart? 
 
 Canst thou not say, l Father ' ? 
 Upward gaze with look elate 
 
 Where the stars are shining, 
 And thou 'It bear thy bitter fate 
 
 Smiling, not repining ! " 
 
FAREWELL. 1 13 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 TV4"Y pilgrim staff is close at hand, 
 
 **■*• My bundle too is tied, 
 
 And all who near my heart do stand 
 
 With me will still abide. 
 My wife, my child, my mother dear, 
 
 Will all remain with me ; 
 So gladly I '11 set forth from here, 
 
 For green banks of the Spree. 
 
 Within thy walls, O ancient house, 
 
 Both joy and grief I 've known ; 
 Kind fate with flowers hath decked my brows, 
 
 And many favors shown. 
 Yet still to wander I am fain, 
 
 Elsewhere I long to dwell ; 
 Thy parting kiss I feel with pain, — 
 
 Beloved home, farewell ! 
 
 How sadly, budding chestnut-tree, 
 
 Thou seem'st at me to gaze ; 
 Upon thy lashes I can see 
 
 Tears shine in the sun's rays. 
 8 
 
1 14 POEMS. 
 
 A faithful guardian thou hast been, 
 
 Though snows or petals fell ; 
 Hast made my heart with hope grow green, — 
 
 Beloved tree, farewell ! 
 
 No more shall I, O much loved wood, 
 
 Within thy shade repose, 
 While o'er me in a blissful flood 
 
 Of dreams Time's current flows. 
 But listen, comrade, true of faith, 
 
 And brown deer, too, I tell : 
 May blessings rest in ev'ry path ! 
 
 Beloved wood, farewell ! 
 
 best of fathers, here unto 
 Thy sacred grave I come, 
 
 And with eyes raised to heaven's blue 
 
 Take leave of thee and home. 
 My lips are quiv'ring, hot tears run 
 
 As grief my heart doth swell ; 
 
 1 feel that thou dost bless thy son, — 
 
 Beloved grave, farewell ! 
 
 We '11 onward move, one hand-clasp more, 
 
 O friends so true and tried ! 
 Our bond of love will twine far o'er 
 
 Both mount and valley wide. 
 On, on, the distance beckoning 
 
 Like fairy form we see ! 
 Who knows what that bright smile may bring 
 
 On green banks of the Spree ? 
 
NOT IN THE GLOOMY LAP OF EARTH. 1 15 
 
 NOT IN THE GLOOMY LAP OF EARTH. 
 
 1VTOT in the gloomy lap of earth, 
 *-^ To ashes dull consumed, 
 Nor in the narrow house of planks, 
 Would I e'er be entombed. 
 
 But when at night the shining stars 
 
 Say, " Come ! " mysteriously, 
 Wide will I stretch my arms and plunge 
 
 Deep, deep into the sea. 
 
 The lips of nixies, lilies chaste, 
 
 Will kiss my eyelids close, 
 And waves will gently bear me 
 
 Unto my last repose. 
 
 For mourners I shall have the fish 
 
 Which in the waters dwell, 
 And distant surges' thund'ring tones 
 
 Will toll my fun'ral knell. 
 
 The water-lilies fetters soft 
 
 Will bind o'er hands and feet, 
 And for my robe the moon will weave 
 
 A silver winding-sheet. 
 
Il6 POEMS. 
 
 With stars above and stars below, 
 I '11 sink deep in the sea ; 
 
 Then from the flames of earthly pain 
 My heart will aye be free. 
 
OH, MOTHER DEAR! 1 1 J 
 
 OH, MOTHER DEAR! 
 
 " "M" AUGHT can with breeze of Spring compare, 
 
 "*■ ^ That wooing, soft, caressing air." 
 So say we oft, and drink its wine, 
 Rejoicing in the bright sunshine. 
 Yet something softer, well I know, 
 Than wind of May or water's flow, 
 Far softer e'en than silken band, — 
 It is a loving mother's hand. 
 
 When flames the brilliant evening star, 
 
 Glad eyes behold the radiance far, 
 
 And think, while gazing at its light, 
 
 No suns can pour forth beams more bright. 
 
 Yet fairer radiance I know, 
 
 Stars shining with a steadfast glow, 
 
 Which consolation aye supplies, — 
 
 It is a loving mother's eyes. 
 
 Along Life's path thou 'It often rest, 
 To fasten flowers on thy breast 
 Of fragrant scent, hues blue and red : 
 The morrow finds them withered, dead. 
 
Il8 POEMS. 
 
 One flower alone is ever true, 
 
 Its perfume ever gives anew ; 
 
 The same in joy, or mid pain's smart,— 
 
 It is a loving mother's heart. 
 
 Oh, mother's eye ! oh, mother's hand ! 
 Whoe'er these blessings can command, 
 Along Life's swaying plank will aye 
 Press steadfast on in the right way. 
 If sets what seemed joy's sun to be, 
 Unto thy mother thou canst flee ; 
 Thou 'It ne'er be poor nor quite alone, 
 Whilst thou a mother call'st thine own ! 
 
WHILE THOU WERT SITTING SADLY. 1 19 
 
 WHILE THOU WERT SITTING SADLY. 
 
 YX 7"HILE thou wert sitting sadly grieving, 
 
 * " The grave and death thy only thought, 
 Thou didst not see the angels weaving 
 
 A new bright dawn, with fair hopes wrought. 
 
 Thou didst not see that they had woven 
 
 A linen web so soft and fair, 
 Which, shaped by God, bandage hath proven 
 
 That thou, to cool thy wounds, mayst wear. 
 
 God grant that once more on thee beaming 
 
 The sun in radiance may appear, 
 And o'er thy heart, in brightness gleaming, 
 
 The star of peace shine full and clear! 
 
120 POEMS. 
 
 IN THE WATER. 
 
 A H, not in forest, nor moorlands sun-lighted, 
 *^" Lay me to rest when from clay disunited ; 
 Nor, step in rank and file aye keeping, 
 Will I march on to my long sleeping. 
 In waves, in the waves, mid their cool, soft flow, 
 Ah, lower me down : I shall rest there, I know. 
 
 Not e'en a flower I need of your giving, 
 
 I '11 have in death nothing denied to me living; 
 
 Nor singing, nor praying, nor church-bells ringing, 
 Need ye come to my soul as off' ring bringing : 
 
 The waves surging high ? 11 be my funeral knell, — 
 In waves, in the waves, there shall I rest well. 
 
 No one for me will here be sore grieving, 
 Below mid the fishes fond kisses receiving, 
 
 With nixies in songs their fond love expressing, 
 While my rigid limbs so softly caressing ; 
 
 Forever cooled my heart's passionate glow, — 
 In waves, in the waves, I shall rest there, I know. 
 
IN THE WATER. 121 
 
 And when the Trump of Doom its blast is sending, 
 I need not toil, rocks and turf o'er me rending ; 
 
 But while the water's arms are gently raising 
 
 Me, join at once in songs of thanks and praising. 
 
 In waves, in the waves, mid their cool, soft flow, 
 Oh, lower me down! I shall re'st there, I know. 
 
122 POEMS. 
 
 THE SKIFF. 
 
 Yl 71TH low clanking, a chain 's holding 
 
 ' " Firm the lightly modelled boat ; 
 While this sheltered spot 's enfolding 
 Thee, thou canst securely float. 
 
 Here art thou not safely guarded, 
 Howe'er fierce the tempest blows ? 
 
 Tears and troubles all discarded, 
 Naught disturbs thy calm repose. 
 
 Heed not snowy water-lilies, 
 
 Nor the nixies, one and all ; 
 They but tempt with wiles and sorc'ries, 
 
 Luring down to sudden fall. 
 
 But the boat with soft, sad plashing 
 
 Sighs unto the yellow sand ; 
 Firmly fastened, yet still dashing, 
 
 Her light breast 'gainst the steep strand. 
 
 Former liberty I 'm craving, 
 Weighs thy chain too heavily ; 
 
 Fain would I, my light limbs laving, 
 Plunge them deep in azure sea. 
 
THE SKIFF. 123 
 
 Though the tempest struck me, flinging 
 
 Thousand fragments in its glee, 
 My loose planks would join in singing 
 
 With the nixies : " We are free ! " 
 
124 POEMS. 
 
 RETALIATION. 
 
 Tyro one 'mong children good me named, 
 ■^ ' Or thought of meeting, 
 I liked the waters clear to stir 
 With sharp rods beating. 
 
 The deeper in the element 
 
 My swift strokes pushing, 
 The louder from my childish lips 
 
 Glad shouts came rushing. 
 
 Now I am lashed and beaten by 
 
 Life's education : 
 Can there perchance in Nature be 
 
 Retaliation ? 
 
 It may be so ; yet for one fault 
 
 No one shall blame me. 
 I silent bear my woe ; the tide 
 
 Shall never shame me. 
 
THE SONG OF MY LITTLE LAD. 1 25 
 
 THE SONG OF MY LITTLE LAD. 
 
 TJULL many songs forth I Ve been sending, 
 *■ Of joy exultant or deep woe ; 
 Ere died the last, with silence blending, 
 
 I felt a fresh poetic throe ; 
 But as the others far transcending, 
 All are this of my lad commending. 
 
 My son, my darling boy, with flowing 
 Fair locks of thick and silken hair, — 
 
 Ah, surely there 's no other showing 
 
 Eyes, which can with thy stars compare ! 
 
 No one hath lips more brightly glowing : 
 
 Yes, yes, how handsome my lad 's growing ! 
 
 His laugh so gayly rings while playing, 
 
 In my heart waking echoes oft, 
 As, boyish impulses obeying, 
 
 Jests tease his brown-skinned sister oft. 
 Like snow-wreaths 'neath the March sun staying, 
 It melts the grief on my soul weighing. 
 
126 POEMS. 
 
 Full oft into his chamber stealing, 
 When the wee elf has gone to sleep, 
 
 I watch, while joy and fear both feeling, 
 The flush his rosy cheeks still keep, 
 
 And see the child's " Our Father " sealing 
 
 Chaste lips, their curves the words revealing. 
 
 My son, my boy, may Fate thee bringing 
 What to thy mother is denied, 
 
 Aid thee thy flight to summits winging, 
 Where but the eagle dares abide ! 
 
 Mayst thou, with silv'ry notes clear ringing, 
 
 Laurel and myrtle win by singing ! 
 
 Then will I my own lyre lower, 
 
 And listen only to thy tone ; 
 The world to wound will have no power, 
 
 Avenged shall I be through my son. 
 Whoe'er the son with bay doth dower, 
 Honors his mother in that hour. 
 
MY BOY. 127 
 
 MY BOY. 
 
 HPHE sons of many other mothers 
 ■* Have pink and white cheeks just as fair, 
 And wealth of gold and brown locks waving ; 
 
 But none can with my boy compare ! 
 Oft in the distance with his comrades 
 
 I see him coming, while afar, 
 Among the whole group shining radiant 
 
 As when from gray clouds gleams a star ! 
 
 When merry songs in neighboring woodlands 
 
 Ring forth like sweet bells, pure and clear, 
 I hear but one mid all the voices, — 
 
 My son's alone doth reach my ear ! 
 And when a ball in happy play-time 
 
 Flies upward to the very roof, 
 I know that my own boy's hand flung it, — 
 
 Of his young strength a joyous proof ! 
 
 When fifteen more brief years have fleeted, 
 
 The vision ye will see with me, 
 As slender as a green young fir-trunk 
 
 He stands beneath the apple-tree ! 
 
128 POEMS. 
 
 E'en now his bright, clear eyes uplifted 
 The radiant sunshine strive to bear : 
 
 Yes, there are sons of other mothers, 
 But none can with ray boy compare ! 
 
TO MY DAUGHTER. 1 29 
 
 TO MY DAUGHTER. 
 
 "CAIN would I see thee silken garments wearing, 
 "■■ Mid braided locks bright flashing jewels bearing, 
 A golden bracelet on thy arm secure : 
 Forgive me, dearest child, I am too poor. 
 
 Now gladly would I, to thy banquet going, 
 Pour richest wine from silver goblet flowing, 
 At night with purple wrap thee warmly o'er : 
 Forgive me, dearest child, I am too poor. 
 
 I nothing have except my love to give thee ; 
 From it a little warm shawl I will weave thee ; 
 Entwining with it blessings manifold, 
 And prayers that God thee safe from ill will hold. 
 
 That He from all griefs storms thee ever guarding, 
 To deck thy breast love's roses fair awarding, 
 May feed and give thee drink from mercy's store : 
 This is my wish, dear child ; I have naught more. 
 
130 POEMS. 
 
 BEAUTIFUL EYES. 
 
 "C'EN as the wand'rer for the forest's shadow 
 -*- / Doth sadly yearn, 
 
 When naught save deserts bare, no tree nor meadow, 
 Can he discern ; 
 
 E'en as the convict in his dungeon lying 
 
 The night doth greet, 
 When, on dream pinions, joy and sunshine flying 
 
 Make his woe sweet, — 
 
 So in thine eyes' soft, shadow-cool recesses 
 
 My worn heart lies, 
 Till, freed from burdens of griefs sore distresses, 
 
 It heav'nward flies ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Earnest, mystic, wondrous past ken, 
 Turn ye not, dark eyes, away ! 
 
 Be my cradle, be my heaven, 
 And cool grave of grief, I pray. 
 
BEAUTIFUL EYES. 13 1 
 
 For your mystic depths aye yearning 
 
 Ceaseless seeks my soul its bliss, 
 Peace and happiness discerning 
 
 Only in your dark abyss. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, eye that with such magic flashes, 
 Tell me, what dost thou dream, 
 
 When on thy long and silken lashes 
 Tear-drops like diamonds gleam? 
 
 Perchance J t is of the tender flower 
 Which for thy sake hath bloomed, 
 
 And forth its chaste, pure soul did pour 
 To be in thee entombed./" 
 
 Lov'st thou the lily white and slender 
 Which in thy depths doth live, 
 
 And for whose growth, with care so tender, 
 Dews precious thou dost give ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Although thine eyes are fathomless, 
 
 I fain would gaze therein ; 
 The flow'rets with such tempting stress 
 
 Lure me, my heart to win. 
 
132 POEMS. 
 
 I lower bend, and gazing stay ; 
 
 Still my glance fixed I keep, 
 While Innocence beside the way 
 
 For her lost child doth weep. 
 
 V. 
 
 When I to gaze in thine eyes dare, 
 The world to me looks doubly fair ; 
 
 When bright and cheerful is my mind, 
 I think that every heart is kind ; 
 
 Forget all cares that haunt my way, 
 Nay, e'en the coming Judgment Day. 
 
 Thine eye my life-fount surely hath ; 
 It calms my heart and cools my wrath. 
 
 Oh, do not trembling from me shrink, 
 Permit my soul thy gaze to drink ! 
 
 Let not thy lashes from me quite 
 Conceal what is my life's sweet light ; 
 
 And when within my grave I lie, 
 Look down on me with loving eye ! 
 
 The light of thy gaze on me pour, 
 It is more dear than wreath or flow'r. 
 
 The joys of heaven I would not share, 
 If thine eyes did not greet me there ! 
 
NIGHT. 133 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 HOW colorless the sky and dreary, 
 Which wore by day a smile so bright ! 
 The clouds, as if of tears aweary, 
 
 Like beggars mute sweep through the night. 
 
 Their little heads the flowers hang sleeping ; 
 
 Not e'en one leaf moves on the tree ; 
 Only the waves, to my feet creeping, 
 
 Exchange soft kisses dreamily. 
 
 The forest stands in deepest silence, 
 
 The birds have long since ceased to sing ; 
 
 But faintly, from the ghostly distance, 
 The breeze a bell's low note doth bring. 
 
 Upon the moss in worship blissful 
 I kneel ; my tears like dew-drops fall. 
 
 Oh, holy nights, calm, starless, peaceful, 
 How fervently I love ye all ! 
 
134 POEMS. 
 
 OPEN THY HEART. 
 
 A DMIT into thy silent breast 
 ** The notes of but one bird, 
 And instantly thy soul will join 
 In jubilant accord. 
 
 The perfume of a single flow'r 
 
 Inhale like breath of God, 
 And in the garden of thy heart 
 
 A thousand buds will nod. 
 
 Toward one star in heaven's expanse 
 
 Direct thy spirit's flight, 
 And thou wilt have in the wide world, 
 
 My child, enough delight. 
 
Off, LOVE THOU TOO! 135 
 
 OH, LOVE THOU TOO! 
 
 'PHE waves are all whisp'ring, 
 ■"■ In moonlight clear, 
 The sweetest of dance-tunes 
 
 For nixies' ear ; 
 They laugh and they beckon, 
 
 Each other woo, 
 And say with their plashing : 
 
 " Oh, love thou too ! " 
 
 In blossoming linden, 
 
 Each year, a pair 
 Of doves to their nestlings 
 
 Show tender care ; 
 They 're billing and cooing, 
 
 Like lovers true, 
 While twittering softly : 
 
 " Oh, love thou too ! " 
 
 How surely the heaven 
 
 The earth holds dear, 
 E'en though it looks sometimes 
 
 So dull and drear ! 
 
136 POEMS. 
 
 Yet through the gray clouds breaks 
 
 The sun anew, 
 And laughingly greets with : 
 
 " Oh, love thou too ! " 
 
 Wouldst know the real meaning 
 
 Which love doth fold? 
 Thou must the Redeemer's 
 
 Image behold : 
 " My life thee I 've given. — 
 
 What wilt thou do ? 
 Oh, heart, restless throbbing, 
 
 Now love thou too ! " 
 
TO MY ROSE. 137 
 
 TO MY ROSE. 
 
 /^OME to my heart, rose lightly swaying 
 ^- / Upon thy bending, slender stem, 
 Lest leafless autumn, thee dismaying, 
 
 Should seize thy curled locks, rending them ! 
 Upon my heart securely resting 
 
 From tempest, storm, and every ill, 
 Each morn with kisses to thee hasting, 
 
 Love, with new life, each pulse will thrill ! 
 
 I know a wondrous lovely Eden 
 
 Far from the rude world's din and roar, 
 Where all the charming flower-children 
 
 Talk love, — love only, evermore ; 
 Where nightingales exulting, wailing, 
 
 Of love's joys and love's sorrows sing, — 
 Oh, trust my strength of arm unfailing, 
 
 Thee there to dwell for aye 't will bring ! 
 
 Oh, do not shake thy fragrant tresses ! 
 
 Thy beauty, too, soon will have fled, 
 And winter '11 strew, as on he presses, 
 
 His snowflakes white upon thy head. 
 
138 POEMS. 
 
 Dost thou not feel the chill of autumn? 
 
 Thy sisters wither 'neath its dart. 
 Thou fragile rose on swaying stalk, come ! 
 
 Thy fate decide : Come to my heart ! 
 
/ AM FREEZING. 1 39 
 
 I AM FREEZING. 
 
 MID sunshine's glow I freezing stand 
 While flow'rs bloom brilliantly, 
 Since once a cold and cruel hand 
 A draught hath given me. 
 
 I 'm freezing by the fireside's blaze J 
 Though hot flames fiercely rolled, 
 
 And I should ever at them gaze, 
 Still ever I 'd be cold. 
 
 E'en though with sun and fire's glow 
 The highest heavens were red, 
 
 My blood, now ice, would never flow : 
 I freeze — my heart is dead ! 
 
140 POEMS. 
 
 I GREET THEE. 
 
 /^\H, kindred soul, I give thee greeting, 
 ^-^ E'en as we greet the sunshine bright, 
 Which, after winter's night, uncloses 
 
 The springtide days of warmth and light ! 
 
 As 'neath Spring's kisses, warm and tender, 
 The flowers their bright faces show, 
 
 So thou within my heart dost conjure 
 The first green blade of hope to grow. 
 
 And from that heart, to new life kindled, 
 Doth softly rise an earnest prayer, 
 
 That God this sunbeam ever guarding 
 Will its light always to me spare. 
 
 Whatever tempests may assail me, 
 My trusting heart will ne'er despair : 
 
 Oh, kindred soul, 1 give thee greeting ! 
 God bless thee, my own sunlight fair ! 
 
DISAPPOINTED. 141 
 
 DISAPPOINTED. 
 
 A GLEAMING pearl lay on the strand, 
 **■ It seemed a beauteous one ; 
 Yet when I grasped it in my hand, 
 'T was but a pebble-stone. 
 
 I plucked a crimson rose so fair, 
 
 Fragrant as a spring morn : 
 When on my breast I sought to wear 
 
 The flow'r, ? t was but a thorn. 
 
 A heart, too, once was sent to me, — 
 I thought it glowed with love ; 
 
 But, bound to mine eternally, 
 No ice could colder prove. 
 
142 POEMS. 
 
 NO SONG CAN I SUCCEED IN SINGING. 
 
 1VTO song can I succeed in singing, 
 ^ How light the task in days of yore ; 
 Are now my pinions weary, winging 
 
 Their flight woe's wide realm to explore ? 
 Have all the blazing torches vanished, 
 
 Does no bloom on the flowers remain? 
 As if the heavy rods Fate brandished 
 
 Had from my wreath its last leaf ta'en ? 
 
 No, no ! Cheer up, my spirit mounting 
 
 Up, up, toward the sunshine move ! 
 Strike thou thy lyre, thy griefs ne'er counting, 
 
 And steadfast fix thine eyes above ! 
 As from the bonds of winter leaping, 
 
 The spring doth force a current free, 
 Thy song pour forth, and, firmly keeping 
 
 Thy flag close clasped, a victor be. 
 
UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN. 1 43 
 
 UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN. 
 
 ' TNTIL we meet again ! it hopeful rings, 
 ^ When friendly hands are clasped, a farewell taking. 
 Oh, words of comfort, which love's tribute brings, 
 No others cheer like these, the silence breaking. 
 
 Your palm-bough on all crosses waves aloft, 
 Ye dry the tears upon our lashes clust'ring, 
 
 Ye render thorn crowns light and velvet soft, 
 
 O'er cliffs and seas your golden bridges thrusting. 
 
 And should the words the scorner says prove true, 
 Should death my soul seize, too, conquest complet- 
 ing, 
 
 The promised morn ne'er dawn, life bringing new, — 
 Oh, let me still believe in future meeting ! 
 
144 POEMS. 
 
 STARS THE SKY ARE FILLING. 
 
 OTARS the sky are filling ! 
 ^ What a radiant light ! 
 Deep within my heart reigns 
 Black and stormy night. 
 
 Silv'ry dew-drops glitter, 
 
 Strewn o'er wood and wold ; 
 
 My wan cheeks are furrowed 
 Where sad tears have rolled. 
 
 Everywhere peace reigneth, 
 Sacred, deepest peace ; 
 
 But in my brain weary 
 Conflicts never cease. 
 
 Throbbing, seething, burning, 
 
 Till consumed am I, 
 And from the dead ashes 
 
 Swift my soul will fly. 
 
WHAT I LOVE. 145 
 
 WHAT I LOVE. 
 
 A SKY always cloudless 
 r* 1 Would not be fair ; 
 It would kill the flow'rets 
 
 Everywhere ! 
 The ground would soon harden 
 
 In sunshine's glow, 
 And then the fair flowers 
 
 Could never grow. 
 
 For happiness endless 
 
 I would not yearn, 
 No bridge to sleep leading 
 
 Could I discern. 
 E'en though I should empty 
 
 The cup of joy, 
 Still I should be thirsting, 
 
 Ne'er would it cloy. 
 
 I love the cloud curtain, 
 Which veils the blue ; 
 
 Unto earth it bringeth 
 The cooling dew. 
 
146 POEMS. 
 
 The keen pain and anguish 
 
 Of grief I love ; 
 They bear our hearts unto 
 
 The heights above. 
 
PAIN YOU'VE GIVEN. 1 47 
 
 PAIN YOU'VE GIVEN. 
 
 PAIN you 've given, bitter pain, 
 * Words forever ringing, 
 In my ears their sad refrain 
 Grief for error bringing. 
 
 Words cannot, though sweet and kind, 
 
 Compensation offer ; 
 Courage yet I do not find 
 
 Thee my hand to proffer. 
 
 Thousand tongues can tell the tale, 
 
 Keen remorse revealing. 
 Can tears to blot my fault avail, 
 
 'Neath my eyelids stealing? 
 
148 POEMS. 
 
 WOULD I WERE DEAD! 
 
 YX rOULD I were dead ! How sweet must sleep be, 
 lying, 
 Thus from all earthly sorrows far removed ; 
 Like mariner from sheltered harbor eying 
 
 With quiet gaze the sea's tempestuous flood, 
 While to safe haven Fate his ship hath led — 
 Would I were dead ! 
 
 Would I were dead ! What dreams of wondrous 
 beauty 
 Must visit those in the cool house below ; 
 When linden-trees, low rustling, roused to duty, 
 
 No more would I to life, so barren, go, 
 Nor grief nor care could reach my narrow bed — 
 Would I were dead ! 
 
 Would I were dead ! Both hate and love past feeling, 
 The pangs all past which mankind to me gave. 
 
 My glowing heart, now into dust congealing, 
 Mouldering slowly in the peaceful grave, 
 
 The flow'rs all withered which once fragrance shed — 
 Would I were dead ! 
 
WOULD I WERE DEAD! 1 49 
 
 Would I were dead ! The evening shades come gliding, 
 I Ve seen enough delusions here below, 
 
 The birds' sweet songs in silence are subsiding, 
 An icy wind doth on my temples blow. 
 
 Long since hath faded joy's last sunset red — 
 Would I were dead ! 
 
I SO POEMS. 
 
 VANISHED. 
 
 "P\IED away, in silence endless, 
 -^ All my lyre's rich tones so sweet ; 
 Never will their music cheering 
 More my soul, so weary, greet. 
 
 Spent and dry the spring now lieth, 
 Which so oft my heart did cool — 
 
 When deep grief, with iron finger, 
 To its depths hath stirred the pool. 
 
 Gone forever have my sun's rays, 
 Which with light so brilliant shone ; 
 
 Never in this life another 
 Will be sent me for mine own ! 
 
HUSH. 151 
 
 HUSH. 
 
 HUSH, hush I 
 Hot weeping spurn, 
 Some day tears 
 To ice will turn. 
 
 Soon, soon 
 
 Thou wilt be cool, 
 Ere thou art 'ware, 
 
 Thou 'It reach the goal. 
 
 Far, far 
 
 Will pain depart, 
 Thy bones dust be, 
 
 Dust, too, thy heart ! 
 
152 POEMS. 
 
 THE DELUSION OF GRANDEUR. 
 
 TN dreams I once — I cannot now help smiling — 
 * Believed myself a princess wondrous fair. 
 My feet were silken clad, and, time beguiling, 
 
 I donned the garments rich the royal wear. 
 Around my palace walls were Hussars standing, 
 
 Each man wore buttons of the purest gold ; 
 While I, court fool to minister commanding, 
 
 All, subject to my lightest wish, controlled. 
 
 Why had I to such lofty height ere mounted ? 
 
 By no cause could I this strange dream explain ; 
 To poverty from earliest childhood wonted, 
 
 Ne'er had I quaffed the foam of joy's champagne. 
 And then I ripped the pillow's striped cover — 
 
 J Twas filled with shining plumage of the cock : 
 All strain to solve the puzzle now was over, 
 
 And why in dreams grandeur and joy me mock ! 
 
AUTUMN. 153 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 /^\NCE again, o'er all the land, 
 ^-^ Autumn's golden rain is sweeping ; 
 Wearied by the summer's heat, 
 Many heads seek rest in sleeping. 
 
 For the last time dying flowers 
 
 Fragrance breathe from blossoms pouring ; 
 Where the rustling grain once waved, 
 
 Smoke from shepherds' fires is soaring. 
 
 Softly, with no joyous notes, 
 Birds of passage southward winging, 
 
 With light stroke of pinions now 
 
 Kiss their nests, — a farewell flinging. 
 
 Ah, the hour when Nature draws 
 Her last breath, to ice congealing, 
 
 Never can the eye discern, — 
 To the soul 't is known by feeling. 
 
 Thus shall we all also fare : 
 
 When has passed the summer's singing, 
 And the joys of life have fled, 
 
 Cometh Death to all rest bringing. 
 
1 54 POEMS. 
 
 In the tempest and in want, 
 
 Or the sunshine and joy knowing, 
 
 Softly under hand of God 
 Our souls will pass, to silence going. 
 
POETIC TRIFLES. 155 
 
 POETIC TRIFLES. 
 
 Yl J HERE happiness, still, calm, and pure, 
 * * Doth like a flow'r unfold, 
 Let ev'ry hand rude touch abjure, 
 And say, " May God thee hold ! " 
 
 The tears which sorrowful yearning sheds 
 
 Are all united in pearly beads ; 
 In every flower's cup they're found 
 
 Which lonely grows in the wayside ground. 
 
 In peace let the dead sleep. 
 
 And scourge thou them not ; 
 To God's judgment seat 
 
 Thou, too, wilt be brought. 
 
 When Life 's smoothly flowing, 
 
 No obstacles e'er showing, 
 Then wise and virtuous are we, 
 
 And plume ourselves so strong to be. 
 
156 POEMS. 
 
 Yet only those are counted 
 
 True men who have surmounted 
 
 Life's perils and its dangers, 
 To sin remaining strangers. 
 
 Man tries himself to rate in vain, 
 The masses this right always holding, 
 
 Whoe'er will not suffer their enfolding 
 Must ever at the door remain. 
 
 Although the rose beside the way 
 Half choked by weeds is seen, 
 
 From every blossom that unfolds 
 Looks forth the flowers' queen. 
 
 Howe'er may flaunt, mid blossoms bright, 
 
 The nettle her display, 
 She still remains an ugly weed 
 
 Forever and for aye. 
 
 Fate has toward you a kind intent, 
 
 And you may trust, her sentence waiting ; 
 
 Tis only when you grasp the reins 
 That she begins her bitter hating. 
 
JN AN ALBUM. 157 
 
 IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 TV J" ANY have written on this book's fair pages, 
 ■*•*-*■ I see that almost every ona is full ; 
 With wishes for all joy to thee, love's gages, 
 The tribute of each friend here you may cull. 
 
 While one doth warn you in life's darkest regions 
 Of storm and stress an upright man to be, 
 
 Another hopes that God His angel legions 
 
 With sunshine and rose-scents may send to thee. 
 
 T is well j for all these things thou 'It have occasion ; 
 
 Both up and downward Life us leads in part ; 
 But whether joy or grief should be thy portion, 
 
 Forever keep, young friend, thy childlike heart. 
 
 If this thou hast, all things in one thus wedding, 
 A heart that 's pure will give pure lips and hand ; 
 
 Each tear of sorrow thou 'It some day be shedding 
 God will arrange as pearls on thy life's band. 
 
158 POEMS, 
 
 SOME DAY. 
 
 COME day this brain with thoughts that blaze and 
 ^ smoulder, 
 
 Which oft hath pondered many an hour lone, 
 In earth's dark breast, so bitter cold, will moulder, 
 
 And every care will then be past and gone. 
 
 These hands of mine, which now are hotly burning, 
 These feet of mine, which now so sorely ache, 
 
 Will then at last, from all earth's labor turning, 
 Soon find the time a long, long rest to take. 
 
 Yet still my heart, with all its ardor glowing, 
 Will ne'er consumed to dust and ashes be ; 
 
 Forever from it fresh love will be flowing, 
 And like a star, beloved, shine on thee ! 
 
THE VILLAGE HOSPITAL. 
 
 159 
 
 THE VILLAGE HOSPITAL. 
 
 /^LOSE by the churchyard, in narrow vale, 
 ^ Far, far from rich men's farms abundant, 
 Illumed by the sun's last ray so pale, 
 The village hospital we hail, 
 
 Which walking corpses do tenant. 
 
 Well-nigh to earth doth the roof extend ; 
 
 Light through dim windows is stealing ; 
 When the larks' matin songs to heav'n ascend, 
 From the chambers so close and narrow blend 
 
 Such piteous tears and appealing. 
 
 And within — O Pity, hold e'en thy breath ! — 
 
 The poorest of poor people here lie. 
 In soul and in body sick unto death, 
 Each in his heart's depths the same prayer hath 
 " Our Father, upon us have mercy." 
 
 Around, wherever the eye doth rest, 
 
 Corruption, moans, suffering cureless : 
 I thought myself no more on earth a guest, 
 As to this dark gulf of woe I pressed, — 
 A sea of tears, surging and shoreless. 
 
l60 POEMS. 
 
 The sun had set ; but as on I went, 
 
 My way through the dark fields keeping, 
 Close followed, where'er my steps I bent, 
 The sufferers' sighs and sad lament : 
 Long, long I could hear their weeping ! 
 
FULL. I6l 
 
 FULL. 
 
 C* RAVE by grave and cross by cross, 
 ^^ Here are row upon row, 
 Where, in my heart's garden wide, 
 Flowers bright I oft strow. 
 
 But amid them lay one space, 
 
 For a long time left free, 
 Where, upon a golden bush, 
 
 My dear love might throned be. 
 
 But to-day the tempest fierce 
 Hath with chilling blast come. 
 
 Tearless have I now borne forth 
 Love unto its last home. 
 
 Tremble not, thou feeble hand, 
 
 Coward heart upholding ; 
 Firmly grasp the winding-sheet, 
 
 Thy life's love enfolding ! 
 
 Dig thou deep, — then will no ear 
 
 Catch the low lamenting, 
 Which might other sleepers rouse, 
 
 Their repose preventing, 
 n 
 
1 62 POEMS. 
 
 Slumber there, O love and joy ! 
 
 Hoot on, boding horned owl ! 
 Henceforth I shall shrink no more, — 
 
 All the rows are now full. 
 
REFUGE. 163 
 
 REFUGE. 
 
 r pO Heav'n I 've raised my cries appealing, 
 ■■■ To earth I Ve pleaded in despair, — 
 Before the altar's steps, low kneeling, 
 
 Have poured forth yearning, ardent prayer. 
 
 " Have pity," cried I, the woods pacing, 
 " And cool the pain of this fierce smart ! " 
 
 The cliff with slender arms embracing 
 I clasped, mid weeping, to my heart. 
 
 Thus, my woe consolation mocking, 
 From place to place I wandered on, 
 
 Till in my chamber myself locking, 
 Found comfort in God's word alone. 
 
 At last the lesson I am learning, — 
 
 Grief hallows those who 've its path trod ; 
 
 And though joy's dead, past all returning, 
 Know naught can part me from my God ! 
 
1 64 POEMS. 
 
 THE LEAVES ARE FALLING. 
 
 r PHE leaves are falling, so soft and light, 
 ■*• The mocking wind has breathed on them its 
 
 blight ; 
 The bare, brown boughs are sadly mourning 
 The guests their faith to them thus spurning, 
 And all the summer fragrance and bloom 
 Finds in one chill November night its doom. 
 Oh, grief far beyond all measure ! 
 It is the ever-unchanging tale, — 
 After May's roses comes winter's veil. 
 The leaves are falling — all 's past, we wail. 
 
 The leaves are falling ! scarce true doth seem 
 That faded so soon my sunny dream ; 
 Command to part Fate's hand was signing, 
 Which we must bear without repining. 
 In vain did yearning long, long seek the way, — 
 All paths were effaced, the heavens were gray. 
 Oh, why so many tears weeping ? 
 They never the path to joy will show ! 
 It sleeps far down in the cool house low ; 
 The leaves are falling ! all 's o'er, we know. 
 
/ HAVE SEEN. 165 
 
 I HAVE SEEN. 
 
 T 'VE seen the delicate golden-haired child 
 
 Unto a crazy old fool chains uniting ; 
 She gentle and soft as the spring breeze mild, 
 
 And he a north wind, with his gray locks frighting. 
 
 The good and virtuous wife have I seen, 
 On bed of fair flowers her body finding ; 
 
 The blossoms o'er her dear form wove a screen, 
 Which chains so young to ice and snow were binding. 
 
 Her every feature spoke of secret woe, 
 Yet on her brow was purity still dreaming ; 
 
 Thus frost doth often, e'en mid springtide glow, 
 Kill in one night the rosebud brightest seeming. 
 
 The tears sprung burning hot to all our eyes, 
 But mine from her pale lips could not be riven ; 
 
 To me she seemed a lamb of sacrifice, 
 Unto the yawning jaws of hell thus driven. 
 
 The gray-haired dolt, 't is true, wailed and tears shed, 
 The while, in secret, groups of young girls watching, 
 
 Whence he, perchance ere three short months had 
 sped, 
 Might have the joy of one more sweet flow'r snatching. 
 
1 66 POEMS. 
 
 THE MAID-SERVANT IN MOURNING. 
 
 ^T^HEY laugh at me because, a servant-maid, 
 ■*• For him best loved I 'm wearing mourning, 
 Because at night, when no one needs me, 
 Weeping his death, I 'm sleepless turning. 
 
 The many patches on my old black gown 
 
 Occasion give for merry jesting ; 
 What do I care for garments fine ? 
 
 My heart my grief is manifesting. 
 
 They chide the slight trembling of my hand, — 
 It moves less quickly, orders taking ; 
 
 If they but knew how, far from her home, 
 The poor deserted child's heart 's aching. 
 
 They often lifted their dog in their laps, 
 
 And his ails commiserated, 
 While they laughed to scorn the woe in my soul 
 
 By God Himself created. 
 
FREE. 167 
 
 FREE. 
 
 T BEAR a joy, a lofty joy, 
 * Within my heart, oft aching ; 
 No fear doth ever it alloy, 
 When thoughts free flight are taking. 
 
 They flutter like the birds, while swings 
 Their flight throughout earth gleaming, 
 
 And bear upon their dainty wings 
 The sweetest of all dreaming. 
 
 They mock at doors and bars and bolts, 
 And all the blows Fate looses ; 
 
 My merry little choir of thoughts 
 Can love whate'er it chooses. 
 
 And though my feet through life are led 
 Down poverty's bare pathway, 
 
 My merry band of thoughts will tread 
 The street of highest beauty. 
 
1 68 POEMS. 
 
 MY LIFE. 
 
 A LL my life long I Ve wandered on so sadly, 
 "■ For love and joy in childhood 'gan my quest, 
 Like butterflies I saw them flit before me, 
 
 Which now and then upon a flower rest ; 
 They lured me on till evening shades came gliding, 
 
 But when the mists rose to the mountain's brow, 
 Downward they sank, within the blossoms' hiding, 
 
 While my hand only grasped the thorny bough. 
 
 Lying too weary e'en to stir a finger, 
 
 Prone on the turf, with the chill hoar-frost wet, 
 Again the lovely creatures hover, linger, 
 
 But none upon the flowers have settled yet. 
 Higher they soar and higher, upward still, then 
 
 Vanish forever from my tearful eyes ; 
 Slowly the leaves fall from the churchyard linden,' 
 
 Whispering low : Joy dwells beyond the skies ! 
 
A CHILD IS WEEPING. 1 69 
 
 A CHILD IS WEEPING. 
 
 Tl rHAT can afflict the child thus weeping? 
 
 • ■ It sounds so passionate and sad ; 
 Who can a child in pain be keeping, 
 
 Who yet no touch of care has had ? 
 It sits there in the scorching sun, 
 
 Upon the dusty road, alone. 
 
 The other little ones have all gone, 
 Amid the green woods gayly range, 
 
 Play in the pathways, moss and grass-grown, 
 And kisses, jests, and talk exchange. 
 
 Not e'en a single thought they send 
 
 To this poor weeping child, their friend. 
 
 More and more angry grows the crying, 
 Despair doth seize the little heart ; 
 
 It grasps the stones in the road lying, 
 And beats itself to feel the smart. 
 
 Far into distance, back it peers, 
 But nothing sees to soothe its tears. 
 
1 70 POEMS. 
 
 Its temples throb, the sun is glowing, 
 
 The little child so weary lies, 
 Its tears are now more slowly flowing 
 
 'Neath the red lids that veil its eyes. 
 Its little head doth now droop quite, 
 
 Its little mouth is still and white. 
 
 It sleeps — one more sob, yet another, 
 Then calm, deep calm, the scene broods o'er 
 
 Calls from the woods doth echo transfer, 
 But the poor child hears nothing more. 
 
 However deep may be its grief, 
 A child can weep itself to sleep. 
 
TO THE MOON. I/i 
 
 TO THE MOON. 
 
 /^\H, come, fair moonlight that I love, 
 ^-^ Extending thy white hand, 
 Aud weave o'er valley, river, grove, 
 
 Thy gleaming silver band. 
 The nixies to the upper air 
 
 From house of crystal rise, 
 And wash their long and silken hair 
 
 Where thy soft radiance lies. 
 
 Scarce canst thou with the sun's bright glance 
 
 In ardent love looks vie, 
 Yet doth thy noble countenance 
 
 Rare beauty glorify. 
 Each one deep in thine eyes to bask 
 
 Would gladly with thee bide, 
 And all our hearts do closest mask 
 
 We can to thee confide. 
 
 Petitions thou dost ne'er reveal, 
 
 But, list'ning with a smile, 
 From house to house doth gently steal, 
 
 And bring sweet rest the while. 
 
1 72 POEMS. 
 
 Though we are sleeping, thou dost wake, 
 
 In smallest room dost peer, 
 And wrapped within thy mantle take 
 
 Glad dreams the heart to cheer. 
 
 And so upon thee, moonlight pale, 
 
 More than all else I doat ; 
 Calm, pure, the sky through thou dost sail, 
 
 As in a silver boat. 
 And when draws near my life's last eve, 
 
 And earthly strife is o'er, 
 Within thy skiff, friend, me receive 
 
 And bear to Heav'n's shore. 
 
MY HEART. 1 73 
 
 MY HEART. 
 
 TV TY heart is strong as a sturdy oak, 
 
 ^*- Its branches and boughs gnarled extending, 
 
 On sunlit space aye fixed is its look, 
 
 And it knows naught of bowing or bending. 
 
 A ship so proud with streamers and mast, 
 It sweeps through surges loud roaring, 
 
 Yet nor rest nor peace can it find, till at last 
 In home's haven it ceases exploring. 
 
 Too often my heart is like a flint, 
 
 So cold, stiff, and senseless lying, 
 But e'en one blow with the steel imprint, 
 
 Bright sparks and flames round you '11 be flying. 
 
 Yet if the omnipotent light of love 
 
 To subdue it hath all its strength given, 
 
 'T will softer e'en than melting snow prove, 
 Or oak by the lightning riven. 
 
174 POEMS. 
 
 FOUND. 
 
 TTOW long, how long for thee I Ve sought, 
 
 ™* Until now never finding ! 
 
 But since thy word hath comfort brought, 
 
 On my wound balm 't is binding. 
 The fiery flush of joy's first thrill 
 
 Through all my being 's glowing ; 
 My woe has fled, want, every ill, 
 
 My bliss full health bestowing. 
 
 My soul doth now no longer rove ; 
 
 Upon thy heart 't is resting, 
 Sweeps proudly through thy sea of love, 
 
 Knows only mirth and jesting. 
 Within thy arms it falls asleep, 
 
 A thousand kisses giving, 
 Reflected in thine eyes so deep 
 
 As 't were in sunshine living. 
 
 My burning thirst is now appeased, 
 
 My boat in harbor 's lying ; 
 In love's cloak wrapped, all suffring eased, 
 
 To sleep I 'm joyous flying. 
 
FOUND. 175 
 
 Thou mine, I thine forevermore, 
 What grief could torture me, when 
 
 Of all my bliss the inmost core 
 In thee is life, soul, heaven ! 
 
176 POEMS. 
 
 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 "\1 71THIN the forest shades to live and die, 
 * * Oh, fair fate sent ! 
 
 The flowers our bed, the soft green grass our grave 
 And monument. 
 
 Bright dragon-flies gleam through the solemn dusk 
 
 Like precious gems, 
 And ivy twines about the lofty elms 
 
 Its clasping stems. 
 
 The tree tops rustling in the evening breeze 
 
 Sweet songs sing low, 
 And from the lofty boughs the dew-drops wet 
 
 Leafage below. 
 
 How blest to lie there shut in sweet repose, 
 
 From sorrow deep, 
 And with closed lids, enwrapped in happy dreams, 
 
 Forever sleep ! 
 
HOMELESS. 177 
 
 HOMELESS. 
 
 T LAY upon my mother's breast, 
 
 In life, a single hour alone ; 
 Ah, I should be divinely blest 
 
 Could I but hear her voice's tone. 
 But in the grave by Death's hand hurled, 
 
 Her love for me in her heart bearing, 
 She left me lonely in the world, 
 
 The world of sorrow, pain, despairing. 
 
 My father blind, my mother dead, 
 
 The joys of home lost evermore, 
 When the child tears of longing shed, 
 
 For folly scolded o'er and o'er, 
 No doubt the beads that sparkling gleam 
 
 Youth drained from Pleasure's cup o'erflowing, 
 Yet my heart never ceased to dream 
 
 Of happiness all radiant glowing. 
 
 E'en though I were the prodigal, 
 
 And had my wealth with others squandered, 
 I still would hear a sweet voice call 
 
 And turn my steps repentant homeward, 
 
178 POEMS. 
 
 Would fall before my father's feet, 
 Then, humbly to my mother kneeling, 
 
 My home again with rapture greet, 
 Feeling their kiss my pardon sealing. 
 
 Now, like a leaf borne on the wind, 
 
 Amid the world's dense concourse straying, 
 There 's not a single soul I find 
 
 For me, old bachelor, love displaying. 
 Who '11 bring my sore heart comfort now? 
 
 Why hath not Friendship my hands taken ? 
 Oh, Mother dear, why, why hast thou 
 
 So early thy poor child forsaken ? 
 
THOU AND I. 179 
 
 THOU AND I. 
 
 THOU movest onward with droopihg head, 
 Thy hopeless eyes no joy perceiving ; 
 But I walk with light, unfettered tread, — 
 Of what avail is our grieving? 
 
 'T is true that Fate hath forced us to part, 
 That our plans are all unavailing ; 
 
 Yet still, however the wound may smart, 
 My eyes will sparkle, unquailing. 
 
 Erect, unbending, my head I '11 hold ; 
 
 Not e'en a lost love shall aye sadden. 
 All do not delve for diamonds and gold, 
 
 E'en fragments can some hearts gladden. 
 
1 80 POEMS. 
 
 FOR MY CHILD. 
 
 "COR thee, my child, oft I lie waking, 
 A For thy dear sake till late at night, 
 To grant thy ev'ry wish plans making, 
 
 To see thy bright eyes' laughing light. 
 E'en though my feet are often weary, 
 
 And my day's work is often hard, 
 If but thy face comes to my mem'ry, 
 
 No pain or grief do I regard. 
 
 Thank God ! that one within my keeping 
 
 I have, who '11 share my joy and woe. 
 Grow quickly, I shall soon be steeping 
 
 My soul in thy youth's rosy glow. 
 How closely I will watch and cherish, 
 
 Protect thee, dear, from cold and wind, 
 Patiently bearing every anguish, 
 
 While I in thee a good child find. 
 
 Although my happiness is shattered, 
 If but thy sun shines clear and fair, 
 
 I will forget Time's snow-flakes scattered 
 Too early whitening my hair. — 
 
FOR MY CHILD. l8l 
 
 Rich gifts of heart and mind thy dower, 
 
 And gentle as May breezes mild, 
 Unfold thy petals, human flower : 
 
 I pray for thee alone, my child. 
 
 II. 
 
 On pillows snow-white, in a narrow chest, 
 
 Sleep now forever, my darling, rest, 
 Little one, in God's keeping ! 
 
 Thine eyes thou hast closed for the long, endless 
 dream, 
 Peacefully slumb'ring, scarce real doth it seem, 
 
 As I gaze at thee, weeping. 
 
 Dolls and all little books hither bring, 
 
 Both loved far, far beyond anything, 
 By my darling, now sleeping ; 
 
 One more kiss, then lower the coffin, 
 Deeper and deeper the dark grave in — 
 
 Desolate by it I 'm weeping. 
 
1 82 POEMS. 
 
 PARTED. 
 
 TJVEN though vales and mounts may sever, 
 *~* And each all tears must shed alone, 
 Although in life we may meet never, 
 
 Yet shall we always be as one. 
 The mind a bridge is aye providing, 
 
 On which we two may often meet ; 
 I will not always Fate be chiding, 
 
 Because hope lacks fulfilment sweet. 
 
 An angel to and fro is flitting, 
 
 And will to thee my greeting bear, 
 Unto thy heart his words admitting, 
 
 May they for thy soul rest prepare ! 
 And I, whene'er I feel thy greeting, 
 
 Will think myself in Paradise, 
 From which the world's cold, cruel dealing 
 
 Thrust me, and now return denies. 
 
 One sky above its dome is raising, 
 From which one sun doth shed its light ; 
 
 With doubting hearts we ? re ever gazing 
 To one moon's disk, so silver bright. 
 
PARTED. 183 
 
 The soft breeze strokes our cheeks, oft burning 
 
 As if a messenger 't would be, 
 It cools our ardent, hopeless yearning — 
 
 But ever walk alone must we. 
 
 Though parted, bound by ties enduring, 
 
 We always meet each other's eyes, 
 And each, for other peace securing, 
 
 Would die, like leaf whirled 'neath the skies. 
 Be brave ; our souls from this husk freeing, 
 
 Which parts us here, to our great woe, 
 Soon each the other will be seeing 
 
 Where immortality we know. 
 
1 84 POEMS. 
 
 AT PARTING. 
 
 jf* 1 1VE me one more clasp of thy hand, 
 
 ^-* Then let this be our parting ! 
 
 Why shouldst thou fan, with hatred's brand, 
 
 The flames from my woe darting ? 
 Thou hast no faith in my true love, 
 
 Wert playing a game clever — 
 In God's name go ; my sun above 
 
 Thou wert, and wilt be ever. 
 
 In God's name ! And I hope this earth 
 
 A truer heart may offer — 
 Which will to light of faith give birth, 
 
 Guard thee from turning scoffer. 
 And when thou that true heart doth gain, 
 
 Oh, send to me some message ; 
 Then will the burden of my pain 
 
 No more my sad soul ravage. 
 
TO A RICH MAN. 185 
 
 TO A RICH MAN. 
 
 A RT thou, poor rich man, happiness pursuing ? 
 ^~*- Then need'st thou only go into the street, 
 And, from the homes of poverty there viewing, 
 
 Gift of a child as precious pledge entreat. 
 Think of the Saviour's earnest, ardent pleading, 
 
 How fondly little children He caressed, 
 For thee, too, He has suffered, mocked and bleeding, 
 
 Oh, take His little lamb unto thy breast. 
 
 Not only food and drink and earthly offering 
 
 Are things well pleasing in the Master's sight : 
 Far better gifts there are, which cost us nothing ; 
 
 Make these thy aim, and strive with all thy might ! 
 Give in the ocean, vast and never empty, 
 
 Of love to this child e'en a single dip ; 
 Else will the world to him be lone and dreary, 
 
 And his soul ever thirst for fellowship. 
 
 In love do thou, a pair of small hands holding, 
 Teach them to be of service to mankind, 
 
 In love alone his heart to virtue moulding, 
 In love the child a place in thy house find. 
 
1 86 POEMS. 
 
 Then treasures infinite within thy borders 
 
 Thou 'It gain, and thy foes' power to seize mayst 
 scorn, 
 
 While with the fairest of victories' orders 
 
 Thy God will then some day thy breast adorn. 
 
TO MY DAUGHTER. 1 87 
 
 TO MY DAUGHTER ON HER 
 CONFIRMATION DAY. 
 
 M 
 
 Y child, be good! 
 
 To everyone whom thou in life art meeting, 
 Extend thy hands with tender, loving greeting, 
 Always rememb'ring he is of Christ's blood. 
 My child, be good ! 
 
 My child, be pure ! 
 Like dew, which ere by dust contaminated, 
 At dawn for the young meads jewels created, 
 Sun kissed, its sparkling doth like gems allure. 
 
 My child, be pure ! 
 
 My child, be true ! 
 Ne'er in thy soul let falsehood's stain come stealing ; 
 Confess thy faults, no error e'er concealing ; 
 Anguish it will avert, and peril, too. 
 
 My child, be true ! 
 
 My child, be mild ! 
 Though from a thousand rods blows should be raining, 
 Submit with patience, bear without complaining ; 
 Gaze at Our Saviour's image, so reviled. 
 
 My child, be mild ! 
 
88 POEMS. 
 
 My child, be strong ! 
 Whene'er temptation 's from the right path luring, 
 If faith thy hands with firm hold are securing, 
 It will defend, as bark pith covers long. 
 
 My child, be strong ! 
 
 Child, be devout ! 
 Thou shouldst in worship mute be ever bending, 
 That when the Father's voice His call is sending, 
 At any hour, " I come, Lord ! " mayst cry out. 
 
 Child, be devout ! 
 
MY HAPPINESS. 1 89 
 
 MY HAPPINESS. 
 
 TU HERE shall I take my love ? I 'm weary, 
 
 * ™ Where rest obtain ? 
 
 The day was cold, the evening 's dreary, 
 
 No house I '11 gain — 
 In barren fields, through darkness pressing, 
 
 No one is near ; 
 Where with my love I 'm rest possessing 
 
 Must not be here. 
 
 What shall I do with my love, weighing 
 
 So heavily? 
 Shall I it from the world conveying 
 
 Sink in the sea ? 
 But then 't would sleep in depths receiving 
 
 No sunshine fair ; 
 So I must therefore, my love leaving, 
 
 Consign elsewhere. 
 
 Where then shall I with love be driven? 
 
 To yonder hearth ? 
 Ay, there unto the greatest love is given 
 
 Its righteous worth ; 
 
IQO POEMS. 
 
 And as, from store of fagots feeding 
 
 Piece after piece, 
 For others' joys, not mine, aye pleading, 
 
 Find happiness ! 
 
AN A UTUMN NIGHT. 1 9 1 
 
 AN AUTUMN NIGHT. 
 
 A UTUMN night, in moonlight lying, 
 **• Solemn, pallid, sacred night, 
 Thy cool lips, so softly sighing, 
 
 Summer's eyes shut with touch light. 
 
 Silver cloudlets, elfin veiling, 
 Follow wave of thy white hand ; 
 
 Thousand wishes, never failing, 
 Bear they into dreams' fair land. 
 
 Peace proclaiming, peace aye bringing, 
 
 Ent'ring ev'ry little room, 
 Where'er anguish souls is wringing, 
 
 Bearing healing, thou dost come. 
 
 Lost in dreams, by dreams led captive, 
 
 Lean I weary at the door ; 
 When wilt thou, night calm and pensive, 
 
 Peace to me for aye restore ? 
 
192 POEMS. 
 
 THY PICTURE. 
 
 r P0 me thy picture 's dearer far 
 A Than aught within earth's confines ; 
 The sky has lost its brightest star 
 Which now within thine eyes shines. 
 
 There 's naught that in this world I love, 
 More than those eyes, here glowing ; 
 
 No deeper blue hath sky above, 
 More peace no heav'n's bestowing. 
 
 Thy picture is so dear, so dear, 
 
 More cherished every hour ; 
 When night doth through the window peer, 
 
 O'er my dreams rules its power. 
 
 Still every glance doth on thee wait, 
 
 To guard from ill essaying ; 
 When open springs dawn's roseate gate, 
 
 Before it I am praying. 
 
 So dear thy pictured counterpart, 
 Thy sweet soul's pureness keeping, 
 
 That when I think how far thou art, 
 Most bitter is my weeping. 
 
TO THE SZESZUPPE. 1 93 
 
 TO THE SZESZUPPE. 1 
 
 "\T TAVES, where are ye going 
 
 • With crowns of foam ? 
 Your swift restless flowing 
 
 Sweeps far from home. 
 I watch ye in joyance 
 
 Here flit and there ; 
 Away in the distance 
 
 Ye now must fare. 
 
 Here might ye be twining 
 
 Fair rosebuds thrown, 
 In struggle fierce joining 
 
 Round moss-grown stone ; 
 But where thy course farther 
 
 Westward doth go, 
 Thy shores thick reeds gather 
 
 And lower grow. 
 
 Now murmur ye faintly 
 
 O'er yellow sand 
 Sad music, whose plaint we 
 
 Ne'er understand. 
 
 1 A river near the home of the poetess. 
 13 
 
194 POEMS. 
 
 Low yearning tones creeping 
 Sigh soft through the reeds, — 
 
 Your song, amid weeping, 
 For liberty pleads. 
 
TO MY ERICH. 195 
 
 TO MY ERICH. 
 
 JOIN not the ranks of poets, my son, 
 Heed thou my warning ! 
 If the Muse's form seeks thee to snare, 
 Turn from her, scorning. 
 
 If thou dost give her thy lips to kiss, 
 
 Thou 'rt lost forever ; 
 Fool among fools then rated to be 
 
 Thou wilt cease never. 
 
 Into all depths of sorrow and joy 
 
 Thou must make entry j 
 But ne'er will she ask, when thou wearied dost lie, 
 
 If thou art hungry. 
 
 E'en as a Fata Morgana lures, 
 
 Delusions bearing, 
 Dying thou 'It lift thy hands to her, 
 
 Allegiance swearing. 
 
 And shouldst thou, scaling the steep, ascend, 
 
 That sphere attaining, 
 Through bone and marrow swiftly will fly 
 
 Critics' spears raining. 
 
1 96 POEMS. 
 
 If from thy brow thou dost tear the fair wreath, 
 
 Thy prize examine, 
 The garland of laurel thou 'st gained, my son, 
 
 Tears and blood both twine. 
 
VINDICA TION. 1 97 
 
 VINDICATION. 
 
 /^VH, say ye not always, the North-land is poor, 
 ^-^ In South-land alone bloom the roses, 
 And softer is there each maid's arm to allure ; 
 Whoe'er it embraces, his sorrow 't will cure, 
 In such loving clasp it reposes. 
 
 Perchance all the stars there more brightly may shine, 
 
 In nights balmy odors exhaling, 
 Yet e'en though this radiance their eyes should en- 
 shrine, 
 
 We maids of the North to no envy '11 incline ; 
 It gleams in our braids, never failing. 
 
 If clasp of our arms less tender doth prove, 
 
 Round Germans, proud necks as it twines, these 
 
 Our hearts will aye throb with a leal faith and love, 
 Our hearts, whose fidelity naught e'er can move, 
 
 Like hue of our evergreen pine-trees. 
 
198 POEMS. 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY. 
 
 A BUTTERFLY splendid 
 "*"*■ Hovered, in autumn, 
 Outside my window, 
 Now up and now down. 
 
 Behind its glass panes 
 Roses, still blooming, 
 
 With smiling lips lured 
 Poor lover coming. 
 
 He saw not the hoar-frost's 
 
 Arrows so fatal ; 
 He saw but the red glow 
 
 On rose lips magical. 
 
 His struggles were futile 
 Lips so sweet to gain ; 
 
 His kisses fell only 
 On cold window-pane. 
 
 At morning I found him 
 Stiff, dead on the sill. 
 
 Fool 's he who for kisses 
 Out of reach strives still. 
 
TO MY READERS. 1 99 
 
 TO MY READERS. 
 
 A S guerdon for my songs, to me you We given 
 "*"*• This fresh and beautiful green laurel bough. 
 With joy I Ve pressed it to my heart, and striven 
 
 To voice the thanks which my soul's depths fill now. 
 But would ye make my happiness o'erflowing, 
 
 Give me the little flower which in each spot 
 Of all our German soil is thickly growing ; 
 
 It bears the simple name : " Forget me not." 
 
200 POEMS. 
 
 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 T OVE so fair in vernal beauty, 
 J - -/ Dim grow my eyes when on thee I brood ; 
 Like a dove with plumage snowy, 
 
 Which is driven through the wood. 
 Thou art like matin bells which native breezes waft, 
 
 Pure as first refreshing draught in Eden quaffed. 
 
 Fragrance of that blue flower wondrous, 
 Which our God on His own bosom wears, 
 
 Altar saint, to which the tirn'rous 
 Sinner eyes to lift ne'er dares, 
 
 Stony hearts thou bring' st from out their cold repose ; 
 Smiled away thou canst not be, as men suppose. 
 
 Ev'ry heart holds thee in memory, 
 
 Star-besprinkled, tender flush of dawn, 
 Though rich life from out its treas'ry 
 
 Thousand radiant suns hath drawn. 
 Ever unto us our fairest dream thou 'It be, 
 
 Flower that first bloomed upon our young life's tree. 
 
THE LAST SONG. 201 
 
 THE LAST SONG. 
 
 A SONG of my creating, 
 •*"*• A wondrous song I 'd sing, 
 Which like the fragrant breeze of May 
 
 O'er earth its flight would wing. 
 From North to South, from East to West, 
 
 A way break in a trice, 
 And give to all mankind sweet rest, 
 
 Joy, Peace, and Paradise. 
 
 Unto the sick and dying 
 
 Sweet cordial it should bring, 
 The sound of its soft pinion's stroke 
 
 Still grief and suffering. 
 Mid clank of arms and conflict hot 
 
 Fan courage to a flame ; 
 For woe men comprehended not 
 
 Comfort it should proclaim. 
 
 But where'er sin is lurking 
 
 With cruel serpent e'e, 
 To hurricane swiftly rising, 
 
 'T will sweep it in the sea. 
 
202 POEMS. 
 
 On every chink in house of pain 
 
 A cooling balm distil, 
 The temple cleanse from ev'ry stain, 
 
 And every want fulfil. 
 
 And if this song succeeded, 
 
 Nor fame nor gold to gain 
 I 'd wish, but throw my lyre down 
 
 And sing no other strain. 
 Unto the pine woods stealing, 
 
 Lay me for death's repose 
 To no one e'er revealing 
 
 Who did this song compose. 
 
THE RETURN HOME. 203 
 
 THE RETURN HOME. 
 
 Ayr OTHER, once more set the bench by the hearth, 
 **■*"*■ The olden place now possessing, 
 Sit by it there, and again let your hand 
 Over my hair pass, with touch caressing. 
 
 In thy lap I fain my head would lay, — 
 Place of rest, to sweet repose hushing ! 
 
 How far art thou, world, now, with all thy woe, 
 Thy burdens with pressure crushing ! 
 
 Kiss thou my forehead, *t is burning with pain ; 
 
 The lips of no lass e'er has pressed it. 
 Too sacred the place whereon thine did rest 
 
 Profane touch hath never possessed it. 
 
 Now, mother dear, sing, oh, sing me to sleep ; 
 
 Restore my lost faith by thy kindness. 
 They Ve ta'en from me all things except thy love ; 
 
 To rob me of that the world 's powerless. 
 
204 POEMS. 
 
 TO LITERARY CRITICISM. 
 
 I. 
 
 TT lies in the dust, my fair jewel bright, 
 ■*- I bore with such love in my bosom ; 
 I hear how the throng in fierce taunts unite, 
 
 The rattling scales sound an alarum. 
 All things I most precious held are now crushed 
 Though tears while creating them o'er them gushed, 
 And while from my heart's depths tearing 
 Them, thousand pangs I was bearing. 
 
 What God himself in my bosom hath placed 
 
 With sacred inspiration's power, 
 What like a child I have cherished, embraced, 
 
 I must now see 'neath scourges cower ! 
 What hath pleased many a sensitive heart 
 Is scattered now on the winds far apart, 
 Like autumn leaves from the trees streaming, — 
 My loving, my thinking, my dreaming. 
 
 Believe me, ye band so heartless and cold, 
 I shall not die of my pain and grieving ; 
 
 The wings ye '11 ne'er break of the eagle bold, — 
 At most but those of the crow so thieving. 
 
TO LITERARY CRITICISM. 205 
 
 My book is the sunshine eternally fair, 
 Forth from my heart leaping like fountain in air. 
 From it for all ages singing, 
 To eternity my way winging. 
 
 II. 
 
 Men, I pray ye, cease my peace disturbing ! 
 
 Wrong have I done to no one of ye all ; 
 Grudge me not of my own thoughts the possession, 
 
 Gift which to me from the Father did fall. 
 
 Would ye them rend in a thousand fragments, 
 Drag them through mire, I will make no ado ; 
 
 Fairer ones still in a trice will again rise 
 
 From crystal house, which my soul shineth through. 
 
 Take what ye will ! But outside remaining, 
 Break not the holy deep peace of the woods ; 
 
 I yield ye all things — renown, love, and honor — 
 Grant me but one, my woe deep as seas' floods ! 
 
206 POEMS. 
 
 LOCK WHATSOE'ER MOVES THEE. 
 
 T OCK whatsoe'er moves thee 
 *** Within thy heart's close shrine, 
 And give to God alone 
 That little key of thine. 
 
 Discuss with Him alone 
 
 Whatever may befall ; 
 He is the only friend 
 
 Who understandeth all. 
 
WEARY. 20/ 
 
 WEARY. 
 
 117" HAT aileth thee, O red rose blushing, 
 * That thou dost feel such sudden shame ? 
 
 Dost think of butterfly's love gushing, 
 His splendid colors bright as flame 
 
 He '11 kiss the red lips of another fair ; 
 
 Thou 'It fade, death- stricken by despair. 
 
 The shimm'ring dragon-fly is sleeping, 
 By gentle night-breeze lulled to rest ; 
 
 It dreams of sunshine, glad waves leaping, 
 In flow'r leaf curled as in a nest. 
 
 Sigh mid the shelt'ring reeds to murmur seems, 
 
 I am so weary — amid its dreams. 
 
 I, too, am weary, — joyous would I 
 My head lay down for my last rest. 
 
 Could I persuade the clouds above me, 
 How gladly I would homeward press, 
 
 On their soft borders, which lightly gleam, 
 
 So gently lulled to the endless dream ! 
 
208 POEMS. 
 
 I 
 
 FATA MORGANA. 
 
 SEE thee in the water clear 
 
 When from its depths doth rise 
 Thy image, as an angel pure, 
 And slays me in this guise. 
 
 Within my breast I see thee oft 
 
 Upon an altar stand ; 
 Before it lie in anguish wild, 
 
 And death would fain command. 
 
 I see thee in the rose's pomp, 
 
 In snow-white lily leaf; 
 'Gainst them my burning eyes I press, 
 
 And weep out all my grief. 
 
 I see thy face in every star, 
 
 In floating veil of mist ; 
 In morning's dawn and sunset glow 
 
 Thy semblance doth exist. 
 
 I see thee in the azure sky, 
 Moonlight and sunshine hot ; 
 
 I see thee in the hour of death, 
 And yet — I see thee not. 
 
/ HAPPINESS WOULD FAIN CALL MINE. 209 
 
 I HAPPINESS WOULD FAIN CALL MINE. 
 
 T HAPPINESS would fain call mine ; 
 ■*■ I too, love's sunlight knowing, 
 Would drink the pure, delicious wine 
 
 From Life's great fountain flowing. 
 My lips already pressed the glass, 
 
 I seemed quite lost in dreaming, 
 When, with shrill sound, it broke, alas ! 
 And all the drink divine did pass — 
 
 For me aye wasted — streaming. 
 
 And happiness did once draw near, 
 
 To me its head inclining ; 
 Upon me fell one glance so dear, 
 
 A friend my heart was shrining. 
 But when the beautiful blue band 
 
 I was to that heart clasping, 
 'T was snatched swift by another's hand, 
 Who wound it round his forehead, and 
 
 Retained it for gaud grasping. 
 
 Now happy I '11 not seek to be, 
 
 My sorrow is far dearer ; 
 Alone it never leaveth me, 
 
 Ne'er passes, but draws nearer. 
 14 
 
210 POEMS. 
 
 I know to none on earthly shore 
 
 Is happiness full given, 
 And therefore I will close my door, 
 That hard-won peace from me no more 
 
 By trespasser '11 be riven. 
 
AFTER YEARS. 211 
 
 AFTER YEARS. 
 
 TS this really my own roof- tree, 
 A My beloved parents' home ? 
 Joyous as of yore the swallows 
 
 Darting out and in do come. 
 Fragrance giving, strews the linden 
 
 Perfumed blossoms on my hair, 
 And, above, the azure heaven 
 
 Laughs as erst in sunlight fair. 
 
 All things lie in self-same places, 
 
 All things are just as of yore ; 
 On the gable of the cottage 
 
 Doves are cooing as before. 
 Water from the pipe is flowing 
 
 Thirsty wand'rers to relieve, 
 And to flowers, blossoms, grass-blades 
 
 Sacred Sunday peace doth cleave. 
 
 Yet to me all things seem altered, 
 As by burden sore oppressed ; 
 
 Closely do I clasp my kindred, 
 Almost weeping, to my breast. 
 
212 POEMS. 
 
 Yes, these are the self-same chambers, 
 Fairyland of childhood's frame, 
 
 These the old beloved meadows — 
 I alone am not the same. 
 
/ HA VE PR A YED. 2 1 3 
 
 I HAVE PRAYED. 
 
 '"PHAT thou mightst happy be, I once did pray ; 
 
 But now thou 'rt joy possessing, 
 Meseems, amid the pangs which my heart slay, 
 A thousand times from it the wish must stray, 
 That grief again was thee oppressing. 
 
 T is only when thou 'rt wretched that thou 'rt mine, 
 
 Once more then I am praying. 
 Now, when Love's golden sun doth on thee shine, 
 And solitude on earth 's no longer thine, 
 
 My steps near thee can ne'er be straying. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 THE RINGING OF THE BELL. 
 
 'THE day was closing now, after its fierce contending ; 
 A The ringing of a bell with evening breeze was 
 
 blending. 
 The soft tones seemed to utter comfort, grief beguiling, 
 As if unto its load it was day reconciling. 
 
 My hand was very heavy ; lines which labor burrows 
 Marked it, e'en as the plough the earth's green bosom 
 
 furrows. 
 The bell drew it to prayer, with magic power grasping ; 
 Alas ! long, long ago it forgot Christian clasping. 
 
 And as from the hard brass note after note was riven, 
 As from the lips word after word appealed to Heaven, 
 As from my weary eyes the burning tears were stealing, 
 God's knock upon my heart His presence was revealing. 
 
 And slowly from within, like mists, all grief was 
 
 drifting ; 
 Devoutly once again my eyes to Heaven uplifting, 
 Whence angel bands, with blessings, ever are descending 
 To those before God's throne their heads in rev'rence 
 
 bending. 
 
THE RINGING OF THE BELL. 315 
 
 The last note of the bell died in a happy Amen, 
 
 The angel hosts have borne it on their wings beyond 
 
 ken. 
 And Amen, Amen rings from ev'ry cloud's red flushing. 
 I thank thee, bell ! From my heart's depths my prayers 
 
 are gushing. 
 
2l6 POEMS. 
 
 BY LOOKING IN THINE EYES I SEE. 
 
 T3Y looking in thine eyes I see 
 *** Thou hast been weeping sore 
 Although thy lashes show no trace 
 Of any tear-drops more. 
 
 Although from thy proud lips thy words 
 Like precious pearls have rolled, 
 
 And thou hast painted joy's bright hues 
 In sunlight's tints of gold ; 
 
 Though thou dost hold thy curly head 
 
 As if no weight it bore, 
 By looking in thine eyes I see 
 
 Thou hast been weeping sore. 
 
MY WISH. 21 J 
 
 MY WISH. 
 
 "XT 7"HAT I would wish for is nor praise nor fame, 
 v " E'en to the height of kingly thrones attaining ; 
 Nor shall Love's silent sanctuary's flame 
 Bind me, with links of roses softly chaining. 
 
 For Love, alas ! oft builds its house on sand, 
 
 Its whispers sweet become a cry of anguish, 
 
 It leaves a thorny robe within the hand — 
 
 And praise and fame are but men's whims that vanish. 
 
 What I would wish for is a fair Spring day, 
 
 On which my coffin should with earth be covered ; 
 
 In azure air a lark's clear, joyous lay, 
 
 While o'er my pall a butterfly light hovered. 
 
 No weeping or lamenting, no, oh, no ! 
 
 Ne'er would I wish to have such useless ofFring ; 
 
 But as toward their homes the neighbors go, 
 
 Let them think : Good was she we 've been burying. 
 
218 POEMS. 
 
 OUR WEAKNESS. 
 
 TT'NOWN are we women as the weaker sex, 
 "*-^ The fact is true, and thus 't will aye remain. 
 Happy are we if, in earth's record book, 
 As faithful mothers we can write a name. 
 Man with brows decked with laurel may appear, 
 We find our joys within a narrow sphere. 
 
 Known are we women as the weaker sex, 
 We only weep the while men fiercely swear ; 
 And — if joy's balance wavers — ever seek 
 Our refuge, not in weapons, but in prayer. 
 We do but bless, though false to us men prove, 
 Ay, women's hearts are more than weak in love. 
 
 What will to man his strength of arm avail, 
 If woman points him not to virtue's goal ? 
 Who '11 save him amid passion's storm and stress, 
 When o'er him all Life's surges fiercely roll? 
 Woman alone the powers of hell defies, 
 Because her greatness in her weakness lies. 
 
LOST HAPPINESS. 2 1 9 
 
 LOST HAPPINESS. 
 
 Tl 71TH happiness its precious freight, 
 ™ * Fair Fortune's barque swept by, 
 Afar I saw its shining state, 
 Its fairy majesty. 
 
 Its course the helmsman strove to stay, 
 
 My pulses throbbed apace, 
 My outstretched hands implored delay, 
 
 Then — vacant was its place. 
 
 Farther, still farther o'er the tide, 
 
 Swift rushing like the wind. 
 And now the road I sit beside, 
 
 Mine eyes tears almost blind. 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 By HERMAN GRIMM. 
 
 q^HROUGH the newspapers, Prof. Karl Weiss- 
 Schrattenthal, of Pressburg, became acquainted 
 with the poems of a poor peasant woman who lives in 
 a village of East Prussia. He entered into communi- 
 cation with her, and printed a number of her poems. 
 The first edition of this collection appeared at Christ- 
 mas, 1894; early in March, 1895, — m * ess tnan 
 three months, that is, — the fourth edition was 
 published. 
 
 Johanna Ambrosius is a laboring woman, who must 
 work hard to keep the household from getting behind- 
 hand. Her poems, which she writes only for her own 
 solace, arouse my surprise, admiration, and hearty 
 sympathy, by the depth of their insight and the power 
 of their utterance. 
 
 Professor Schrattenthal' s preface gives us further 
 details concerning Johanna Ambrosius, whose real 
 
222 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 name is Voigt, that of her parents being Ambrosius. It 
 is unnecessary to repeat these details here. My in- 
 terest is in the matter and form of her poems, in her 
 poetic technique. 
 
 Her life and poems may aptly be compared with 
 those of Ada Negri. Ada Negri was more capable of 
 resistance, and became known earlier. So soon as we 
 consider these two women historically, we must cease 
 to speak compassionately of their misery. Both have 
 completed their course from the depth to the height. 
 Whence came their noble thoughts ? One of the pas- 
 sages, which Karl Schrattenthal quotes from Johanna's 
 letters, says : " When I write a song, I am so excited, 
 so ravished from the world, that I seem to myself an 
 utter stranger." This sensation overcomes us too when 
 we read many of her verses. Strong, genuine feeling 
 speaks in them, and gives these poems the rank of in- 
 dependent creations of the human mind. We say to 
 ourselves : Here one for whom the world had no place 
 has reached a planet of her own, in lucid heights, where 
 she is sole monarch. One sweep of her wings bears 
 the poetess aloft to this self-created new kingdom. 
 Viewed thence, all the sorrow and ugliness of life as- 
 sumes another form for her. Loss is changed to gain. 
 The way in which Ada Negri and Johanna Ambrosius 
 turn unendurable burdens into a sense of deliverance 
 is so strangely alike in both that they seem to be 
 daughters of one and the same mother. What dis- 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 223 
 
 tinguishes them are chance externals of nationality and 
 position. 
 
 Ada Negri sprang from the restless mass of men 
 who throng the factories. She experienced the suffer- 
 ings which that kind of misery entails, from her earli- 
 est childhood. The roar and shriek and pound of 
 machinery filled her ear. Johanna bowed her young 
 back to work in the unchanging fields. Northern 
 pine woods surround her village, never rustling, only 
 sighing when the wind blows through their branches. 
 The images and feelings of the moment are lent the 
 force and vigor of something aggressively warlike by 
 the impetuous power of the Italian. In Johanna 
 Ambrosius greater intellectual power prevails, and the 
 quiet strength of a German soul. Ada, with clenched 
 fists, bursts straight through the thicket which sur- 
 rounds her; Johanna, with weary feet, seeks a prac- 
 ticable path in the selva oscura di nostra vita. But 
 both contrive to make their poems nestle in our 
 memories, never to be banished thence. 
 
 Both women are filled with the spirit of the present. 
 The most striking sign of this new spirit, which I have 
 noted in later years as an element still penetrating 
 the world, is the dislike, aye, the inability to lose 
 myself in exploration of the human beings of previous 
 centuries as I did in former years. All that pre- 
 cedes the beginning of this century has ceased to 
 enthrall me, as if overcome by faintness. Nor am I 
 
224 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 alone in this experience ; others too, in confidential 
 conversation, have confessed the same of themselves. 
 Of all which past centuries offer us, Christendom 
 and its founder, Homer, Shakespeare, Raphael, and 
 Goethe only seem to me unaffected by this blight. I 
 sometimes feel as if I were transported to a new exist- 
 ence and had not taken along the necessary intel- 
 lectual baggage, as if wholly altered conditions of 
 life compelled a wholly new order of thoughts. For 
 distance is no longer that which divides men. With 
 sportive ease our thoughts traverse the circumference 
 of the earth's surface, and fly from each individual to 
 every other, be he where he may. The discovery and 
 use of new forces of nature unite entire nations in 
 unceasing mutual toil. New experiences, under the 
 pressure of which our conception of all visible and 
 invisible things changes in uninterrupted alternation, 
 force upon us new modes of viewing the history of the 
 evolution of humanity as well. We try to test the 
 force embodied in great men by its pure power of 
 illumination and action, and to understand and set it 
 forth in their individual manifestation otherwise than 
 as heretofore. How I labored thirty years ago to pene- 
 trate Voltaire and Frederick, Mirabeau and Napoleon, 
 Lessing and Winckelmann for their own sakes ; and 
 now they are important, and intelligible too, only 
 in so far as they help to explain the present time. 
 My intellectual labor is now concentrated on the 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 225 
 
 present. I understand it because it lives. Goethe 
 himself is important to me now only in so far as he 
 still lives in and for us, and the " young Goethe " 
 in so far as he makes the " old Goethe " clear. 
 Something in the intellectual atmosphere of the 
 world must have changed, that the previous centuries 
 now begin to pale and fade. In the lives of Ada 
 Negri and Johanna Ambrosius I see embodied his- 
 torical elements which require measurement and for- 
 mulation. They grew up alone ; they were of lowly 
 station. They speak such pure speech. They are 
 poor women; they do not hate those whose lot is 
 more fortunate. 
 
 One of Johanna's last poems (January, 1895) is 
 " My Last Song." Not one verse in this song which 
 does not contain an insight. How beautifully the first 
 three strophes introduce what the poetess calls " the 
 whole world " ! How clear all the images are to our 
 eye ! How they alternate ! What contrasts they 
 form, and how touchingly the last strophe reverts to 
 the poet ! This poem explains the nameless lays of 
 popular poetry. How many pieces in the " Wonder 
 Horn" may have originated with poor girls and 
 women, and no one knows who invented them be- 
 cause no one was meant to know. In the preface to 
 Jacob Grimm's book on German minstrelsy (which he 
 wrote when he was twenty-six years old), he speaks 
 of the women poets of old German ages. He says 
 is 
 
226 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 of German minstrelsy : " I might, in a certain sense, 
 say that this poetry was not the peculiar property of 
 the poet. Among other things, it is plain that no 
 poetry was ever more feminine than this, with its 
 never-failing love of flowers, with its quiet beauty. 
 Who can doubt that just such a world arose in the 
 soul of the women of that day, and sounded a thou*- 
 sand such harmonies, more tender than any man 
 ever sang? But it never occurred to them to speak 
 out; their life was their poetry and their aspira- 
 tion." So, too, Johanna Ambrosius waited long ere 
 she allowed her verses to be made public. They 
 are the thoughts and feelings of a lonely girl and a 
 lonely woman. 
 
 When I think of the romance which ruled the early 
 part of our century, the present time seems to me 
 like a flowery field of grain in comparison with an 
 endless, silent garden full of gravestones. Lenau, 
 Uhland, Riickert, Platen, and Heine too, tried to plant 
 this graveyard so thick with flowers that it began to 
 live. But when they animated the dead to speak, 
 aye, to sing anew, their voices always sounded as if 
 from the grave, and even the present seemed to de- 
 scend, in order to speak from the depths. The 
 frightful burden of this conception of the world has 
 been taken from us by the present age. Humanity 
 to-day obeys an unconquerable pressure to feel free 
 regardless of history. 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 227 
 
 Platen was a slave to his distinction ; Heine to a 
 certain vanity, coupled with secret self-contempt; 
 Byron, Lenau, Uhland, and Riickert cannot conceal 
 their resignation, which oppresses them ; the softly 
 clanking chains which fate forged for each of them 
 rattle and re-echo in their verses. The loftiness of 
 their souls cannot free them from this slavery. Almost 
 frantic efforts are made by those now living to escape 
 from this ban. We catch the first sounds of the 
 song of the new age in Petofy's poetry. As Goethe 
 once, so he too only wishes to give himself utterance 
 and nothing more. So far as I may judge by trans- 
 lations the other Hungarian poets do not equal him by 
 far. So, too, famous Poles, Russians, and French are 
 mere historians compared to Petofy. They did not 
 poetize for themselves alone. They strove, openly or 
 secretly, for recognition and appreciation. They stand 
 full of self-consciousness amid admirers. How little 
 Petofy cared for this ! He certainly demanded fame ; 
 but he surely cared not whence it reached him. His 
 supreme sense of dominion injures nothing. He 
 weeps and laughs in the face of the world. He was 
 badly enough off. So soon as he begins to poetize, 
 he sits upon the clouds, and the world lies at his feet. 
 He summons death, but means to live. His most 
 woful complaints breathe forth love of life. 
 
 Only one poet of the present equals him, and per- 
 haps surpasses him, — Mistral, whose " Mireio " seems 
 
228 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 to ring out from the lips of Homer. From Lamartine 
 to Victor Hugo, no one knows the secret of this French 
 Provencal race, of uttering happiness and unhappiness 
 in the same joyous accents, of interweaving endless 
 bliss and woe, as if there were nothing to choose 
 between them. Petofy, Mistral, Goethe, Shake- 
 speare, and Homer sometimes seem to me the recurring 
 embodiment of a single poet. This is the great pri- 
 meval poet of mankind, who gives vent to his grief 
 in words whose melody enchants him. Amidst the 
 despair which almost breaks his heart, he is utterly 
 unable to grieve. An unknown feeling of happiness 
 in mere existence never leaves him. This is the 
 secret of the poetry of Ada Negri and Johanna 
 Ambrosius. As soon as they begin to poetize, that 
 which afflicts them becomes a fountain of joy. 
 Johanna's life is set before us, from her youth down to 
 the latest day ; her verse contains a compensation for 
 the worst experiences. They are formulae for turning 
 lumps of coal into pure gold. Who could venture to 
 call this poor peasant, in her poverty almost beyond 
 our comprehension, poor? We are the paupers, 
 and she bestows upon us alms. The wounds from 
 which her blood flows, as Shakespeare says, become 
 lips to whisper to her sweet comfort. Read the 
 verses on the death of a child, in whose coffin she 
 laid the doll and the little book which it loved best ; 
 so perfect in their simplicity that they must comfort 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 229 
 
 the poet herself. So, too, the poems to her daughter 
 and to her son, which overflow with almost wanton bliss. 
 This woman, with her hand roughened by work, 
 strikes the chords of the human heart, as if they were 
 touched by fairy fingers. And how are we to explain 
 this almost incomprehensible literary discretion ? She 
 offers us none but mature, perfectly formed fruits. 
 
 Does not the poem called u Lost Happiness " sound 
 as if taken from "The Boy's Wonder Horn"? 1 It 
 seems to come from the self-same source where Walter 
 von der Vogelweide found his " Alas that all my years 
 are spent," 2 and Goethe his "On yonder mountain 
 top." 8 I seem to know the melody of it, as if I had 
 heard it sung long ages since. Not a verse without a 
 picture. This poem and the " Last Song," mentioned 
 above, are chosen quite at haphazard. As in every 
 field where flowers grow, so, too, in Johanna's book 
 of songs, modest and conspicuous blossoms grow side 
 by side. But all are flowers ; and if they grew in a 
 distant field, they are none the less sweet. Where 
 such flowers bloom, in East Germany, the soil is 
 sacred in which its roots are planted; and we need 
 not heed whether it be a child or its sick mother that 
 plucks it. There are none of Johanna's poems which 
 do not reveal the free spirit of a lofty but lonely 
 
 1 A famous collection of old German popular poetry. 
 
 2 " Ach, wie sind verschwunden alle meine Jahre." 
 8 "Da droben auf jenem Berge." 
 
230 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 nature, which has recognized, after long inward 
 strife though it be, the cruel blows of its destiny as 
 a part of the higher harmony. 
 
 It is the duty of the nations to-day to search out 
 those who do, think, and utter the best things. When I 
 look into the past, it sometimes seems to me impossible 
 that the nations should have been content with such 
 wretched spiritual harvests. One of the finest signs 
 of the present day is the freedom with which every word 
 is allowed to make its way up from the lowest depths 
 and through the thickest walls. It is no longer, 
 " Many are called, but few are chosen ; " but u All are 
 called, and many are chosen." 
 
 Ada Negri's spiritual culture of a higher order and 
 her knowledge of the outer world, since poverty, 
 seclusion, and lowliness cut her off from all inter- 
 course, was gained from newspapers, which found 
 their way to her remote village. She sent her poems, 
 one by one, to the newspapers. And they printed 
 them. With no help from intermediaries, the child 
 of a poor factory-worker, whose hiding-place was 
 known to none, became known to the whole Italian 
 people. And thus too the sisters Martha and 
 Johanna Ambrosius, who surely owed much to their 
 father's books and the village school up to their 
 eleventh year, had the " Gartenlaube," 1 which they 
 contrived to see, to thank for their intercourse with 
 
 1 A popular German magazine. 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 23 I 
 
 the world. They learned to know the German people 
 through this journal. Johanna's first verses were sent 
 to it. Half nameless, loose leaves did the work which 
 could have been achieved in no other way. 
 
 All speak of the power of the press to-day. An 
 invisible and impassioned intercourse between unseen 
 writers and unseen readers goes on untiringly and 
 unendingly. 
 
 Newspapers and magazines give us occasional 
 chance reading. No regular instruction is afforded 
 or offered us here. Of one article we read only the 
 beginning, of others the end. We take up the sheet 
 contemptuously and indifferently, and throw it down 
 again. We seldom ask what pen can have written it. 
 Good and bad style are alike to us. But who would 
 give up newspaper reading? It enters into us, and 
 quiets the longing for something which we should 
 not otherwise know. Journals contain the most 
 heedless pictures of daily life. It gathers them up in 
 a wild, unrestrained confusion, and reproduces them. 
 Journals are the natural indispensable food. We read 
 them as a herd browses in a meadow. They turn 
 hither and thither without choosing, munching flowers 
 and grass indiscriminately, as they come. We are 
 always reading newspapers, — at breakfast, at dinner, at 
 supper, in the horse-cars, on the railroad. Wherever 
 there is eating and drinking, we demand a newspaper 
 as refreshment. We carry them about with us; we 
 
232 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 have always money and room for them. We do not 
 find fault with their pages when they rouse our 
 anger ; we do not thank them when they amuse and 
 interest us, not even when they inspire us. The 
 newspaper takes the place of friendship, intimacy, al- 
 most of the family. We even read the advertisements, 
 and for an instant fancy ourselves in the places of those 
 who buy, let, sell, hire, give or wish to take lessons, 
 look for places of all sorts, for houses, servants, maids, 
 husbands, wives, or children, whom they promise to 
 bring up properly, — a vast social intercourse of to- 
 day going on between people who remain unknown 
 each to the other, and in which we ourselves, unknow- 
 ing and unknown, take part. How could the glorious 
 days at Friedrichsruh ever have become a festival in 
 which the whole German nation simultaneously shared, 
 had it not been for the vigorous work of anonymous 
 newspaper writers, who had but one ambition, — to see 
 and hear as much as possible, and to write it down as 
 rapidly and exactly as possible, — so that it seemed as 
 if every German saw and heard Bismarck ! This is 
 the way in which the present age lives her own history. 
 What are Greece and Rome to this, to-day? To be 
 sure, we are still wont to turn over the vast heaps of 
 grain bequeathed to us by antiquity; and since we 
 can make no more bread from them, we think the 
 supply is giving out ; we must search with greater eager- 
 ness, dig up and range in museums what the earth 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 233 
 
 consents to yield. But faith in the magic power of 
 those collections has perished, and the time will soon 
 come when we shall ask more earnestly, to what end 
 so much gold is lavished in dishing up these frag- 
 ments. We demand something new. The news- 
 papers are first to tell us the news ; they spread glory 
 and honor abroad. They march in the forefront of 
 our literary movement ; and the same paper which we 
 accuse of falsehood to-day, moves us to gratitude and 
 assent to-morrow. 
 
 Ada Negri and Johanna Ambrosius have the 
 newspapers chiefly to thank for style and universal 
 insight. If I were asked to state precisely what 
 strikes me most strongly in the poems of the two 
 women, I should not depart from the phrase " the 
 spirit of the present." This is the noblest, the cease- 
 less lesson of our journals, — to prize the present more 
 highly than the past. As I have already said, I do 
 not know why the past has begun to pale and fade 
 for me, nor could I give any explanation of the 
 word " dissolution " here. The framework of the 
 history of German literature once ingeniously con- 
 structed by Gervinus no longer stands firm to me. 
 I no longer see a '* romantic school," but individual 
 poets, who appear to me from very different points of 
 view than those hitherto accepted. A certain lack of 
 temporality surrounds them. I ask less what their 
 value once was to their contemporaries, than what 
 
234- JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 they are worth to me now. Whence comes the 
 strange hatred of the social democrats for history, 
 that of the younger writers of the school of Ibsen for 
 the older literature, that of the Wagnerians for the 
 older music, that of the Secessionists for previous 
 painting? The offerings of the devotees of these new 
 tendencies seem in part childish, in part not even 
 genuine ; but the public impulse is a fact. Mankind 
 awaits something. It is not mere curiosity. A desire for 
 fresh intellectual images has gradually taken possession 
 of humanity everywhere. The past shall no longer weigh 
 us down. Biirgers's ' Ah, leave the dead to rest ! " is 
 the inscription on the forefront of the palace of the 
 present. If I omit Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, and 
 Raphael from the great list of the proscribed, it is 
 because an enduring, all-powerful present surrounds 
 their works, apparently renewed in all ages by innate 
 power, like the orbits of the great planets, heedless of 
 our common figures, reckoning only years of light. 
 We are now at the close of a world-embracing intel- 
 lectual ice period ; and it is the sudden melting of the 
 glaciers, the downward rush of unsuspected floods, 
 which alarms but at the same time fills us with enthu- 
 siasm. The history of Ada Negri is full of the same 
 breathless violence with which the life of Italy now 
 advances. It is all explosions. The ceaseless roar of 
 this literary cannonade has already become a natural 
 thing in Italy. They feel the need there, wherever 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 235 
 
 bread is baked, to stand on burning lava. The 
 " Gartenlaube " was a gentler nurse to the two child 
 workers in their village. But to them too it showed 
 the possibility of winning literary fame in the direct 
 way. It taught them the intellectual equality of man, 
 brought the breath of the national German movement 
 into their solitude, taught Johanna to have faith in 
 herself, and inspired the poor child with the " ardent 
 hunger for knowledge," which "as a child it expressed 
 in tears." Johanna learned from newspapers and the 
 New Testament the lesson of noble resignation which 
 forms the keynote to her poetry. Although I men- 
 tion Goethe and Shakespeare here, 1 I would not com- 
 pare Johanna Ambrosius and Ada Negri to these two ; 
 but they are of the same race by intellectual kinship. 
 They are nobly born. Where the true poet speaks, a 
 picture appears before our spiritual eyes ; when any- 
 thing gladdens him, it also gladdens us ; when poets 
 grieve, they compel us also to grieve. There is a 
 token by which we may know the genuine poet, — the 
 motto invisibly printed before each of his poems : 
 " From deepest need I cry aloud to thee ! " So, too, 
 " God granted " the poor ailing peasantwoman leave 
 " to say what she suffered." 
 
 New duties spring to life to-day from the com- 
 
 1 Johanna imitated some of Goethe's verses in a striking 
 and innocent fashion, although this adoption seems only 
 obligatory. 
 
236 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS< 
 
 munity of thought and feeling between the races of 
 mankind. When the "Elbe" sinks, when an earth- 
 quake destroys cities, when avalanches and mountains 
 descend upon villages, or fire and plague demand 
 their victims, it is the dead of all mankind that are 
 mourned and of whose survivors the world takes 
 charge. No one is to blame for the poor peasant- 
 woman's fate ; yet the sick body of the poetess 
 Johanna Ambrosius and her children must be nursed 
 and cared for. It is our first duty to ask what may 
 happen, and then to do something. 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 A BOUT a year ago [says an American journalist] 
 ^~*" there appeared in " Gartenlaube," a periodical 
 published at Leipsic, Germany, a poem, "The Last 
 Song," signed "Johanna Ambrosius." . . . The name 
 was familiar, but the writer was unknown. The little 
 songs, with nothing of the subtleties of the world in 
 them, but the high and wide simplicity of the eternities, 
 — life, death, sin, and sorrow, the beatitudes, — that 
 had appeared from time to time over the name, had won 
 their way insensibly into the hearts of the readers of 
 " Gartenlaube," had been copied far and wide, and had 
 reached even the Empress in her palace, who taught 
 them to the young princes at her knee. Now, when 
 this " Last Song " rang like a cry from a heart too long 
 tortured to other tortured hearts, there was instant 
 response, almost consternation. 
 
 Who was Johanna Ambrosius, and was this indeed 
 her last song ? God forbid ! . . . One, two, three, four 
 editions of the book appeared in as many months, — 
 the voice crying in the wilderness of city streets and 
 the desolation of forests and mines, but still the one 
 crying, was invisible, silent now, as if the last song had 
 
238 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 indeed been sung. With a copy of the book a mes- 
 senger journeyed with decorations and honors from the 
 Empress to a remote village of East Prussia, — the 
 bleak way taken by Queen Louise in her flight to Tilsit 
 after the battle of Jena, almost to the Russian border. 
 
 Over frozen rivers where men fished through the 
 ice, around ice-sheeted lakes, over snow-clad hills and 
 bitter winds from the Baltic, ever within sound of the 
 moaning sea and the sighing firs, the St. Petersburg 
 train rushed on through villages of huddled, half-buried 
 huts, scorning to pause, flinging an occasional bundle 
 of papers to the dwellers in the desolation. The 
 peasants emerged almost from the roofs to watch the 
 train go by, stopping their toil scarcely longer than the 
 peasants of Barbizon drop their tools for the Angelus, 
 to catch a breath from that strange, panting, pulsing 
 engine that stood for progress to the world, for noth- 
 ing to them but a sense of their helplessness and 
 unique misery. 
 
 On and on rushed the train bearing the messenger 
 of the Empress, through the village where Queen 
 Louise wrote on a pane of glass with her diamond 
 ring that verse from Goethe in her extremity, — 
 
 " Who never ate his bread with tears, 
 
 Who never in the solemn hours of night 
 Lay sunk in gloomy fears, — 
 He knows ye not, ye heavenly powers." 
 
 If eating the bread with tears brings God nearer, 
 then He must indeed be very near the dwellers in the 
 northeast corner of Germany. Nothing but toil and 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 239 
 
 misery from eternity to eternity. Surely the messenger 
 would find the poetess in one of the feudal castles 
 which at long intervals sat in the midst of vast estates, 
 — a great lady, perhaps, her heart aching with the 
 knowledge of the misery of dependants whom she 
 could not help, — shut in with them in these desolate 
 snow wastes for many months of the year, crying out 
 for her peasant children, from whom all expression 
 must have been crushed generations ago by the hard- 
 ness of their lives. 
 
 At last he left the train and entered a sledge for the 
 bitter drive to Gross -Wersmeninken with a driver 
 who spoke some strange dialect. Farther and farther, 
 almost to the border of Russia, the firs growing thicker 
 and darker, bearing with patience their burden of snow 
 or flinging rebellious arms to the gray sky; torrents 
 frozen on the steeps; stars shining far above, but 
 scarcely a friendly gleam from the miserable dwellings 
 below, shut in to their eaves, held down by the soft 
 heaviness of snow ; plodding peasants cumbered with 
 clothes j round wooden churches with tiny belfries in 
 the midst of clustered cabins. 
 
 Surely, surely ! Not here ! But yes, here was 
 Gross-Wersmeninken, more hopeless in its poverty 
 than the other villages, and the snow-buried house 
 of Johanna Ambrosius — Frau Voigt — whom the 
 Empress of Germany would honor. 
 
 If a jubilee had rung from the stricken heart of 
 Siberia, the German world could not have been more 
 astonished or profoundly moved than that the spirit 
 
240 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 of Goethe should awaken in this corner of Germany, — 
 scarcely Teuton ; Russian, Polish, ancient Lithuanian, 
 almost Laplandish, if you will, the same sun shining 
 on it, indeed, that purples the slopes of the Rhine and 
 gilds the wheat-fields of the Lower Danube, but con- 
 tracted by the icy blasts from Arctic seas and plains. 
 The same religion consoling, their feste Burg is 
 Luther's God ; the language of Luther taught them in 
 the schools, but language and religion reaching them 
 through what layers of habit and superstition, con- 
 tracted by centuries of privation. The myths and 
 legends of the pines and the sea, the amber witch who 
 gathers the precious mineral of the Baltic, standing 
 knee-deep in frozen spray; the werewolves of the 
 forest, and swan maidens of the lakes ; the siren of the 
 waterfalls, locked in the torrent half the year, luring 
 them to toil on the slopes, only to see their labor lost 
 in some vicious caprice of the spirit, — all these are 
 nearer and more terrible than the bull of a pope, more 
 potent than a protesting monk. 
 
 In the remotest village of this latest-acquired, not 
 yet amalgamated province of Germany, Johanna 
 Ambrosius was born, lived, toiled, suffered incredible 
 hardships and privations, hungered in the body, 
 thirsted in the soul, wept for knowledge unattainable, 
 gained the highest knowledge of all, and almost died 
 before the messenger of the Empress found her. 
 
 A woman of forty, but bent and worn to sixty, with 
 scarred, toil-hardened hands that lay idle outside the 
 cover of a poor bed in the snow-darkened cottage. 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 24 1 
 
 The fever of pneumonia burned on the thin cheek, 
 and a still high light in the dark eyes. On the bed 
 lay a pencil and some torn scraps of paper — the 
 margins of " Gartenlaube " — the paper got through 
 incredible denials; the Christmas candle and bit of 
 meat, the sacrifice of the last fish taken from the ice- 
 mailed river, the last drop of milk for cheese from the 
 single precious cow, as warmly sheltered as the chil- 
 dren that played with pine-tree babies on the bare 
 floor before a fire of fagots from the forest. 
 
 The story comes to us through so many mediums as 
 to make the task of telling it wellnigh impossible, — 
 through the letters to Herr Schrattenthal from a sister 
 who cared for the poetess in what was thought to be 
 her last illness ; through the messenger of the Empress, 
 who brought a famous physician to one who had been 
 ill all her life and never had the relief of medicine ; 
 from a book of travels in East Prussia, Lithuania, and 
 Poland ; and through a sketch by Herman Grimm in 
 the " Deutsches Rundschau." 
 
 Not a word does she tell of all these external things 
 herself. She was born, her cradle was rocked by the 
 waterfall by a curious native device of a wheel at- 
 tached to the rocker, while her mother toiled on the 
 slope carrying soil to the naked rocks. " The fragrant 
 breeze of May " was the gentlest thing she ever knew. 
 While it blew she gathered the fagots against the 
 winter's cold. She mended her father's nets in winter, 
 oiled his great boots so that he could stand in the icy 
 water to fish, dug the potatoes, cut the scanty wheat, 
 16 
 
242 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 gathered pine needles to fill the beds, sheared the 
 sheep, spun and wove, looked forward all the year to 
 the splendid candles of Christmas that dispelled the 
 long night in the snow-buried cottage. 
 
 In turn she made a bed for the cow and the small 
 horse that pulled the sledge to market with fish and 
 cheese, she knitted and served, she turned the curds 
 and chopped the wood, laboring in the field and 
 forest. On Sunday she went to the church ; the tink- 
 ling bell the only sound heard from eternity to eternity, 
 but the moan of the ocean, the murmur of the pines, and 
 the subdued voices of men and animals. The hymns 
 of the Sabbath were long prayers or chants. No song 
 ever rose to heaven that gushed out of the heart of 
 nature. The birds were birds of passage, scarcely 
 stopping long enough to nest, rear a brood, and fly. 
 
 Incessant toil, beginning before light and toiling 
 till dawn ; studying the few scant books that fed the 
 flame of a desire for knowledge without giving it any- 
 thing to burn ; toiling from early dark till late all 
 through a bitter childhood, and winning hard food, hard 
 rest and shelter. Art and science and literature were 
 untranslated terms ; books an unbelievable tale ; pic- 
 tures and statues the strange attributes of Heaven, not 
 anything tangible that one might have and hold ; beauty 
 and comfort and leisure abstract qualities that a library 
 of dictionaries could not have defined to her under- 
 standing. 
 
 All that she understood were snow and ice, the com- 
 plaining firs burdened with snow, the icy winds, toil, 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 243 
 
 darkness, patience, the elusive hope of the cascade 
 laughing and mocking in the sun of May, its laughing 
 locked in the embrace of October, " the fragrant 
 breeze of May" wafting a breath of Heaven from the 
 south, and taking its caresses elsewhither. 
 
 So on that, the kindest thing she knew, she sent her 
 message. No u Cotter's Saturday Night " to her to 
 whom Burns's picture of Scotch humble life would have 
 been a dream of paradise; no dimpling streams, or 
 scampering mice of the field, or daisy ; no banks and 
 braes to bloom so fair, nature as full of care as her 
 heart. Nothing but herself and God, human nature 
 and other nature and the eternities. She knew noth- 
 ing else ; but those who live in palaces knew not so 
 much. 
 
 She says when she writes she feels an indescribable 
 exaltation. Hunger and thirst, darkness and cold and 
 pain, afflict her no more. On those torn, soiled scraps 
 of paper come couplets as exquisitely cut as a cameo. 
 In writing she found the liberty, freedom, light, denied 
 her elsewhere. She went out to service in the fields as 
 a girl. She returned and married a playmate, volunta- 
 rily taking up a life of toil like that of her mother. No 
 more can be wrested from that land than shelter, pota- 
 toes, and bread. Her children were born to be rocked 
 by the waterfall as she had been. 
 
 At forty years of age she had one more sorrow. She 
 feared she could not live to care for her children. 
 There is no physician in those desolate wastes. From 
 her sick-bed she sent her last song to "caress the 
 
244 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 world as it wings its way." Cheer for the cheerless, 
 comfort for the dying, courage for the coward, forgive- 
 ness for sin, pity for sorrow, peace for strife. This 
 brave song out of a heart faint with denial and longing 
 only for a forgotten grave under snow-burdened pines ! 
 
 All the beatitudes, — oh, ye who have so much 
 more and have not these ! 
 
 She could tell nothing more than these bare facts to 
 the Empress, who sent from a palace to learn the 
 secret of a lofty spiritual life. When she wrote, she was 
 so moved, so transported out of herself and the world, 
 that her tired body seemed that of a stranger and her 
 spirit free. The same sensation comes to one in read- 
 ing her poems. They have no environment. They are 
 true of the disembodied. In this ethereal space the 
 poetess makes us conscious only of existence, not of 
 time or space or circumstance. The power to trans- 
 form intolerable misery into freedom belongs only to 
 the greatest poets and religious teachers. They alone 
 succeed in detaching themselves from externals, and 
 become oblivious of garments and creeds and creature 
 comforts. 
 
 Her very ignorance of the science and art and lit- 
 erature and accumulated wisdom of the world invests 
 her work with fundamental truth, — truth without tra- 
 dition becoming universal, fresh from the hand of God ; 
 no more, no less, now than at any time, no more in 
 any future day ; because we make small change of it 
 and circulate it freely, makes it no more in the aggre- 
 gate, only the more widely diffused and recognized. 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 245 
 
 Science and art do that for us. Now and then we get 
 the same old coins from a new mint, and they seem 
 like a revelation and are hoarded. And we know we 
 are getting the same treasures back, having searched 
 for them and found them infinitely subdivided, 
 tarnished, worn with irreverent use, embellished with 
 all the discoveries, speculations, and achievements of 
 mankind. 
 
 Just because she was so poor, so obscure, so lowly, 
 so shut away from records and philosophy, the funda- 
 mental facts of spiritual experience were revealed to 
 Johanna Ambrosius. Her verse has in it the invisible 
 life of Germany, and rings like those old folk songs, 
 religious hymns, and lullabies that form so large a part 
 of German literature, — the minne song and the meis- 
 ter song find an echo. Her life is a counterpart of 
 life in the days when women took " courage like a 
 flame " to warrior husbands, — their praises sweet, 
 their blame. This is the secret of the astonishing 
 power of her poetry. Such inconceivable toil and 
 woe were hers that, in relieving her own sorrows, she 
 must perforce relieve others groaning under intolerable 
 burdens of whatever nature. 
 
 She writes of simple things, — the death of a child, 
 its toys laid in the coffin ; every infrequent flower, in 
 those Northern meadows briefly bright; every bird 
 note, longed for ten months of the year ; every nurs- 
 ling of the snow, winter greens and berries, and ex- 
 panding cone of the pine. Wherever a flower grew 
 was holy ground, every flower sacred, — nothing more 
 
246 JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 
 
 so but an invalid or a child. God's best gifts were 
 always for the very young, the old, and the sick. She 
 read the " Gartenlaube " with amazement, scarcely with 
 belief, of generous soils and climes, beautiful build- 
 ings and pictures, Court society, the army reviews, the 
 telegraph, swifter than her breeze of May that was to 
 carry her message round the world. 
 
 But it taught her some other things, — the spiritual 
 brotherhood of mankind, the impotent sorrow of a 
 nation for the death of a King, the joy of a palace 
 betrothal, the breath of the German national move- 
 ment, the striving and straining for freedom, the long- 
 ing for peace that assails mankind. "They are all 
 like us," she said to her sister. " Think of them in 
 their environment, and they are archangels and arch- 
 demons, but strip them of circumstances and they are 
 joy, sorrow, aspiration, hindrances, desire for knowl- 
 edge, that has made me, too, burst into tears. ' Blessed 
 are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.' " 
 
 " Oh, I could comfort them. To mourn is common. 
 The thing for which one mourns is external. Go now, 
 my song from me, on your world-wide mission of com- 
 forting. From deepest necessity I cry unto all who 
 mourn." 
 
 Thus it was that her cry reached the world. She 
 has been brought back from death, and placed in com- 
 fort with a small annuity from the Empress, but she has 
 not been removed from her environment. That would 
 be to cage the singing bird. The sea still moans, the 
 pines sigh about her cottage, the waterfall is annually 
 
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS. 247 
 
 unlocked from the arms of winter by the sun of May, 
 the shy flowers unfold in meadow and forest, the peas- 
 ant population wage their old war with darkness and 
 cold and soil about her ; but Johanna has enough to 
 relieve wretchedness, — books, pictures, leisure, — all 
 the incredible things dreamed of, and fair white 
 paper. 
 
 She has scarcely recovered from her nearly fatal ill- 
 ness. She is bent and old, her hair nearly white ; her 
 hands, that strike the strings of the heart of Germany 
 so true, are knotted and scarred with toil. She has 
 come up out of the valley of the shadow to rest in an 
 undreamed-of paradise. Whether she writes more or 
 not, the world already owes her a debt. Her reward 
 will not be a forgotten grave. The singer, too, was 
 brave, or the song would never have been sung. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Due two weeks after date. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY