rue i^%ic^j^ "Poe^Ms of 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY 
 CHARLES WHARTON STORK 
 
 Sea and Bay 
 
 'The ^een of Orplede 
 
 Selected Poems of Gustaf Froding {Translated) 
 
 Anthology of Swedish Lyrics (Translated) 
 
THE LYRICAL POEMS OF HUGO 
 
 VON HOFMANNSTHAL 
 
 Translated from the Qerman '>ppith an Introduction 
 by Qharles Wharton Stork^ 
 
 NEW HAVEN • YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON • HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS • MDCCCCXVIII 
 
Copyright, 191 8, by 
 Tale University T'ress 
 
 First publishedy <iApril, 191 8 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 
fr 
 
 To ^My Friend 
 ERIC R. D. MACLAGAN ^ ^1 
 
 Who Introduced cJ^<? to the Poetry of 7 *7 "^ 
 
 Hofmannsthal ^ «d C 
 
'Preface and Acknowledgments 
 
 The present volume of translations comprises all the 
 contents of Hofmannsthal's Die Gesammelte Gedichte, 
 Insel Verlag, Leipsic, 1907 (in my edition), with the 
 exception of Der Tod des Tizian, a play. This play, 
 with Tor und Tod, has been translated for The German 
 Classics, vol. XVII, by Mr. John Heard, Jr., who has 
 also done the prologue on the death of Bocklin here in- 
 cluded. Another version of Tor und Tod by Elisabeth 
 Walter has appeared with The Gorham Press. Die 
 Hochzeit der Sobeide, a longer play, has been done for 
 the Classics, vol. XX, by Professor Bayard Quincy 
 Morgan. Hofmannsthal's most famous play, Elektra, 
 translated by Arthur Symons, has been brought out by 
 Brentano. 
 
 Of the poems here included, the Ballade of the Out- 
 luard Life has been translated by Margarete Miinsterberg 
 in her Harvest of German Verse, Appleton. In German 
 Lyrists of To-day by Daisy Broicher, Elkin Mathews, 
 London, appear Early Spring, Thy Face and The T<wo. 
 An article by Elisabeth Walter, entitled Hugo von Hof- 
 mannsthal, an Exponent of Modern Lyricism, in The 
 Colonnade magazine for December, 1916, New York, con- 
 tains again the Ballade of the Outivard Life and The 
 Two with the third of the Three Little Songs and a num- 
 ber of fragments. 
 
 Of my own translations Of Mutability, Travel Song 
 and Interdependence appeared in The German Classics, 
 vol. XVII, and are here republished by the courtesy of 
 the proprietors, the German Publication Society. The 
 Introduction has been greatly expanded from an article 
 in the New York Nation which contained translations of 
 The Tvno, A Dream of the Higher Magic and the third 
 of the Three Little Songs. They are reproduced here by 
 the courtesy of the proprietors of The Nation. Several 
 
 vii 
 
i/ 
 
 other poems, accepted by Poet Lore, are included by the 
 kind permission of the publishers. The entire volume is 
 brought out by the kind permission of Herr von Hof- 
 mannsthal through his publishers, the Insel Verlag, 
 Leipsic. 
 
 ^3rhese translations aim at being as true to the spirit, 
 more particularly the mood, of the originals as possible. 
 They are fairly literal, the changes being mainly in the 
 order of words in a phrase. Very occasionally whole 
 lines have been transposed. The metres and rhyme- 
 schemes are, with slight exceptions, as nearly identical as 
 possible. As Hofmannsthal's poetry is so notably com- 
 pressed and full of meaning, it is hoped that these trans- 
 lations, together with the Tntroduction, may enable some 
 of those who already know him in the original to see 
 even more in his work than they have already done. 
 
 CHARLES WHARTON STORK. 
 
 "Birdwood," Philadelphia. 
 
 vm 
 
Co:NjeHJs 
 
 Introduction: 
 
 Hofmannsthal as a Lyric Poet ... 1 
 
 Purely Lyrical Pieces: 
 
 Early Spring 23 
 
 A Vision 25 
 
 Travel Song 27 
 
 The Two 28 
 
 Life-Song 29 
 
 ''Thy Face ..." 31 
 
 World-Secret 32 
 
 Of the Outward Life 33 
 
 Of Mutability 34 
 
 Death 35 
 
 ''Such Stuff as Dreams" 36 
 
 Interdependence 37 
 
 A Dream of the Higher Magic ... 38 
 
 Three Little Songs 40 
 
 Figures: 
 
 The Young Man in the Landscape . . 45 
 
 The Ship's Cook, a Captive, Sings: . . 46 
 
 An Old Man's Longing for Summer . . 47 
 
 Lines to a Little Child 49 
 
 The Emperor of China Speaks : ... 50 
 
 Grandmother and Grandson .... 52 
 
 Society -54 
 
 ix 
 
Prologues and J ddresses-of- Mourning: 
 
 Prologue to the Book "Anatol" ... 59 
 
 For a Similar Book 62 
 
 In Memory of the Actor, Mitterwurzer . 64 
 On the Death of the Actor, Hermann Miiller 67 
 For a Commemoration on the Death of Ar- 
 nold Bocklin 70 
 
 Dramatic Idyll: 
 
 Idyll : After an Old Vase Painting : . . 75 
 
i:j^%g'D ucTioy^ 
 
J(J^%IC "POST 
 
 The name of Hugo von Hofmannsthal is fairly 
 well known to those who attempt to follow the 
 course of modern literature in Europe. Further- 
 more, all opera-goers have come in contact with it 
 from the accident that two of Hofmannsthal's 
 plays, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, were set to 
 music by Richard Strauss. His Elektra was also 
 acted in New York by Mrs. Patrick Campbell. It 
 may nevertheless be safely said that the peculiar 
 genius of this author is but little appreciated in 
 America, and that the general impression among 
 those who have heard of him is of a colorful, neo- 
 classical dramatist. It is hoped that the present 
 volume may serve to bring out another and deeper 
 aspect of the poet. 
 
 Judged by bulk, the lyrics of Hofmannsthal's 
 might well be neglected in a survey of his writings 
 as a whole. He has to his credit some seven or 
 eight long plays, a dozen short plays and two vol- 
 umes of prose studies. Against these we can set only 
 a small volume entitled Die Gesammelte Gedichte, 
 including, apparently, all the poems which the author 
 cares to have preserved. It contains but twenty- 
 three lyrics, the rest of the book consisting of a 
 short play, a dramatic idyll and several prologues 
 written for special occasions. But as the short plays 
 excel the longer in concentrated art, so the lyrics 
 
 1 
 
excel both. Out of this mere handful the most 
 general German anthologies take some three or 
 four poems. In a collection of 536 poems covering 
 a period of 700 years The Oxford Book of German 
 Verse includes three examples of Hofmannsthal. 
 Die Ernie, a similar anthology, published in Ger- 
 many, gives him four pages out of 466. This is no 
 mean proportion for a living poet born so late as 
 1874. Besides, the level of thought and technic is 
 so maintained throughout the small body of lyrics 
 that (with one exception) the critic is hard put to 
 it to decide which are the best. An entire school of 
 younger poets is imitating Hofmannsthal, as art 
 students may be seen copying the few authentic 
 Giorgiones, Bellinis or Vermeers. 
 
 I 
 
 But despite Hofmannsthal's high reputation in 
 his own literature, we may as well admit at once 
 that his poetry is confined to a field of interest far 
 removed from the thoughts of the average American. 
 We can hardly come into a receptive state of mind 
 toward him without picturing to ourselves the 
 environment which shaped his genius. 
 
 The outward events of Hofmannsthal's life ap- 
 pear surprisingly normal. He was born in Vienna 
 February 1, 1874, received the usual broad educa- 
 tion of the cultivated Austrian, traveled, married, 
 and settled at Rodaun, a quiet suburb of the capital. 
 Up to the time of the war he was living the life 
 of a secluded literary man with his wife and chil- 
 2 
 
dren, sometimes gracing a special event in the city 
 and occasionally making an excursion to visit his 
 friends in Paris or Italy. 
 
 It is to Hofmannsthal's environment in Vienna 
 that the peculiar trend of his art may be traced. 
 There was perhaps no city twenty-five years ago 
 where a young man of means and birth could live 
 a life so completely detached from that of his 
 modern fellow-men. The repose of antiquity was 
 preserved there more completely even than in Paris; 
 there was little intrusion of the Nineteenth Century 
 business world on the traditions of Maria Theresa's 
 court, little ferment of democratic ideals of any 
 kind. Beautiful gardens, Romanesque churches, 
 palaces contemporary with Versailles, galleries rich 
 in Italian masterpieces — these were the elements that 
 surrounded the minds of young men. Social and 
 political questions were put to one side or cheerfully 
 left to those whose concern they were supposed to 
 be. Certain conditions were admitted to be hope- 
 lessly bad, and, if so, why should one trouble oneself 
 about them? Grace and gaiety were the prevailing 
 characteristics of Viennese life, as of its typical 
 expression, the Viennese waltz. 
 
 To the young man who was able to indulge his 
 taste art was the chief end and purpose of being. 
 Goethe had already set the example of artistic aloof- 
 ness by retiring to his study to write the West- 
 Ostliche Divan, while the battles of the^Napoleonlc 
 Wars were being fought around him. Cf he connect- 
 
 3 
 
ing link between Goethe and the Vienna of the 
 Nineties was the tradition of Franz Grillparzer, 
 Austria's great neo-classical dramatist, who~3Ted m 
 1872. As Goethe introduced modern characteriza- 
 tion into the story of Iphigenia, Grillparzer fol- 
 lowed with his plays on Hero and Leander, Sappho, 
 and Medea. Other dramatists, such as Raimund 
 and Wilbrandt, carried on the tendency of cultivat- 
 ing a drama far removed from the existence of those 
 who witnessed it, the subjects being sometimes 
 classical, sometimes fanciful, sometimes from mediae- 
 val historjO The influence of Shakespeare was 
 turned in the same direction: namely, toward one 
 or another phase of romanticism. Beauty of pro- 
 portion, delicate fancy, and nobility of sentiment 
 were the chief requirements of the drama, the most 
 brilliant field of literary activity in Vienna. Italy, 
 the ideal home of romance, was easily accessible. 
 Painters, with a few notable exceptions, turned their 
 faces thitherward. Music and the ballet, always 
 prominent in the Austrian capital, are by their very 
 nature detached from realism. Thus the cultivated 
 man of Vienna was almost by compulsion an 
 aesthete. 
 
 Grillparzer* thought the North Germans had 
 cultivated their understanding at the expense of their 
 feeling, and had thereby impaired their aesthetic 
 sense. But though the typical Austrian is "a man of 
 
 * Quoted from the life of Grillparzer by Professor 
 W. G. Howard, German Classics, vol. VI, p. 233. 
 
 4 
 
feeling," the human mind everywhere must, it 
 seems, have problems to solve. If the contemporary 
 world be shut out, these problems will naturally be 
 subjective. Also, as many observers have noted, 
 listening to sweet music and looking on at a scene 
 of continued gaiety are apt to induce a pleasurable, 
 but often profound, mood of melancholy. The so- 
 journer in Italy, particularly in Venice, may have 
 been struck with a similar feeling. 
 
 II 
 
 We may seem to have wandered rather far afield, 
 but as a matter of fact I have tried, in the preceding 
 part of this introduction, to write the biography of 
 Hugo von Hofmannsthal in the only way that came 
 to hand. There is no poem translated in this volume 
 which will not be largely accounted for by the con- 
 siderations that have just been presented. Instead 
 of being a unique and totally unrelated personality 
 in literature, Hofmannsthal was in many respects 
 the normal product of these, to us, abnormal con- 
 ditions. 
 
 He had, however, a marked personality in addi- 
 tion. In the first place he may be called an ex- 
 tremist of his kind: an extreme lover of rich and 
 remote beauty, an artist unusually detached from 
 everyday existence, a genius of oppressive melan- 
 choly, a magician of startling power in the revelation 
 of human consciousness, an unequaled exponent of 
 style. Furthermore, all these faculties appeared in 
 
 5 
 
him at so early an age as to make him a literary 
 prodigy, in this respect (as in others to be noted 
 later) resembling Rossetti. In his first short plays, 
 Gestern and Tod des Tizian, written at the ages 
 of seventeen and eighteen respectively, his style was 
 already that of a mature master. He has since ex- 
 hibited greater variety, but hardly greater power. 
 As a boy of seventeen Hofmannsthal was acclaimed 
 by many critics as technically the greatest German 
 poet since Goethe. 
 
 The bent of Hofmannsthal's genius soon brought 
 him into association with two similarly minded Ger- 
 man poets: Stefan George and Rainer Maria Rilke. 
 These three united in a publication called Blatter 
 fiir die Kunst to combat the unmitigated realism of 
 contemporary German literature, as represented by 
 the plays of Sudermann and the poetry of Lilien- 
 cron. The three young apostles of beauty main- 
 tained that* "the poet, in order to depict life as life 
 really is, must take no part in it." Of George's 
 work Hofmannsthal wrote in words that may 
 equally be applied to himself :t "He so completely 
 conquered life, so absolutely mastered it, that from 
 his poems the rare, indescribable peace and refresh- 
 ing coolness of a still, dark temple are wafted upon 
 our noise-racked senses." 
 
 But Hofmannsthal did not, like his associates, 
 
 * Quoted by permission from an article on Hofmanns- 
 thal by Elisabeth Walter in the Colonnade, December, 
 1916, New York. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
leave his fame to rest on lyric poetry. He went on 
 for a time with the one-act poetical soul-dramas of 
 which Gestern was the first. Of these the finest 
 and best known are Tor und Tod, Der Weiss e 
 Fdcher and Die Frau im Fenster, all deeply imagi- 
 native studies of great spiritual moments. The 
 third, which (though almost entirely a monologue) 
 is the most dramatic of the three, has been acted in 
 New York. Then came longer plays on original 
 themes, the best of which is Die Hochzeit der 
 Sobeide. 
 
 Hofmannsthal's greatest success, however, has 
 been won with plays which, like Goethe's Iphigenie 
 and Grillparzer's Medea, are modeled around 
 themes of earlier dramatic masterpieces. His 
 method is simply to take the old story, rearrange 
 the scenes freely, and completely re-create the char- 
 acters. In the case of his best-known play Elektra 
 he does but do as Euripides did: namely, render 
 the dignified characters of the earlier Greek trage- 
 dians thoroughly human from the standpoint of a 
 later day. Thus the treatment of Elektra in Hof- 
 mannsthal's play has been called pathological, be- 
 cause that is the only way in which, with our 
 demand for psychology, we can be made to realize 
 the state of the human mind in so terrible a situa- 
 tion. The effect is certainly "unclassic" and to 
 many people too painfully human. But on any 
 score Elektra is an important play. Hofmannsthal 
 has given a similarly free rendering of classic ma- 
 
 7 
 
terlal in Odipus und die Sphinx a.nd has also trans- 
 lated Sophocles' play as Konig Odipus. 
 
 The influence of the English drama appears in 
 a recasting of Otway's Venice Preserved as Das 
 Gerettete Venedig, in which far greater verisimili- 
 tude is given to the characters than w^as the fashion 
 in Otway's time. Hofmannsthal has also handled 
 very freely the theme of the old morality Everyman, 
 giving a skilful German coloring by infusing ma- 
 terial from an old play of Hans Sachs. In his 
 last plays, Christinas Heimreise and Der Rosen- 
 kavalier, we find the author successful in his first 
 attempts at comedy. Two volumes of Prosaische 
 Schriften consist of subtle studies in literature, in 
 religion, and in character. Among these the essay 
 Shakespeare's Konige und Grosse Herren may be 
 noted. 
 
 Ill 
 
 With some knowledge of Hofmannsthal's career 
 and literary proclivities, we may proceed to examine 
 the small but very important body of non-dramatic 
 poetry here to be presented. The principle to be 
 kept in mind throughout is, as Miss Walter has 
 well phrased it:* ''Every one of Hofmannsthal's 
 poems expresses some condition of the soul in terms 
 of beauty, and always the universal behind the 
 beautiful." The well-worn axiom that beauty is 
 truth has seldom been better exemplified since the 
 time of Keats. 
 
 * Cf. the article in the Colonnade already cited. 
 
 8 
 
The beauty of Hofmannsthal's poetry should 
 need little further comment, even when his work 
 is given only in translation. Miss Walter cites a 
 criticism on his poems:* "They were not written to 
 instruct, but to arouse sensation, to awaken the 
 indescribable." We must not, however, lose touch 
 with the imaginative truth that underlies these 
 poems, thef "ugly facts" represented in "pretty 
 symbols." That the symbols of Hofmannsthal's 
 poetry are far from being a mere play of fancy, the 
 author indicates in his prologue For a Similar Book: 
 
 For we have made a play from out the life 
 
 We live, and mingled with our comedy 
 
 Our truth keeps ever gliding in and out . . . 
 etc. 
 
 It is in the interfusion of universal truth with 
 beauty of rhythm, with verbal melody, and with * 
 colorful imagery that the magic of the poet consists. 
 In any given piece he at once creates the mood ap- 
 propriate to his central idea, so that the reader, 
 delighted by the art, soon gives up any attempt at 
 cold analysis. The thought is first melted into a 
 feeling such as might be inspired by music, then -. 
 the feeling is defined by a succession of mental pic-x( 
 tures. A typical example of this is found in the 
 poem A Vision. The blending of the theme. 
 Death, with the glowing picture and the deep cello- 
 like music of the verse should, unless the translation 
 
 * Cf. the article in the Colonnade already cited. 
 
 t Cf. "Prologue to the Book Anatol." 
 
 9 
 
is an utter failure, be easily apparent. But it is 
 perhaps incorrect to speak of blending, where the 
 poem is so entirely an organic unit. Hofmannsthal* 
 jiuJ/^ deprecates the use of the terms "inward" and "out- 
 "^ ward" with reference to art and life, because to 
 him they express no real distinction. 
 
 Although Hofmannsthal was a product of his 
 environment and was even part of a literary ten- 
 dency, the forcefulness of his genius was sufficient 
 to raise him far above his possible rivals. Neither 
 the vaguely mystical lyrics of Stefan George nor 
 the wistful reveries of Rilke can compare in ultimate 
 importance with the work of their associate. The 
 intellect of Hofmannsthal dominates the school to 
 which he belongs and has already called forth many 
 followers. He is the one symbolist writing in Ger- 
 man who has an absolutely sure touch, a perfect 
 sense of balance in all that he does. In this respect 
 also his plays seem to me to excel those of Maeter- 
 linck. 
 
 The English poets who most resemble Hof- 
 mannsthal are Vaughan, Blake, Rossetti and Francis 
 Thompson. Vaughan's ability to soar into a world 
 of spiritual exaltation is not unlike what we find in 
 A Dream of the Higher Magic. Vaughan, however, 
 takes his moral sense and his human feelings with 
 him, whereas the daemon of Hofmannsthal surveys 
 all things impersonally. The splendor of their lan- 
 
 * Cf. Professor Seiberth's Life of Hofmannsthal, Ger- 
 man Classics, vol. XVII, p. 484. 
 
 10 
 
guage and imagery is very similar, except that the 
 brilliance of the English poet shows in flashes, that 
 of the Austrian in a deep and constant glow. Blake 
 is like Hofmannsthal in the abstractness of his poetic 
 world, and his doctrine that the imagination is God 
 comes very near that pictured in A Dream of the 
 Higher Magic. But Blake's expression is simple 
 and intuitive; his is altogether a more aerial spirit. 
 In their combination of somewhat heavily decora- 
 tive style with mystic thought, Rossetti and Thomp- 
 son stand much nearer to Hofmannsthal than do 
 the earlier poets. "Fundamental brainwork," to 
 quote Rossetti's famous phrase, is almost equally 
 evident in the three; the underlying plan of their 
 poems is laid with a similar definiteness. Hof- 
 mannsthal differs from Rossetti in that he gives 
 more general pictures, producing effects more purely 
 like those of music; whereas the pre-Raphaelite 
 revels in sharply drawn detail. Both Rossetti and 
 Thompson seem much more passionate; Hofmanns- 
 thal's egiotlon is always subdued and. even in tex- 
 ture. The quaint, rather self-conscious style of the 
 V^ modern English poets contrasts with the smoQth 
 diction of Hofmannsthal, whose mind moves in its 
 omT spiritual world with the seemingly unconscious 
 grace of a golden fish in shadowy depths. 
 
 IV 
 
 Because the quality of Hofmannsthal's mood is 
 so all-pervasive, we have spoken much of the effects 
 
 11 
 
which his poetry produces, without giving more than 
 a hint of its actual content. This content might be 
 defined as impersonally subjective, if the phrase does 
 not seem to be an oxymoron. What is meant is that 
 Hofmannsthal writes of his own consciousness, or 
 that of others with whom he for the moment identi- 
 fies himself, in a manner which shows great power 
 of divination but only the most remote shade of 
 sympathy. He does not wish human emotion to 
 disturb him in his attempt to contemplate reality. 
 For instance, in The Two he symbolizes admirably 
 the mysterious relation of sex to sex, but we who 
 read, instead of being stirred to a poignant feeling 
 of pity, are only impelled to murmur: "How strange 
 is truth!" Similarly in the poem Of Mutability, 
 when he says it is 
 
 A thing too dreadful for the trivial tear: 
 That all things glide away from out our clasp, 
 
 we are in no real danger of a tear or even of a 
 shudder. This impassive attitude toward the facts 
 of life gives a tone of fatalism to nearly every poem 
 in the volume. The interest shown in nature and 
 humanity is exclusively artistic and speculative. 
 
 The earlier poems of this volume are purely 
 philosophical or symbolic of the poet's own sensa- 
 tions. The Three Little Songs are somewhat more 
 personal than the pieces which precede them; but 
 even the third, a most delicate bit of lyricism, has 
 not the ring of ordinary human feeling. In the 
 12 
 
remarkable group of Figures the poet Identifies his 
 soul with those of such various persons as the 
 Emperor of China, a child, a captive ship's cook, 
 and the collective personality of several interacting 
 characters at a social entertainment. Into each of 
 these minds in turn we are made to enter by the 
 same exquisite art which, in the earlier lyrics, 
 enables us to examine the intimacies of the poet's 
 own consciousness. The Idyll at the end is a neo- 
 classic study of the same kind, except that, instead 
 of being static, it has dramatic motion, thus pointing 
 the reader on to Hofmannsthal's plays. 
 
 We have still to mention the Prologues and Ad- 
 dresses-of-Mourning. These, though in a somewhat 
 different vein, are wonderfully fascinating poems. 
 The prologue to Anatol is a delicious piece of atmos- 
 phere. With the following prologue it constitutes, 
 as we have indicated, a good exposition of the 
 author's artistic purpose: namely, to present the 
 truth, but only under the mask of beauty. In this 
 point Hofmannsthal differs from Arthur Schnitzler, 
 author of the short realistic plays grouped under the 
 title Anatol. Schnitzler, though he is what we 
 might call a selective realist, lets us at times see the 
 ugliness of life pretty clearly. 
 
 Tributes to the two actors, Mitterwurzer and 
 Miiller, show how intensely Hofmannsthal feels 
 the identity of soul and body. He is, to be sure, 
 thinking only of the soul of the given actor, but this 
 soul has the gift of so informing and transforming 
 
 13 
 
the body it inhabits that the two cannot be thought 
 of as separate, but only as mingled in varying pro- 
 portions. The poem on Bocklin is of course the 
 finest of the five, showing as it does how the spirit 
 of a true artist can "adorn the image of the world" 
 for us and can thus live in the added charm which it 
 flings over the visible forms of nature. 
 
 Professor Seiberth writes:* "As a thinker Hof- 
 mannsthal is not in any definite sense a didactic or 
 philosophical poet. The true poet is temperamen- 
 tally incapable and impatient of close systematic 
 thinking." Without stopping further to confute 
 the absurdity of the second statement than by men- 
 tioning the names of Dante, Milton, Shelley and 
 Goethe, we may well examine the validity of the 
 first. A notedf Professor of Philosophy, who is 
 unusually well acquainted with modern literature, 
 says that Hofmannsthal is the greatest living philo- 
 sophic poet in Europe. This raises a question we 
 can not afford to pass over. 
 
 Of course it is possible for many readers not 
 interested in pure philosophy to enjoy Hofmanns- 
 thal's poetry simply as poetry, but a little examina- 
 tion will convince most of them that the poet has a 
 remarkably well-defined conception of the universe. 
 In the first place, he "thinks unity" very strongly, 
 
 * German Classics, vol. XVII, p. 484. 
 
 t Prof. Edgar Singer of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 14 
 
he feels the deep connection between all times, all_ 
 places and all things, whether spiritual or material. 
 This is superbly imaged in the lines of Interde- 
 pendence: 
 
 From the weariness of forgotten peoples 
 Vainly would I liberate mine eyelids, 
 Or would keep my startled soul at distance 
 From the silent fall of far-off planets. 
 
 But a more unusual doctrine, exemplified in A 
 Dream of the Higher Magic, has been taken from 
 the philosophy of Giordano Bruno. Bruno's* hy- 
 pothesis pictures the soul of man as standing midway 
 between the divine intelligence and the world of 
 what we call external phenomena. It is immortal 
 because it partakes of the divine existence. Its 
 highest function is to contemplate the divine unity 
 which is discoverable in the manifold appearances 
 of material objects. Take now^ the concluding lines 
 of the poem: 
 
 Our soul's a Cherub, and of lordly birth — 
 Dwells not in us, but in some upper star 
 Fixes his throne and leaves us oft in dearth. 
 
 Yet deep in us his fiery motions are: 
 — So in my dream I seemed to understand — 
 And he holds converse with yon fires afar, 
 And lives in me as I do in my hand. 
 
 * Cf. Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, sub 
 Bruno. 
 
 15 
 
We may here take it that the Adept is none other 
 than man's soul (or, as Blake would have said, 
 imagination), the supposedly eternal power that 
 comes into the human mind and performs all manner 
 of marvels, overleaping the material boundaries of 
 time and space. This "Greatest Magician," or (as 
 he is later called) "Cherub," is the medium of com- 
 munication between Divinity and Mortality. He 
 may be analyzed after the Hegelian fashion into the 
 antithetical concepts of spirit and matter, with the 
 understanding that these two are in reality indi- 
 visibly united. Hofmannsthal has also undertaken 
 in this poem to solve the problems of time and 
 space, and of appearance and reality by assuming all 
 of these to be conditions of our thinking, which 
 therefore the mind, when stimulated by special 
 inspiration, can transcend. From this poem it would 
 seem (Professor Seiberth to the contrary notwith- 
 standing) that Hofmannsthal was in a very definite 
 sense a philosophical poet. 
 
 Similar ideas to those just spoken of may be found 
 throughout the poems in this volume. Of course 
 they can not always be so clearly perceived. I can 
 hardly hazard a guess at what is meant by Life- 
 Song, World-Secret is evidently not meant to 
 convey more than an elusive suggestion. Such 
 Stuff as Dreams would seem to express an idea 
 similar to that of A D?-eam of the Higher Magic. 
 Perhaps the child is the link which binds the dream 
 and the moon, as the cherub is the link which binds 
 16 
 
"yon fires afar" with mortal life. The other poems 
 can, I think, be enjoyed at least as well without the 
 intrusion of any further analysis. 
 
 VI 
 
 In the spring of 1908 I had the honor of calling 
 on Herr von Hofmannsthal at his house in Rodaun. 
 His way of life appeared extremely simple, there 
 being a notable absence of the paraphernalia of 
 luxury in the rooms I saw. There were none of 
 the pictures or other works of art which a connois- 
 seur of beauty might be supposed to revel in. It 
 has since occurred to me that probably the poet 
 does not care to have his eyes and mind distracted 
 by numerous objects. 
 
 Herr von Hofmannsthal is a well-built man of 
 middle height with a high, square forehead, rather 
 sensuous nose and lips, and very dark hair, mus- 
 taches and eyes. Without seeming secretive, he 
 managed to reveal almost nothing of himself in our 
 talk, asking me questions most of the time about 
 the old English drama. The only remark he made 
 on himself was when, in answer to some tribute of 
 admiration on his work, he said: *'I realize that I 
 write for only about five hundred people in Europe." 
 
 Though some of Hofmannsthal's plays have been 
 very successful on the stage and have run to from 
 ten to thirty editions, the fact remains that his best 
 work is for the few. He does not picture life as 
 
 17 
 
the ordinary man sees it or can see it. He general- 
 izes what he sees in nature and eliminates the detail, 
 like the designer of a stained-glass window. His 
 interest in a given idea, scene or personality is only 
 for the purpose of arriving at some philosophical 
 conclusion. The result in his art is arresting, both 
 intellectually and aesthetically, but cannot be dis- 
 sociated in the reader's mind from a feeling of 
 monotony and oppression, as if one were shut up in 
 the darkly beautiful temple to which Hofmannsthal 
 compares the poetry of Stefan George. There is 
 a lack of free air and natural light. His thought 
 has, far more than Matthew Arnold's, the melan- 
 choly of the pantheist. 
 
 But what a master of imagery! How wonder- 
 fully this young poet succeeds in conveying the deep 
 dreams of his imagination! His figures of speech 
 show a particular fondness for children, whose eyes 
 seem to him to behold more of mystery than the 
 power of language can express. He loves the 
 stage, because there the soul can best show its power 
 to transform itself. His outdoor nature is never 
 specified in any particular country, except that the 
 Travel Song must refer to Italy, the favorite setting 
 of his early plays. But though certain preferences 
 are apparent in the figures of speech, the memorable 
 power and originality of the Hofmannsthal simile 
 (which is also a symbol) can be explained only by 
 genius. 
 
 Imagery can always, in some sort, be translated; 
 18 
 
verbal felicity must of course be largely lost, or at 
 best but partly re-created, in a new medium of ex- 
 pression. Though Hofmannsthal is so often thought 
 of as a stylist, he has no obtrusive mannerism of 
 form. He obtains large effects by comparatively 
 simple and direct means. Style with, him is not a 
 trick, but a gift; the mood clothes itself with the 
 fitting expression, that is all one can say. As the 
 mood is so often somber, the sound of the words is ,^ 
 correspondingly sonorous and full of gloomy dignity. 
 In the Lines to a Little Child, however, the tone 
 is naive and gay, in Society it is confused and ani- 
 mated. The variety of verse-form is likewise con- 
 siderable, marked preference being given to the 
 Italian terza rima, which is peculiarly suited to the 
 complex, closely woven quality of the thought. 
 
 In conclusion, we must concede that Hofmanns- 
 thal's lyric poetry is a highly special literary phe- 
 nomenon. Professor Grummann objects that* "it 
 is pervaded by an artistic atmosphere acquired by 
 idling in art museums rather than in immediate 
 contact with life." To this we may answer that 
 there are two opposite definitions of what is meant 
 by life. It is one thing to describe in the manner of 
 an observant traveler the scenes and persons which 
 meet the outward eye ; it is another to reveal the soul 
 to itself. To most persons the second sort of artist 
 will mean very little, but to a few he will give a 
 delight that is almost overpowering. Under the 
 
 * German Classics, vol. XVIII, pp. 289-290. 
 
 19 
 
spell of Hofmannsthal one feels as when listening 
 to the Andante of a mighty symphony written in a 
 minor key. The poet, like a leader in his orchestral 
 eminence, dominates his audience in soul, mind and 
 body. From such moments we return to the uses 
 of ordinary life in surprise at how deeply we were 
 rapt by the potency of the master's art. 
 
 20 
 
TU%§j[j^ C^'KIC^Ji "Pi^C^s 
 
EARLY SPRING. Early 
 
 The spring wind is gliding 
 
 Mid boughs that are bare, 
 In his heart hiding 
 
 Strange things and rare. 
 
 His cradle hath swung 
 
 In sob-shaken air, 
 And oft hath he clung 
 
 In passion-loosed hair. 
 
 Acacia blossoms 
 
 Beneath him snowed, 
 His breath cooled the bosoms 
 
 That throbbing glowed. 
 
 Lips in their laughter 
 
 First he would claim, 
 Soft fields thereafter 
 
 Woke when he came. 
 
 The flute he passed through in 
 
 A sobbing cry, 
 The sunset's red ruin 
 
 He swiftly flew by. 
 
 In silence proceeding 
 
 Through whispering rooms. 
 And quenched with his speeding 
 
 The lamps' yellow blooms. 
 
 23 
 
Early The spring wind is gliding 
 Spring Mid boughs that are bare, 
 In his heart hiding 
 
 Strange things and rare. 
 
 Through the reviving 
 Alleys and meadow^s 
 
 His breath is driving 
 Wraith-like shadows. 
 
 A scent without name 
 He bears in his flight 
 
 From whence he came 
 Since yester-night. 
 
 24 
 
A VISION [Erlebnis], A Vision 
 
 The valley with a silver-gra5ash mist 
 
 Of twilight was o'erbrimmed, as when the moon 
 
 Filters through clouds. And yet it was not night. 
 
 In the silver-grayish mist of yon dark valley 
 
 My twilight-shimmering thoughts were wholly 
 
 blended ; 
 Softly I sank into the shifting depths 
 Of that transparent sea — and left this life. 
 What wondrous flowers bloomed about me there 
 With darkly glowing chalices! — dim thickets 
 Transfused with streams of reddish-yellow light, 
 Warm as a glowing topaz. And the vale 
 Was filled with deep vibrating harmony 
 Of melancholy music. Then I knew — 
 Though how, I comprehend not — yet I knew 
 That this was Death; Death was transformed to 
 
 music. 
 Mightily yearning, sweet, and darkly glowing. 
 Akin to deepest melancholy. 
 
 Yet- 
 How strange ! a sort of homesickness for life 
 Wept silently within my soul, it wept 
 As one may weep when on a towering ship. 
 That drives toward evening with gigantic sails 
 Across the dark-blue waves, he passes by 
 A town, his native town. He sees before him 
 The streets, he hears the fountains gush, he breathes 
 The scent of lilac-bushes; on the bank 
 
 25 
 
A Vision He sees himself a child with childish eyes 
 Anxious and almost weeping, sees a light 
 Through the wide window burning in his room. 
 But the huge vessel bears him ever on, 
 Silently speeding o'er the dark-blue waves 
 With giant sails of yellow, strangely shaped. 
 
 26 
 
TRAVEL SONG. Travel 
 
 Water plunges to devour us, 
 Rocks would crush with rolling leap, 
 Strong-winged birds to overpower us 
 Haunt our path with threatening sweep. 
 
 But beneath us lies a land 
 Where, in ageless lakes reflected, 
 Ripened fruits forever glow. 
 Marble fount and statue stand 
 Deep in groves of bloom protected. 
 And the gentle breezes blow. 
 
 27 
 
The Two THE TWO. 
 
 Her hand bore well the cup to him — 
 — Her cheek and mouth were like its rim — 
 So lightly, surely, too, she stepped 
 That not a drop the rim o'erlept. 
 
 As light and firm too was his hand ; 
 His fiery mount but fresh from pasture 
 At one impulsive, easy gesture 
 Stood quivering where he bade it stand. 
 
 Yet it befell that when his hand 
 Would take from hers the drink unwasted, 
 The feat for both was overmuch; 
 For both so trembled at the touch. 
 That fingers failed, and on the sand 
 The precious wine rolled down untasted. 
 
 28 
 
LIFE-SONG. Life-Song 
 
 On peacock, lamb and eagle 
 His youthful lordship brave 
 May waste the ointment regal 
 An old dead woman gave. 
 The dead, whose flight upstreameth 
 And o'er the tree-tops gleameth, — 
 Naught more are these, he deemeth, 
 Than dancers' robes that wave. 
 
 He goes as if no justling 
 Behind e'er threateneth. 
 He smiles whene'er the rustling 
 Of Life's robe whispers: Death! 
 For every place delights him 
 And every door invites him, 
 Each passion-wave incites him 
 As lone he wandereth. 
 
 When wild-bee swarms are winging, 
 
 His soul pursues in play; 
 
 The dolphins with their singing 
 
 Upbear him on his way. 
 
 All countries are his dwelling, 
 
 But soon with hand compelling 
 
 A dark stream, ever swelling. 
 
 Will bound his shepherd's-day. 
 
 On peacock, lamb and eagle 
 My lord with laughter brave 
 
 29 
 
Life-Song May waste the ointment regal 
 An old dead woman gave, 
 On friends a smile bestowing, 
 Through Life's fair garden going 
 Toward dim gulfs, all unknowing, 
 From which no skill can save. 
 
 30 
 
"THY FACE. ..." <<Thy Face'' 
 
 Thy face was laden all with reverie. 
 Silent and trembling then I looked on thee. 
 Ah how the thought came back! that even so 
 Upon a former night I yielded me 
 
 Unto the moon and that beloved vale 
 Where on the naked hill-side rose a frail 
 And broken screen of pines, around whose stems 
 Low-flying cloudlets oftentimes would sail, 
 
 While freshly, strangely through the stillness clave 
 The dashing of the pallid silvery wave 
 From the deep river, — How it all came back! — 
 How it came back ! For to those things I gave 
 
 My very soul in mighty yearning there. 
 Yea, to that scene, so fruitless and so fair; 
 As now I yield me to thine eyes that glow, 
 And to the magic of thy loosened hair. 
 
 31 
 
World'Secret WORLD-SECRET. 
 
 The deep well knows it certainly ; 
 Once all things else were deep and still, 
 And all then knew their fill. 
 
 Like master-words a child lisps o'er, 
 From mouth to mouth the tale doth flit 
 And no one comprehendeth it. 
 
 The deep well knows it certainly; 
 And leaning there a man would know, 
 But rising up, would lose it so. 
 
 Would wildly talk, and make a song. — 
 O'er this dark mirror, as it chanced, 
 A child leant down and was entranced. 
 
 And grew, and knew itself no more. 
 And was a woman; then love came 
 And — who the gifts of love can name. 
 
 And all the knowledge love bestows? — 
 
 In kisses was she deeply ware 
 
 Of dim-divined memories rare. . . . 
 
 Within our words it lieth hid. 
 
 As beggars' feet o'er sand might pace 
 
 Above a jewel's resting-place. 
 
 The deep well knows it certainly ; 
 Once in this lore were all men wise, 
 Now but a vague dream, circling, flies. 
 
 32 
 
OF THE OUTWARD LIFE {Ballade des Outward 
 Ausseren Lebens]. Life 
 
 And children, that with deep unknowing gaze 
 Look out upon the world, grow up and die, 
 And all men travel on their several ways. 
 
 And sweet fruits after bitter follow nigh, 
 
 Till like dead birds by night they fall to ground 
 
 And in few days wax rotten where they lie. 
 
 And still the wind blows, and we hear the sound 
 Of words and utter them with idle breath. 
 And joy we feel and weariness profound. 
 
 And roads there are where one encountereth 
 Cities, with trees and lights in glittering range ; 
 Some threatening, some withered as in death. . . . 
 
 Why are these built, each to the other strange 
 In form and fashion, though no few they be? 
 And why do tears and laughter interchange ? 
 
 What are these childish toys to us, since we 
 Are full-grown men, who live apart each one 
 And roam without a goal unceasingly? 
 
 What boots it much to have seen the while we 
 
 roam ? — 
 And yet he sayeth much, who "Evening" saith. 
 A word whence deep and solemn meanings run 
 
 Like heavy honey from the hollow comb. 
 
 33 
 
Mutability OF MUTABILITY [Terzinen /]. 
 
 Still, still upon my cheek I feel their breath : 
 How can it be that days which seem so near 
 Are gone, forever gone, and lost in death? 
 
 This is a thing that none may rightly grasp, 
 A thing too dreadful for the trivial tear: 
 That all things glide away from out our clasp ; 
 
 And that this I, unchecked by years, has come 
 
 Across into me from a little child. 
 
 Like an uncanny creature, strangely dumb; — 
 
 That I existed centuries past — somewhere, 
 That ancestors on whom the earth is piled 
 Are yet as close to me as my very hair. 
 
 As much a part of me as my very hair. 
 
 34 
 
DEATH [Terzinen II], Death 
 
 What hours are those! when, shinlngly outspread, 
 The ocean lures us, and we lightly learn 
 The solemn lore of death, and feel no dread : 
 
 As little girls, whose great eyes seem to yearn, 
 Girls that have pallid cheeks and limbs a-cold, 
 Some evening look far out and do not turn 
 
 Their feebly-smiling gaze, for, loosing hold 
 Upon their slumber-drunken limbs, the flood 
 Of life glides over into grass and wold; — 
 
 Or as a saint pours out her martyr blood. 
 
 35 
 
''Such Stuff "SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS" [Terzinen III], 
 
 as Drea7ns** c r n- ^ • - , , 
 
 buch stuiT as dreaming is we mortals be, 
 
 And every dream doth open wide its eyes 
 
 Like a small child beneath a cherry tree, 
 
 Above whose top across the deepening skies 
 The pale full-moon emerges for its flight. — 
 Not otherwise than so our dreams arise. 
 
 They live as a child that laughs, and to the sight 
 Appear no smaller on their curving way 
 Than the full-moon awakening on the night. 
 
 Our inmost self is open to their sway. 
 As spirit hands in sealed chambers gleam 
 They dwell in us and have their life alway. 
 
 And three are one : the man, the thing, the dream. 
 
 36 
 
INTERDEPENDENCE [Manche Freilich . . .]. Inter- 
 
 Many men no doubt must die below-decks 
 Where the heavy oars of the ship are plying; 
 Others dwell above beside the tiller 
 Know the flight of birds and the lore of star-lands. 
 
 Many with weighted limbs must lie forever 
 At the roots of the labyrinthine life-tree; 
 Others have their place appointed 
 With the sibyls, the queens of vision, 
 Where they bide as in seats accustomed, 
 Head untroubled and hand unburdened. 
 
 Yet from yonder lives a shadow falleth 
 On the happier lives of the others, 
 And the light unto the heavy 
 As to air and earth are fettered : 
 
 From the weariness of forgotten peoples 
 Vainly would I liberate mine eyelids, 
 Or would keep my startled soul at distance 
 From the silent fall of far-off planets. 
 
 Many fates with mine are interwoven, 
 Subtly mingled flow the threads of being, 
 And my share in it is more than merely 
 One life's narrow flame or thin-toned lyre. 
 
 37 
 
Higher A DREAM OF THE HIGHER MAGIC. 
 
 Far kinglier than a chain of pearls both seem, 
 
 And bold as morning-misted ocean blue, 
 
 Such — as methought then — was the mighty dream. 
 
 The doors of glass were wide, the wind went 
 
 through. — 
 In a pavilion close to earth I slept, 
 And through four open doors the breezes flew. — 
 
 And first a troop of bridled horses swept 
 Before my bed, and hounds too in a pack. 
 But with a sudden gesture the Adept — 
 
 That Greatest, First Magician — drew me back 
 
 Unto a wall, between the which and me 
 
 Swayed his proud head, the long hair kingly black. 
 
 And straight no wall behind him seemed to be ; 
 But clifiFs and darkling ocean did uprear 
 Behind his hand, and meadows fair to see. 
 
 He bent him down and drew the Deep more near. 
 He bent him lower, and along the ground 
 His fingers played as though it water were. 
 
 But the clear drops, to opals large and round 
 Changing within his hands, in many a ring 
 Were spilled again to earth with tuneful sound. 
 
 Then to the nearest cliff with easy swing 
 38 
 
O' the loins — as in sheer pride — so light he rose Higher 
 
 His body seemed to me a weightless thing. Magic 
 
 But in his eyes was ever the repose 
 
 Of sleeping, and yet living, jewel-spheres. 
 
 He sat, and spoke a master-word to those 
 
 Old days we think long buried in the years, 
 And they returned, with saddened glory great: 
 Which raised his heart to laughter and to tears. 
 
 Dreamingly he had part in all men's fate, 
 
 As in his limbs he felt his vital force. 
 
 He knew no far or near, no small or great. 
 
 All life he shared in its tremendous course : 
 
 When Earth deep down grew cold with secret pang, 
 
 Darkness thronged outward from its central source, 
 
 Or night thrust forth the tepid airs that hang 
 On tree- tops — he rejoiced so drunkenly 
 That like a lion over cliffs he sprang. 
 
 Our soul's a Cherub and of lordly birth — 
 Dwells not in us, but in some upper star 
 Fixes his throne and leaves us oft in dearth. 
 
 Yet deep in us his fiery motions are : 
 
 — So in the dream I seemed to understand — 
 
 And he holds converse with yon fires afar, 
 
 And lives in me as I do in my hand. 
 
 39 
 
Little THREE LITTLE SONGS. 
 Songs 
 
 Heard'st not thou the music's tone 
 As around thy house ft crept ? 
 Night was heavy, no star shone, 
 Yet 'twas I that there alone, 
 Singing soft, my vigil kept. 
 
 What my tongue could tell, I spoke: 
 ''Thou my All, my dearest, thou!" 
 In the east the daylight broke, 
 Home my heavy way I took, 
 And my lips are silent now. 
 
 IL 
 
 Heavy was the sky and drear, 
 Lonely we and full of fear, 
 Far apart were pining. 
 But 'tis now no longer so. 
 Back and forth the breezes flow. 
 And the whole wide earth is shining 
 Like to glass, below. 
 
 Stars meanwhile have climbed aloft. 
 
 On our cheeks they sparkle soft. 
 
 Wise with sympathy. 
 
 Yet more glory heaven revealeth, 
 
 Till through us deep longing stealeth. 
 
 Spell-bound in an ecstasy. 
 
 Each the breath of other feeleth. 
 
 40 
 
in. Little 
 
 My mistress said: "I hold thee not, Songs 
 
 No promise hast thou sworn. 
 
 The sons of men should not be bound, 
 
 To faith they are not born. 
 
 "Then go what way thou wilt, my friend. 
 
 Beholding many a land, 
 
 And rest thyself in many a bed, 
 
 Take many a woman's hand. 
 
 "If bitter wines no longer please. 
 Drink thou of malmsey then ; 
 And if my mouth seems yet more sweet. 
 Come back to me agen." 
 
 41 
 
Figures [gestalteri] 
 
THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LANDSCAPE. Man in 
 
 Gardeners were laying out their plants in beds 
 And beggars, beggars wandered everywhere 
 With crutches, and black patches on their eyes; 
 But some with harps too and with fresh-plucked 
 
 flowers — 
 Ah the strong scent of the weak flowers in spring! 
 
 The naked trees left all things in full view; 
 There was the river and the market-town 
 And many children playing by the ponds. 
 'Twas through this landscape that he slowly went, 
 Feeling its power and knowing in himself 
 That he had part in the world's destiny. 
 
 He sought those children, — strangers though they 
 
 were, — 
 Ready to bring the treasures of new life 
 In willing service to a foreign threshold. 
 He reckoned not the riches of his soul, — 
 The ancient paths, and all the memories 
 Of vanished hands and spirits now transformed — 
 As of more value than an idle toy. 
 
 The perfume of the flowers told him but 
 Of unknown Beauty, — and he softly breathed 
 The April air, his soul unvexed by longing: 
 'Twas joy enough for him that he might serve. 
 
 45 
 
Ship's THE SHIP'S COOK, A CAPTIVE, 
 Cook SINGS: 
 
 Many weary weeks divide me 
 From my folk, — unlucky sinner! — 
 Worse, howe'er my foes deride me. 
 Still I needs must cook their dinner. 
 
 Lovely purple-gleaming fishes, 
 Brought me living from the water. 
 Stare with failing eyes reproachful; 
 Gentle beasts, too, I must slaughter. 
 
 Gentle beasts, too, I must slaughter. 
 Fruit must peel or cut in slices, 
 And for those who hate and scorn me 
 Must compound the fiery spices. 
 
 While I work beneath the lantern, 
 Mid the sweet, sharp odors reeling, 
 Thoughts of freedom rouse within me 
 Mighty throbs of savage feeling! 
 
 Many weary weeks divide me 
 From my folk, — unlucky sinner! — 
 Worse, how^e'er my foes deride me. 
 Still I needs must cook their dinner. 
 
 46 
 
AN OLD MAN'S LONGING FOR Longing 
 
 SUMMER. for Summer 
 
 If 'twere July at last instead of March, 
 
 Nothing would stop my going for a trip ; 
 On horse-back, in a carriage or by rail 
 I'd get me to a fair and hilly strip 
 
 Of country. There'd be groves of mighty trees, — 
 Of elms and maples, sycamores and oaks: 
 How long since I have looked on such as these ! 
 
 There I'd dismount, or bid with sharp command 
 The driver: "Stop," and wander aimless on 
 Into the very heart of summer-land. 
 
 I'd rest beneath such trees as in their dome 
 Have day and night together; not that each 
 Should so be blurred and spoiled as here at home, — 
 
 Where day is oft as desolate as night, 
 And night as lurid-lowering as the day, — 
 For all would there be Glory, Life and Light. 
 
 From shadow into sunset, color-fraught, 
 
 I'd walk enraptured, and the breeze that came 
 
 Would never whisper: "All of this is naught." 
 
 It darkens; from the houses in the dell 
 
 The lights gleam, and the darkness weighs me down, 
 
 Yet not of dying doth the night-wind tell. 
 
 47 
 
Longing I stroll across the churchyard and I see 
 
 for Summer The flowers waving in the dim last light, 
 No other Presence there oppresses me. 
 
 Beneath the dusky hazel-branches near 
 A brooklet flows, and like a child, I hark. 
 But no such words as: "This is vain" I hear. 
 
 Then hastily undressing, in I spring. — 
 I lift my head, and lo! the moon has come 
 While in the current I was buffeting. 
 
 Emerging half from out the ice-cold stream, 
 I choose a pebble, throw it landward far. 
 And stand there in the moonlight's pallid beam. 
 
 Across the moon-bathed summer-land doth fall 
 My shadow; is it this that noddeth here 
 So sad behind the pillow on the wall? 
 
 — So sad and dreary, he that in the dim 
 
 First light of dawn stands crouching, while he knows 
 
 That Something lies in wait for me and him ? — 
 
 — He whom the rough wind never leaves at rest 
 This March, nor lets him once lie down at night 
 In peace, his black hands folded on his breast ? 
 
 Ah, where's July and where the summer-land? 
 
 48 
 
LINES TO A LITTLE CHILD. To a Little 
 
 i^h '1/1 
 
 Thy pink little feet have been fashioned 
 
 To seek for the Kingdom of Sunshine: 
 
 The doors of that kingdom are open. 
 
 The air these thousands of years 
 
 On the silent tree-tops is hanging, 
 
 The inexhaustible ocean 
 
 Forever and ever abides. 
 
 By the rim of the ancient forest 
 
 Wilt thou from thy wooden bowl give 
 
 The frog to drink of thy milk? 
 
 A merry meal that ! yea, almost 
 
 The stars will fall into the bowl. 
 
 By the rim of the ancient ocean 
 
 Thou soon wilt find thee a playmate, 
 
 The dolphin, friendly and good. 
 
 He'll spring on dry land at thy coming 
 
 And, if he be often away. 
 
 The ancient winds will attend thee 
 
 To quiet the rising tears. 
 
 And still in the Kingdom of Sunshine 
 
 The golden heroic old days 
 
 Forever and ever abide. 
 
 'Twas the sun with his secret might — 
 
 He fashioned thy little pink feet 
 
 To enter his timeless dominions. 
 
 49 
 
Emperor THE EMPEROR OF CHINA SPEAKS: 
 
 of China , , . . . i, , • 
 
 In the very midst or all things 
 
 Here dwell I, the Son of Heaven. 
 
 And my wives, my waving forests, 
 
 All my beasts and pools unnumbered — 
 
 These the inmost wall encloseth. 
 
 Underneath, my ancestors 
 
 Lie entombed with their weapons. 
 
 With their crowns upon their foreheads, 
 
 All and each as well beseemeth, — 
 
 So they dwell there in the vaults. 
 
 Far into the world below me 
 
 Rings the echo of my footstep. 
 
 Silent from the banks of greensward — 
 
 Verdant pillows for my feet — 
 
 Glide the well-apportioned rivers 
 
 Eastward, westward, south- and northward, 
 
 To refresh the thirsty garden — 
 
 Water my wide realm, the Earth. 
 
 First my beasts' dark eyes they mirror. 
 
 And reflect the birds' bright pinions; 
 
 Then outside^ the painted cities. 
 
 Gloomy walls and tangled forests, 
 
 Faces too of many peoples. 
 
 These my nobles, dwelling round me 
 
 Like the stars, — they all are known by 
 
 Names which I myself have given. 
 
 Names according to the hour 
 
 When each one drew near to me; 
 
 50 
 
And their wives I also gave them, Emperor 
 
 So that for their troops of children, — of China 
 
 All the noblest of the earth, — 
 
 I created form and feature, 
 
 As a gardener for his flowers. 
 
 But between the walls beyond them 
 
 Peoples dwell that are my soldiers. 
 
 Peoples too that are my farmers. 
 
 Then new walls, and after these 
 
 Yon subdued and vassal peoples. 
 
 Other folk of blood more sluggish 
 
 To the ocean, the last rampart 
 
 That surrounds my realm and me. 
 
 51 
 
Grandmother GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON. 
 and 
 
 Grandson 
 
 "Far thy mind, thy feet alone 
 Enter at my door." 
 Say, how know'st thou that so soon ? 
 "Child, I guess at more." 
 
 What? "How sweetly she just now 
 Shocked thy sweet repose." — 
 Strange! how like herself wert thou, 
 Nodding, half a-doze. 
 
 "Once." . . . Nay, her I now, in truth, 
 See in happy trance. 
 "Child, thou breathest now my youth 
 Back with word and glance. 
 
 "Maidenhood with glowing tide 
 Wells in me anew. 
 Till my spirit opens wide." 
 Yes, I feel it, too. 
 
 I'm by thee, and yet away 
 On some distant star: 
 In a waking trance I sway 
 Now from near to far. 
 
 "When unto thy grandfather 
 All my life I gave, 
 Thoughts did not so wildly whir 
 As beside my grave." 
 
 52 
 
Grave! why speakest thou of that? Grandmother 
 
 Far the grave from thee! and 
 
 With thy grandson dost thou chat, Grandson 
 Sitting peacefully. 
 
 Clear thine eyes and full of light, 
 Fresh thy cheek's red hue. 
 "Saw'st thou not where, black as night, 
 Something past us flew?" 
 
 Something 'tis that like a dream 
 Holds my loving breast. 
 Strangely too this room doth seem 
 Sultry and oppressed. 
 
 "Feel'st thou ? — Yea, 'tis bright above, 
 Slower throbs my heart. — 
 When thou kissest thy true love, 
 From the world apart, — 
 
 "Feel it still, and think the while. 
 But without dismay : 
 With a young, young maiden's smile 
 Dying here I lay." 
 
 53 
 
Society SOCIETY. 
 
 Singer 
 
 Listeners, if ye be but young, 
 Mighty is the power of song; 
 It can make you sad or gay. 
 Swift it bears the soul away. 
 
 Stranger 
 
 Peoples live both far and near ; 
 What I show, ye gladly hear — 
 Not the heart of many lands. 
 But, as 'twere, the play of hands. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Much that wakens joy in me 
 
 Through the fluttering scene is weaved, 
 
 But so phantom-shadowy: 
 
 Happy — I'm as one deceived. 
 
 Poet 
 
 What a soft reflected tone 
 
 Glimmers here from guest to guest — 
 
 Each one, feeling as alone. 
 
 Feels his being in the rest. 
 
 Painter 
 
 As between the candles bright 
 So between the faces white 
 See the fluttering laughter play ! 
 
 54 
 
Stranger Society 
 
 Song can make one sad or gay. 
 
 Poet 
 
 Great the power of song must be — 
 
 Peoples live both far and near. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 What they say I gladly hear, 
 
 Though 'tis phantom-shadowy. 
 
 55 
 
OF-.MOU%J^J^g 
 
PROLOGUE TO THE BOOK ''Anator 
 
 "ANATOL." 
 
 Trellised gateways, box-wood hedges, 
 
 Coats of arms with gilding faded, 
 
 Sphinxes glimmering through the thicket . . . 
 
 Now the grinding doors are opened. — 
 With cascades that no more trickle, 
 Tritons weary of their spouting, 
 All rococo, dusty, charming, — 
 'Tis Vienna in the time of 
 Canaletto, Seventeen-and-Sixty. . . . 
 
 Green and brown the quiet pools are, 
 Set in smooth white rims of marble. 
 And within these nixie-mirrors 
 Play the fishes, gold and silver. . . . 
 On the turf so smoothly shaven 
 Lie the slender, even shadows 
 Of the graceful oleanders; 
 Branches arch to form a dome here. 
 Branches bending form a niche there 
 For the stiffly-carven couples. 
 Loving heroines and heroes. . . . 
 Triple dolphins pour their murmuring 
 Floods into a conch-shell basin . . . 
 Scent-exhaling chestnut blossoms 
 Whir and glimmer, downward gliding. 
 And are drowned within the basin. . . . 
 
 From behind a box-wood rampart 
 Fiddles, clarinets are sounding . . . 
 
 59 
 
^^Anatol^^ And the notes appear to gush from 
 Yonder graceful cupid-figures 
 As they sit there on the terrace, 
 Fiddling, twining flower-garlands. 
 They themselves enwreathed in flowers 
 Which out-stream from marble vases: 
 Wall-flowers, jessamine and lilacs . . . 
 
 On the terrace too between them 
 Sit the fine coquettish ladies. 
 And the purple Monsignori . . . 
 In the grass, on silken cushions 
 At their feet, and on the stairway 
 Sit the gallants and abbati . . . 
 Others of them lift more ladies 
 From the depths of perfumed litters. . . . 
 
 Lights are breaking through the branches, 
 Flickering on the golden tresses. 
 Shining on the gay-hued cushions, 
 Gliding over grass and pebbles, 
 Gliding o'er the scaffold structure 
 We in haste have thrown together. 
 Vines that clamber upward on it 
 Cover all the fresh-hewn timber, 
 And between them, rich in color. 
 Flutter tapestries and carpets, 
 Shepherd-scenes right boldly woven 
 From Watteau's delicious patterns . . . 
 With an arbor for our stage then, 
 Summer sun instead of foot-lights, 
 We are playing here at acting, 
 60 
 
Playing plays ourselves have written, **AnatoV^ 
 
 Immature and sad and tender, 
 
 Comedies of our soul's passion, 
 
 Ebb and flood of our emotions, 
 
 Ugly facts in pretty symbols, 
 
 Well-turned phrases, glowing pictures, 
 
 Hidden feeling half suggested. 
 
 Episodes of tragic meaning . . . 
 
 Some, not all, are listening to them. 
 
 Some are eating ices . . . many 
 
 Too are whispering choice gallantries . . . 
 
 In the tepid breeze are cradled 
 Whitely exquisite carnations, 
 Like white moths that swarm and flutter, 
 And a lap-dog of Bologna 
 Barks astonished at a peacock. 
 
 61 
 
Similar FOR A SIMILAR BOOK. 
 
 Book A J ,1 T-L • • 
 
 Attend, attend ! 1 he present time is strange, 
 And strange the children of the time: Ourselves. 
 He that's too much enamored of the sweet 
 Endures us not, for bitter is our way, 
 And odd the entertainment we afford. 
 "Set up a little stage here in the room. 
 The daughter of the house would give a play!" 
 Think you she'll trip out as a little Muse 
 With loose locks and bare arms, in which will rest 
 A not-too-heavy tinsel-gilded lyre? 
 Or as a shepherdess, with a white lamb 
 On a blue silken cord, about her lips 
 A smile as sweet-insipid as the rhymes 
 In pastoral plays? Then up! and get you gone! 
 Depart, I beg you, if you look for such ! 
 You'll not endure us ; we are otherwise. 
 For we have made a play from out the life 
 We live, and mingled with our comedy 
 Our truth keeps ever gliding in and out 
 As with a cunning juggler's hollow cups — 
 The more you look at them, the more deceived! 
 We cut off little shreds of our own selves 
 To dress the puppets. How the inner meanings — 
 (On which, it may be, smiles and tears are hung 
 Like dew-drops on a bush with shaggy leaves) 
 Must shudder, when they recognize themselves 
 Enwoven through this play of ours, half painted, 
 And half still like themselves, but so estranged 
 62 
 
From the great guilelessness that once they had ! Similar 
 Was ever play so tangled, so confusing? Book 
 
 It steals us from ourselves and is not lovely 
 As dancing is or singing on the water, 
 Yet 'tis the richest in seductive art 
 Of all the dramas that we children know, 
 We children of this most unusual time. 
 
 Why are you waiting? That's the way we are. 
 
 But if you'd really hear what things ensue, 
 
 Well, stay. We shall not be disturbed at you. 
 
 63 
 
Mttterwurzer IN MEMORY OF THE ACTOR, 
 MITTERWURZER. 
 
 He went out like a candle all at once. 
 We wore a pallor on our faces like 
 The hue reflected from a lightning-flash. 
 
 He fell ; and with him all the puppets fell, 
 Into whose veins this man had poured the blood 
 Of his own being; silently they died, 
 And where he lay, a heap of corpses lay, 
 Strewn in disorder: here a toper's knee 
 Pressing a king's eye, yonder Don Philippe 
 With Caliban as nightmare on his neck. 
 Dead every one. 
 
 At last we knew him who was lost to us: 
 The conjurer, the mighty, mighty juggler! 
 And from our houses then we sallied forth 
 And all began to speak of who he was. 
 Ah, but who was he, and who was he not ? 
 
 From one mask he would creep into another. 
 
 Spring from the father's body to the son's, 
 
 And, like to garments, change the forms he wore. 
 
 With swords, which he could swing about so fast 
 
 That no one saw the glitter of their blades. 
 
 He cut himself in pieces: This one was 
 
 Perhaps lago, and the other half 
 
 Would take the part of some sweet fool or dreamer. 
 
 For his whole body was a magic veil, 
 
 64 
 
Within the folds of which were dwelling all things: Mitterwitrzer 
 
 He could fetch beasts from out that self of his: 
 
 A lion, a sheep, a devil of stupidness. 
 
 And one of horror, this and yonder man, 
 
 And you and me. A sort of inward fate 
 
 Set his whole body glowing through and through, 
 
 Like coals it glowed, and he dwelt in the midst 
 
 And looked on us, who only live in houses, 
 
 With the impenetrable alien look 
 
 Of the salamander, he that lives in fire. 
 
 He was a savage king. About his hips ^ 
 
 He carried like a string of colored shells 
 
 The truth and lies of all us other folk. 
 
 In those deep eyes of his were glassed our dreams, 
 
 That flew across, as flocks of shy wild birds 
 
 Are imaged in the mirror of a lake. 
 
 Here he would come, even to this very spot 
 
 Where I now stand, and as in Triton's horn 
 
 The clamor of the ocean is contained, 
 
 So were in him the voices of all life : 
 
 He became tall. The whole wood now he was, 
 
 He was the country that the roads ran through. 
 
 With eyes like children's we would sit and gaze 
 
 In wonder up at him, as from the slope 
 
 Of a gigantic mountain ; in his mouth 
 
 There was a gulf, wherein the ocean surged. 
 
 For there was in him something that would open 
 Many a door and fly through many a room : 
 
 65 
 
NlitterwUTzer The force of Life was in him, this it was. 
 
 And over him the force of Death prevailed ! 
 For Death blew out the eyes whose inmost core 
 Was covered with mysterious hieroglyphs, 
 It strangled in the throat a thousand voices, 
 And killed the body which through every limb 
 Was laden down with life as yet unborn. 
 
 'Twas here he stood. When will his like stand 
 
 here ? — 
 A spirit peopling all the labyrinth 
 Of the human breast with forms it comprehends, 
 And opening it anew to fearsome joys. 
 Those which he gave we can no longer keep, 
 We hear his name and stare with vague affright 
 Down the abyss that swallowed them from sight. 
 
 66 
 
ON THE DEATH OF THE ACTOR, Miiller 
 
 HERMANN MULLER. 
 
 This house and we are servants to an art 
 
 Which turns each grief to some refreshing draught, 
 
 And gives even Death a relish. 
 
 And he whom we would call before our souls. 
 
 He was so strong! his body so endowed 
 
 With power of change that, as it seemed, no net 
 
 Was able to contain him! What a being! 
 
 He made himself transparent, let the whites 
 
 Of his eye betray the utmost secrecies 
 
 That slumbered there within him, and he breathed 
 
 The spirits of imaginary creatures 
 
 Into himself like smoke and sent them through 
 
 His pores again into the light of day. 
 
 He would transform himself, and out would well 
 
 Strange beings, hardly human, but so living — 
 
 The eye said yes to them, although before 
 
 It ne'er had seen the like : one little twinkle. 
 
 One fetch of the breath would prove that such 
 
 things were, 
 And still might steam from out our mother earth. 
 And men! Ah, close your eye-lids and think back! 
 Now splendid bodies, where one last least spark 
 Of soul gleams but in the corner of an eye, 
 Now souls that build as body round themselves. 
 Only to serve them, a transparent shrine: 
 Commonplace men, and gloomy men, and kings, 
 
 67 
 
Muller Men that could make you laugh, could make you 
 shudder — 
 He would transform himself, and there they stood. 
 
 But when the play was quenched and when the 
 
 curtain 
 Silently like a painted eye-lid fell 
 Across the cavern of dead wizardry. 
 And he himself went forth, a stage was then 
 Opened before him in such wise it seemed 
 A staring, ever sleepless eye, a stage 
 On which no pitying curtain ever sinks : 
 The terror-striking stage, Reality. 
 There all his arts of transformation fell 
 Away from him, and his poor spirit went 
 Unveiled and could but see through childish eyes. 
 There he, unknowing how it came about. 
 Was caught in an inexorable play; 
 Each step entangled worse than that before. 
 And each inanimate thing was cruel toward him : 
 The countenance of night conspired as well. 
 The wind conspired, the gentle wind of spring, 
 And all against him ! Not for common souls, 
 For delicate souls it is that darkling Fate 
 Sets nooses of this sort. Then came a day: 
 He raised himself, and his tormented eye 
 Was flooded with foreboding and with dream. 
 And with firm grasp, like to a heavy cloak 
 He threw life off from him and did not heed 
 68 
 
More than the dust upon his mantle's hem Miiller 
 
 The forms that now were crumbled into naught. 
 
 Think only thus of him. Let reverent music 
 Call him before you, dimly guess his fate, 
 And let me cease, for I have reached the bounds 
 Where awe shatters the word within my mouth. 
 
 69 
 
Bocklin FOR A COMMEMORATION ON THE 
 DEATH OF ARNOLD BOCKLIN. 
 
 [Durinff the last bars of the music the speaker of the 
 prologue advances, his torch-bearers following. The 
 speaker is a youth dressed in the Venetian style, all 
 in black, as a mourner.^ 
 
 Music, be silent! Now the scene is mine, 
 
 And now will I lament, as well I should ! 
 
 In these my years the sap of youth runs strong 
 
 Within, and he whose statue looks on me 
 
 Was to my spirit a beloved friend. 
 
 And of such favor was I sore in need, 
 
 For gloom oppresses much in these my years; 
 
 And as the swan, a happy swimming creature, 
 
 Kisses its nourishment from out the white 
 
 And dripping hands of naiads, even so 
 
 I bent me in dark hours above his hands 
 
 To take the food my soul would have: deep dream. 
 
 Shall I adorn thy statue but with flowers? 
 
 Thou did'st adorn the image of the world 
 
 For me, and did'st enhance with such a glow 
 
 The loveliness of every blossoming spray, 
 
 I threw myself all drunken on the earth, 
 
 I cried exultant, feeling how for me 
 
 Shining-limbed Nature let her robe sink down! 
 
 Harken to me, my friend ! I will not bid 
 
 Heralds go out and trumpet forth thy name 
 
 To the four winds, as though a king were dead : 
 
 70 
 
A king leaves to his heir his royal crown, Bocklin 
 
 And to a tomb the echo of his name, 
 
 But thou wert a magician of such might 
 
 That, though thy visible self is gone, there lurks 
 
 An oh I know not what of thee here and there, — 
 
 Which, dark of eye, with strange still-living power 
 
 Lifts itself to the bank from out the flood 
 
 Of night — or stretches out a hairy ear 
 
 Listening behind the ivy. 
 
 So I'll not 
 Believe that I am anywhere alone, 
 Where there are trees or flowers, where even are 
 But silence-keeping rocks and tiny clouds 
 Beneath the heavens: how easily a Something, 
 A more transparent shape than Ariel was. 
 Might flit away behind me! For I know 
 That there was knit a secret bond 'twixt thee 
 And many a creature, yea, the field in spring — 
 Behold ! it laughed on thee as might a woman 
 On him to whom by night she gave herself. 
 
 I purposed to lament you, and my mouth 
 Swells with a flood of glad and drunken speech : 
 Thus it befits I stand no longer here. 
 I'll strike my thyrsus on the ground three times 
 And fill this tent-like space with forms of dream. 
 These will I so o'erburden with the weight 
 Of sadness, they shall stagger as they go, 
 At which whoever sees must weep and feel 
 With how great sorrow is enmingled all 
 
 71 
 
B'dckUn That we may do. 
 
 Let now a play reveal 
 The mirror of yon dark and anxious hour, 
 And do ye learn from shadowy lips what prize 
 Is the great master's melancholy dower! 
 
 72 
 
'D%zA<J^<^nC II^TJ^ 
 
IDYLL Idyll 
 
 AFTER AN OLD VASE PAINTING : A CENTAUR ON THE 
 BANK OF A RIVER CARRYING A WOUNDED WOMAN. 
 
 [The scene is in the style of a painting by Bocklin. 
 An open village smithy. Behind the house in the 
 background, a stream. The smith is at his work, his 
 wife leans idly in the doorway which leads from the 
 smithy into the house. On the floor a little fair- 
 haired child is playing with a tame crab. In a niche 
 is a skin of wine, some fresh figs, and slices of 
 melon.~\ 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 Where do your musing thoughts betake themselves, 
 
 While silently, with hostile air almost 
 
 And lightly twitching lips, you watch my toil ? 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I often sat in a garden, blossom-white, 
 
 Turning my gaze upon my father's work, 
 
 The comely potter's craft, as on the disk. 
 
 That, humming, whirled, a noble form would rise 
 
 In quiet growth like to a tender flower. 
 
 With the cool glint of ivory. Then to this 
 
 He set a handle with acanthus leaves. 
 
 An olive- or acanthus-garland too, 
 
 Dark-red, went round to ornament the rim. 
 
 The body he enlivened with a row 
 
 75 
 
Idyll O' the Hours, the Hovering Life-outpouring Ones. 
 He wrought the wondrous form of Phaedra, faint 
 With longing, stretched upon her royal couch; 
 And Eros fluttering above her there, 
 Eros that filled her limbs with sweetest pain. 
 He loved to decorate a mighty jug 
 With bacchic revelry, where purple must 
 Would spurt beneath the maenad's naked foot, 
 And all the air was filled with tossing hair 
 And waving of the thyrsus, held aloft. 
 On mortuary urns Persephone 
 Was pictured, with her reddened soulless eyes. 
 And poppies, flowers of forgetfulness, 
 Twined in her sacred tresses, while she trod 
 The life-oblivious fields of asphodel. 
 I'd never end, were I to tell of all 
 The godlike beings, in whose lovely life, 
 — Living a second time what there I saw, — 
 In all their fear and hatred and desire 
 And strange adventures of whatever sort — 
 I also had my share, though but a child. 
 The breath of their emotions, half divined. 
 Touched on the deepest harp-strings of my soul, 
 So that at times methought that I in sleep 
 Had wandered through the dark-hid mysteries 
 Of Joy and Grief with open, conscious eye. 
 Hence, though I'm now returned to sunlight, still 
 My thoughts are mindful of that other life. 
 Making of me a stranger, one shut out 
 Here in the world of healthful living air. 
 76 
 
THE SMITH Idyll 
 
 Overmuch idleness confused, methinks, 
 The sense of being in the fanciful 
 And dream-delighted child. There lacked besides 
 The high respect which wisely separates 
 Things fit for gods alone from those which gods 
 Allow to mortals. This did Semele, 
 Her mad wish granted, feel as she expired. 
 Learn to revere your husband's handicraft, — 
 Born of the entrails of all-mothering Earth — 
 Which, having first subdued the hundred-armed 
 Unfettered flame, does deft and mighty work. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 To watch the flame, that lure is ever new, — 
 The changeful, with its hot bewildering breath. 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 Rather rejoice to gaze upon the work! 
 
 The weapons, look ! the sacred plough's hard blade, 
 
 This axe that shapes the tree trunks for our house. 
 
 So does the smith make that which makes all else. 
 
 Where pungent upturned furrows drink the seeds 
 
 And yellow wheat against the sickle flows, 
 
 Where through still branches toward the startled 
 
 deer 
 The arrow whirs and strikes into its neck. 
 Where the hard horse-hoofs, thudding, spurn the 
 
 dust 
 
 77 
 
Idyll And rapid wheels roll between town and town, 
 And where with ringing blade the strife of men 
 Reveals the manhood that should live in song: 
 Thus I work on and hold the world thus bound 
 With tokens of my work, because 'tis good. 
 [Pause.] 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I see a centaur coming, young he is, 
 
 A beauteous god, methinks, though half a beast; 
 
 He leaves the wood and trots along the bank. 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 [He has in his hand a spear, which he holds out 
 
 toward the smith.] 
 May my dull weapon here find remedy 
 And a new point to suit its weight? Reply! 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 I've seen your like before, but never you. 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 For the first time now has my course been lured 
 Into your village by the need you know of. 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 'Twill soon be satisfied. Do you, meanwhile, 
 If you would win this woman's gratitude, 
 78 
 
Tell of the wonders you'll have seen, whereof Idyll 
 
 No tidings come here, if no wanderer comes. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 I'll bring you first the wine-skin : it is filled 
 With cool sharp cider ; nothing else have we. 
 [She has poured the wine from the skin into an 
 earthen drinking-cup, which he slowly empties.^ 
 Next time you'll drink — right far from here per- 
 chance — 
 A warmer liquor from a better cup 
 Filled by a woman fairer than am I. 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 I went not on the common streets, I shunned 
 The thronging bustle of the landing-place, 
 Where one may glean gay news from sailor-folk. 
 The barren heath I chose as path by day, 
 Rousing flamingoes only or black bulls; 
 And stamped the heather Into scent by night, 
 Roaming beneath the hyacinthlne dusk. 
 Once as I wandered by a sacred grove, 
 Suddenly in some whim of wilful joy. 
 Out of a troop of naiads one came forth 
 And joined me for a space, whom then I lost 
 Again to a young satyr by the road 
 Blowing his syrlnx-plpes enticingly. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Unspeakably sweet this freedom seems to me. 
 
 79 
 
Idyll THE SMITH 
 
 The wood-born creatures know not shame or faith, 
 Which learn to long for and to guard the house. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Say, did you chance to hear the flute of Pan? 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 In a deep valley it was granted me. 
 
 Borne from the cliff's edge on the sultry wind 
 
 Of evening, eerie notes came floating down, 
 
 Deeply disturbing as the stress combined 
 
 Of all deep things that tremble through the soul ; 
 
 It was as if my self was whirled away 
 
 Through myriad-shifting moods of drunkenness. 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 Forbidden things leave rather undescribed ! 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Nay, let him ! — What more sweetly stirs the soul ? 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 'Tis life matures the pulsing of the heart, 
 As ripened fruit will gladly leave the tw'ig. 
 And to no other shuddering are we born 
 Than fate breathes o'er the surface of our life. 
 80 
 
THE CENTAUR Idyll 
 
 Would you know nothing of the wondrous art 
 
 Which the gods use, O man beneath your race, 
 
 Of mounting in the storm to other times; 
 
 As dolphin splashing in the primal wet, 
 
 Or circling through the air with eagle-joy? 
 
 Friend, you know little of the world, methinks. 
 
 THE SMITH 
 
 I know the whole, who know my proper sphere, 
 I shun the measureless, desiring not 
 To cup the fleeting wave with hollow hand. 
 Know first the brook that rocked your cradle ; know 
 Yon tree, with fruit the sun makes ripe for you, 
 Wlience tepid perfume-laden shadows pour; 
 The cool green grass, — you trod it as a child. 
 Your sire walked there, with gently chilling blood ; 
 Your sweetheart too, beneath whose step welled up 
 The scented violets, nestling at her feet. 
 Know too the house where you shall live and die ; 
 Then reverently know yourself, your work. 
 In this there will be more than you can grasp. — 
 I'll not detain the wanderer, except 
 For a last polishing. The file's not here ; 
 I'll find it, so that all may be complete. 
 \^He goes into the house.^ 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 Your way will never lead you here again ; 
 And, trampling through the hyacinthine night, 
 
 81 
 
Idyll Enraptured, you will soon, I fear, forget 
 Me, who, I fear, will not forget so soon. 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 You're wrong. I were accurst in leaving you. 
 
 As though behind me rumbling gates should close 
 
 Upon the perfumed garden of all love. 
 
 But 'tis my meaning you should come with me ; 
 
 I'd take along such rapture as today's, — 
 
 Joy that Queen Aphrodite ne'er poured out, 
 
 Who quickens all the ocean and the plain. 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 How could I leave my husband, house and child? 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 How should you grieve for what you'll soon forget? 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 He's coming back ; the dream is soon dissolved ! 
 
 THE CENTAUR 
 
 Never, while joy and way are still to choose. 
 Twine your firm fingers in my mane and cling, 
 Resting upon my back, to neck and arms! 
 
 [She swings herself up on his back, and he dashes 
 down to the river with shrill cries, the child becomes 
 frightened and breaks into pitiful weeping. The 
 82 
 
smith steps out of the house. Just then the centaur Idyll 
 plunges into the rushing waters of the stream. His 
 bronze breast and the figure of the woman stand out 
 sharply against the surface which is gilded by the 
 sunset. The smith sees them; with the spear of the 
 centaur in his hand he runs down to the bank and, 
 bending far forward, casts the spear. It strikes and 
 remains for a moment fixed with quivering shaft in 
 the back of the woman, till with a piercing cry she 
 looses the mane of the centaur and with arms out- 
 spread falls backward into the water. The centaur 
 catches her, dying, in his arms and, lifting her on 
 high, bears her down the river while he swims 
 toward the opposite bank.] 
 
 83 
 
14 DA^ '^SE _ ^ 
 
 '^n' 
 
 U DAY USF. 
 
 13 
 
 
.n CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 RETURN TO: CIRCU^.„ stacks 
 
 Home Use 
 
 Bij^^s^amSS^eC^ 
 
 FORM NO. DD 6 
 50 M 1-06 
 
 WiSiSv^^SS^ 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CD3137h7D=l 
 
 This volu:::r: preserved 
 with funding from the 
 National Endowment for 
 the Humanities, 1990.