There are worse plagues on earth than
I ask but that my death may find
The Freedom to my life denied;
Ask but the folly of mankind
Then, then at last, to quit my side.
Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;
The ceremonious air of gloom-
All, which makes death a hideous show!
Nor bring, to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head, and give The ill he cannot cure a name.
Nor fetch, to take the accustom'd toll
Of the poor sinner bound for death,
His brother-doctor of the soul,
To canvass with official breath
The future and its viewless things-
That undiscover'd mystery
Which one who feels death's winnowing
wings
Must needs read clearer, sure, than he!
Bring none of these; but let me be,
While all around in silence lies,
Moved to the window near, and see
Once more, before my dying eyes,
Bathed in the sacred dews of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread-
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead;
Which never was the friend of one,
Nor promised love it could not give,
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.
There let me gaze, till I become
In soul, with what I gaze on, wed!
To feel the universe my home;
To have before my mind-instead
Of the sick room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath-
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death !
Thus feeling, gazing, might I grow Composed, refresh'd, ennobled, clear; Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!
COLDLY, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent-hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;-but cold
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the autumn evening. But ah!
That word, gloom, to my mind
Brings thee back, in the light
Of thy radiant vigor, again;
In the gloom of November we pass'd
Days not dark at thy side;
Seasons impair'd not the ray
Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn evening and think
Of bygone autumns with thee.
Fifteen years have gone round
Since thou arosest to tread,
In the summer-morning, the road
Of death, at a call unforeseen,
Sudden. For fifteen years,
We who till then in thy shade
Rested as under the boughs
Of a mighty oak, have endured
Sunshine and rain as we might,
Bare, unshaded, alone,
Lacking the shelter of thee.
O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely, afar,
In the sounding labor-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm !
Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live-
Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad!
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes Tread the border-land dim Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, Succorest!--this was thy work; This was thy life upon earth.
What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth ?-
Most men eddy about
Here and there-eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die-
Perish; and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild
Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd, Foam'd for a moment, and gone.
And there are some, whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent,
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave!
We, we have chosen our path-
Path to a clear-purposed goal,
Path of advance!-but it leads
A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o'er mountains in snow.
Cheerful, with friends, we set forth-
Then on the height, comes the storm.
Thunder crashes from rock
To rock, the cataracts reply,
Lightnings dazzle our eyes.
Roaring torrents have breach'd
The track, the stream-bed descends
In the place where the wayfarer once
Planted his footstep-the spray
Boils o'er its borders! aloft
The unseen snow-beds dislodge
Their hanging ruin; alas,
Havoc is made in our train !
Friends who set forth at our side,
Falter, are lost in the storm.
We, we only are left!
With frowning foreheads, with lips
Sternly compress'd, we strain on,
On--and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs-
Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks:
Whom in our party we bring?
Whom we have left in the snow?
Sadly we answer: We bring
Only ourselves! we lost
Sight of the rest in the storm.
Hardly ourselves we fought through,
Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.
Friends, companions, and train,
The avalanche swept from our side.
But thou would'st not alone
Be saved, my father! alone
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary, and we
Fearful, and we in our march
Fain to drop down and to die.
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.
If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing-to us thou wast still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.
And through thee I believe
In the noble and great who are gone;
Pure souls honor'd and blest
By former ages, who else-
Such, so soulless, so poor,
Is the race of men whom I see-
Seem'd but a dream of the heart,
Seem'd but a cry of desire.
Yes! I believe that there lived
Others like thee in the past,
Not like the men of the crowd
Who all round me to-day
Bluster or cringe, and make life
Hideous, and arid, and vile;
But souls temper'd with fire,
Fervent, heroic, and good,
Helpers and friends of mankind.
Servants of God!-or sons
Shall I not call you? because
Not as servants ye knew
Your Father's innermost mind,
His, who unwillingly sees
One of his little ones lost-
Yours is the praise, if mankind
Hath not as yet in its march
Fainted, and fallen, and died!
See! In the rocks of the world
Marches the host of mankind,
A feeble, wavering line.
Where are they tending ?-A God
Marshall'd them, gave them their goal.
Ah, but the way is so long!
Years they have been in the wild!
Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,
Rising all round, overawe;
Factions divide them, their host
Threatens to break, to dissolve.
-Ah, keep, keep them combined!
Else, of the myriads who fill
That army, not one shall arrive;
Sole they shall stray; in the rocks
Stagger for ever in vain.
Die one by one in the waste..
Then, in such hour of need
Of your fainting, dispirited race,
Ye, like angels, appear,
Radiant with ardor divine!
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.
Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.
Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave!
Order, courage, return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God.
(FROM HEINE'S GRAVE)
THE Spirit of the world,
Beholding the absurdity of men
Their vaunts, their feats-let a sardonic
For one short moment, wander o'er his lips.
That smile was Heine !-for its earthly
The strange guest sparkled now 'tis pass'd away.
That was Heine! and we,
Myriads who live, who have lived,
What are we all, but a mood,
A single mood, of the life
Of the Spirit in whom we exist,
Who alone is all things in one?
Spirit, who fillest us all!
Spirit, who utterest in each
New-coming son of mankind
Such of thy thoughts as thou wilt!
O thou, one of whose moods,
Bitter and strange, was the life
Of Heine-his strange, alas,
His bitter life!-may a life
Other and milder be mine!
May'st thou a mood more serene,
Happier, have utter'd in mine!
May'st thou the rapture of peace
Deep have embreathed at its core;
Made it a ray of thy thought,
Made it a beat of thy joy!
And stony mounts the way,
The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if
I left them yesterday!
Across the valley, on that slope,
The huts of Avant shine!
Its pines, under their branches, ope
Ways for the pasturing kine.
Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,
Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,
Invite to rest the traveller there
Before he climb the pass-
1 Probably all who know the Vevey end of the Lake of Geneva, will recollect Glion, the mountain-village above the castle of Chillon. Glion now has hotels, pensions, and villas; but twenty years ago it was hardly more than the huts of Avant opposite to it,-huts through which goes that beautiful path over the Col de Jaman, followed by so many foot-travellers on their way from Vevey to the Simmenthal and Thun.
And who but thou must be, in truth,
Obermann! with me here?
Thou master of my wandering youth,
But left this many a year!
Yes, I forget the world's work wrought,
Its warfare waged with pain;
An eremite with thee, in thought
Once more I slip my chain,
And to thy mountain-chalet come,
And lie beside its door,
And hear the wild bee's Alpine hum,
And thy sad, tranquil lore!
Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm: serene,
Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that might have been-
The harmony from which man swerved
Made his life's rule once more!
The universal order served,
Earth happier than before!
-While thus I mused, night gently ran
Down over hill and wood.
Then, still and sudden, Obermann
On the grass near me stood.
Those pensive features well I knew,
On my mind, years before,
Imaged so oft! imaged so true!
-A shepherd's garb he wore,
1 Montbovon. See Byron's Journal, in his Works, vol. iii. p. 258. The river Saane becomes the Sarine below Montbovon. (Arnold).
A mountain-flower was in his hand, A book was in his breast.
Bent on my face, with gaze which scann'd
My soul, his eyes did rest.
"And is it thou," he cried, "so long Held by the world which we
Loved not, who turnest from the throng Back to thy youth and me?
And from thy world, with heart opprest,
Choosest thou now to turn?—
Ah me! we anchorites read things best, Clearest their course discern !
"Thou fledst me when the ungenial earth,
Man's work-place, lay in gloom.
Return'st thou in her hour of birth,
Of hopes and hearts in bloom?
Perceiv'st thou not the change of day? Ah! Carry back thy ken,
What, some two thousand years! Sur
That runn'st from pole to pole
To seek a draught to slake thy thirstGo, seek it in thy soul!'
"She heard it, the victorious West, In crown and sword array'd!
She felt the void which mined her breast, She shiver'd and obey'd.
"She veil'd her eagles, snapp'd her sword,
And laid her sceptre down;
Her stately purple she abhorr'd,
And her imperial crown.
"She broke her flutes, she stopp'd her sports,
Her artists could not please;
She tore her books, she shut her courts, She fled her palaces;
"No lonely life had pass'd too slow,
When I could hourly scan
Upon his Cross, with head sunk low,
That nail'd, thorn-crowned Man!
"Could see the Mother with her Child
Whose tender winning arts
Have to his little arms beguiled
So many wounded hearts!
And centuries came and ran their course,
And unspent all that time
Still, still went forth that Child's dear force,
And still was at its prime.
"Ay, ages long endured his span
Of life 'tis true received
That gracious Child, that thorn-crown'd Man!
-He lived while we believed.
"While we believed, on earth he went, And open stood his grave.
Men call'd from chamber, church, and tent;
And Christ was by to save.
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