In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased,―
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,—
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,—
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,―
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
THE ARROW AND THE SONG.
I SHOT an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
THE EVENING STAR
Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,
Whose pains the sunken sun incarnadines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The evening star, the star of love and rest!
And then anon she doth herself divest
Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
My morning and my evening star of love!
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
As that fair planet in the sky above,
Dost thou retire into thy rest at night,
And from thy darkened window fades the light.
THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain.
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves;
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves,
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!
TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,
With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.
Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
By Fra Hilariò in his diocese,
As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;
And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!'
O HEMLOCK-TREE! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer time,
But in the winter's frost and rime!
O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!
O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!
To love me in prosperity,
And leave me in adversity!
O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!
The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example! So long as summer laughs she sings,
But in the autumn spreads her wings.
The nightingale, the nightingale, thou takʼst for thine example!
The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood! It flows so long as falls the rain,
In drought its springs soon dry again.
The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!
FROM THE LOW GERMAN OF SIMON DACH.
ANNIE of Tharaw, my true love of old,
She is my life, and my goods, and my gold.
Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again
To me has surrendered in joy and in pain.
Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good,
Thou, O my soul, my flesh and my blood!
Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow.
Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain,
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.
As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall,
The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall,—
So love in our hearts shall grow mighty and strong,
Through crosses, through sorrows, through manifold wrong.
Shouldst thou be torn from me to wander alone
In a desolate land where the sun is scarce known,—
Through forests I'll follow, and where the sea flows,
Through ice, and through iron, through armies of foes.
Annie of Tharaw, my light and my sun,
The threads of our two lives are woven in one.
Whate'er I have bidden thee thou hast obeyed,
Whatever forbidden thou hast not gainsaid.
How in the turmoil of life can love stand,
Where there is not one heart, and one mouth, and one hand?
Some seek for dissension, and trouble, and strife;
Like a dog and a cat live such man and wife.
Annie of Tharaw, such is not our love;
Thou art my lambkin, my chick, and my dove.
Whate'er my desire is, in thine may be seen;
I am king of the household, and thou art its queen.
It is this, O my Annie, my heart's sweetest rest,
That makes of us twain but one soul in one breast.
This turns to a heaven the hut where we dwell;
While wrangling soon changes a home to a hell.
THE STATUE OVER THE CATHEDRAL DOOR.
FROM THE GERMAN OF JULIUS MOSEN.
FORMS of saints and kings are standing
The cathedral door above;
Yet I saw but one among them
Who hath soothed my soul with love.
In his mantle,-wound about him,
As their robes the sowers wind,-
Bore he swallows and their fledglings,
Flowers and weeds of every kind.
And so stands he calm and childlike,
High in wind and tempest wild;
Oh, were I like him exalted,
I would be like him, a child!
And my songs,-green leaves and blossoms,-
To the doors of heaven would bear,
Calling, even in storm and tempest,
Round me still these birds of air.
THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL.
FROM THE GERMAN OF JULIUS MOSEN.
On the cross the dying Saviour
Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm,
Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling
In his pierced and bleeding palm.
And by all the world forsaken,
Sees he how with zealous care
At the ruthless nail of iron
A little bird is striving there.
Stained with blood and never tiring,
With its beak it doth not cease,
From the cross 't would free the Saviour,
Its Creator's Son release.
And the Saviour speaks in mildness:
"Blest be thou of all the good!
Bear, as token of this moment,
Marks of blood and holy rood!"
And that bird is called the crossbill;
Covered all with blood so clear,
In the groves of pine it singeth
Songs, like legends, strange to hear.
|