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Hyacinth lived a long time after with Rosebud and his happy parents and old playmates; and numberless grandchildren thanked the wonderful old wise woman for her counsel and her uprousing; for in those days people had as many children as they pleased.
FROM SCHILLER
THE TRYST
HOPE
THE WORDS OF FAITH
THE WORDS OF VANITY
THE METAPHYSICIAN
THE PHILOSOPHERS
SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS
KNOWLEDGE
MY FAITH
FRIEND AND FOE
EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT
THE DIVER
KNIGHT TOGGENBURG
LONGING
THE TRYST That was the sound of the wicket! That was the latch as it rose! No—the wind that through the thicket Of the poplars whirring goes. Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof, Her to receive: with silent welcome grace her; Ye branches build a shadowy room, eye-proof, With lovely night and stillness to embrace her, Ye airs caressing, wake, nor keep aloof, In sport and gambol turning still to face her, As, with its load of beauty, lightly borne, Glides in the fairy foot, and dawns my morn. What is that rustling the hedges? She, with her hurrying pace? No, a bird among the sedges, Startled from its hiding-place! Quench thy sunk torch, O Day! Steal out, appear, Dim, ghostly Night, with dumbness us entrancing! Spread thy rose-purple veil about us here; Weave round us twigs, the mystery enhancing: Love’s rapture flees the lurking listening ear— Flies from the Day, so indiscreetly glancing; Hesper alone—no tattling tell-tale he— Far-gazing, still, her confidant may be. That was a voice, but far distant, Faint, like a whispering low! No; the swan that draws persistent Through the pond his circles slow! About mine ears harmonious breathings flow; The fountain falls in sweetly wavering rushes; The flower beneath the west wind’s kiss bends slow; Delight from each to every thing outgushes; Grape-clusters beckon; peaches luring glow, And hide half in their leaves, up-swelling luscious; The air, which aromatic odours streak, Drinks up the glow upon my burning cheek. Hear I not echoing footfalls Hither adown the pleach’d walk? No; the over-ripened fruit falls, Heavy-swollen, from off its stalk! Day’s flaming eye at last is quenchéd quite; In gentle death its colours all are paling; Now boldly open in the fair twilight The cups which in his blaze had long been quailing; Slow lifts the moon her visage calmly bright; Into great masses molten, earth sinks failing; From every charm the zone drops unaware, And shrouded beauty dawns upon me bare. Yonder I see a white shimmer— Silky—of robe or of shawl? No; it is the column’s glimmer ‘Gainst the clipt yews’ gloomy wall! O longing heart, no more thyself befool, Flouted by Fancy’s loveliness unreal! The empty arm no burning heart will cool, No shadow-joy hold place for Love’s Ideal! O bring my live love all my heart to rule! Give me her hand to hold, my every weal! Or but the shadow of her mantle’s hem— And straight my dreams shall live, and I in them! And soft as, from hills rosy-golden The dews of still gladness descend, So had she drawn nigh unbeholden, And wakened with kisses her friend.HOPE Men talk with their lips and dream with their soul Of better days hitherward pacing; To a happy, a glorious, golden goal See them go running and chasing! The world grows old and to youth returns, But still for the Better man’s bosom burns. It is Hope leads him into life and its light; She haunts the little one merry; The youth is inspired by her magic might; Her the graybeard cannot bury: When he finds at the grave his ended scope, On the grave itself he planteth Hope. She was never begotten in Folly’s brain, An empty illusion, to flatter; In the Heart she cries, aloud and plain: We are born to something better! And that which the inner voice doth say The hoping spirit will not betray.THE WORDS OF FAITH Three words I will tell you, of meaning full: The lips of the many shout them; Yet were they born of no sect or school, The heart only knows about them: That man is of everything worth bereft Who in those three words has no faith left: Man is born free—and is free alway Even were he born in fetters! Let not the mob’s cry lead you astray, Or the misdeeds of frantic upsetters: Fear not the slave when he breaks his bands; Fear nothing from any free man’s hands. And Virtue—it is no empty sound; That a man can obey her, no folly; Even if he stumble all over the ground He yet can follow the Holy; And what never wisdom of wise man knew A child-like spirit can simply do. And a God there is—a steadfast Will, However the human shrinketh! High over space and time He still, The live Thought, doth what He thinketh; And though all things keep circling, to change confined, He keeps, in all changes, a changeless mind. These three words cherish—of meaning full: From mouth to mouth send them faring; For, although they spring from no sect or school, Your hearts them witness are bearing; And man is never of worth bereft While yet he has faith in those three words left. Three words there are of weighty sound, And from good men’s lips they hail us; But a tinkling cymbal, a drum’s rebound, For help or for comfort they fail us! His Life’s fruit away he forfeit flings Who catches after those shadows of things; Who still believes in a Golden Age, Where the Right and the Good reign in splendour: The Right and the Good war ever must wage— Their foe will never surrender; And chok’st thou him not in the upper air, His strength he will still on the earth repair. Who yet believes that Fortune, the jilt, To the noble will bind herself ever: Her love-looks follow the man of guilt; The world to the good belongs never; He is in it a stranger; he wanders away Seeking a house that will not decay. Who still believes that no human gaze Truth ever her visage discloses: Her veil no mortal hand shall raise; Man only thinks and supposes: Thou mayst prison the spirit in sounding form, But the Fetterless walks away on the storm. Then, noble spirit, from folly break free, This heav’nly faith holding and handing: What the ear never heard, what no eye can see, Is the lovely, the true, notwithstanding; Outside, the fool seeks for it evermore; The wise man finds it with closed door! THE METAPHYSICIAN “How far the world lies under me! Scarce can I see the men below there crawling! How high it bears me up, my lofty calling! How near the heavenly canopy!” Thus, from tower-roof where he doth clamber, Calls out the slater; and with him the small big man, Jack Metaphysicus, down in his writing-chamber! Tell me, thou little great big man,— The tower, whence thou so grandly all things hast inspected, Of what is it?—Whereon is it erected? How cam’st thou up thyself? Its heights so smooth and bare— How serve they thee but thence into the vale to stare?THE PHILOSOPHERS The principle whence everything To life and shape ascended— The pulley whereon Zeus the ring Of Earth, which else in sherds would spring, Has carefully suspended— To genius I yield him a claim Who fathoms for me what its name, Save I withdraw its curtain: It is—ten is not thirteen. That snow makes cold, that fire burns, That man on two feet goeth, That in the heavens the sun sojourns— This much the man who logic spurns Through his own senses knoweth; But metaphysics who has got, Knows he that burneth, freezeth not; Knows ‘tis the moist that wetteth, And ‘tis the rough that fretteth. Great Homer sings his epic high; The hero fronts his dangers; The brave his duty still doth ply— And did it while, I won’t deny, Philosophers were strangers: But grant by heart and brain achiev’d What Locke and Des Cartes ne’er conceiv’d— By them yet, as behovéd, It possible was provéd. Strength for the Right is counted still; Bold laughs the strong hyena; Who rule not, servants’ parts must fill; It goes quite tolerably ill Upon this world’s arena; But how it would be, if the plan Of the universe now first began, In many a moral system All men may read who list ‘em. “Man needs with man must linked be To reach the goal of growing; In the whole only worketh he; Many drops go to make the sea; Much water sets mills going. Then with the wild wolves do not stand, But knit the state’s enduring band:” From doctor’s chair thus, tranquil, Herr Pufendorf and swan-quill. But since to all, what doctors say Flies not as soon as spoken, Nature will use her mother-way, See that her chain fly not in tway, The circle be not broken: Meantime, until the world’s great round Philosophy in one hath bound, She keeps it on the move, sir, By hunger and by love, sir.SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS I Threefold is of Time the tread: Lingering comes the Future pacing hither; Dartlike is the Now gone thither; Stands the Past aye moveless, foot and head. No impatience wings its idle Tread of leisurely delay; Fear or doubt it cannot bridle Should it headlong run away; No remorse, no incantation Moves the standing from its station. Wouldst thou end thy earthly journey Wise and of good fortune full, Make the Lingering thine attorney Thee to counsel—not thy tool; Not for friend the Flying take, Nor thy foe the Standing make. II Threefold is of Space the way: On unresting, without stay, Strives the Length into the distance; Ceaseless pours the Breadth’s insistence Bottomless the Depth goes down. For a sign the three are sent thee: Onward must alone content thee— Weary, thou must not stand still Wouldst thou thy perfection fill! Thou must spread thee wider, bigger, Wouldst thou have the world take figure! To the deep the man descendeth Who existence comprehendeth. Leads persistence to the goal; Leads abundance to precision; Dwells in the abyss the Vision. In the following epigrams I have altered the form, which in the original is the elegiac distichKNOWLEDGE To this man, ‘tis a goddess tall, Who lifts a star-encircled head; To that, a fine cow in a stall, Which gives him butter to his bread.MY FAITH Which religion I profess? None of which you mention make. Wherefore so?—And can’t you guess? For Religion’s sake.FRIEND AND FOE Dear is my friend, but my foe too Is friendly to my good; My friend the thing shows I can do, My foe, the thing I should. EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT Thousand-masted, mighty float, Out to sea Youth’s navy goes: Silent, in his one saved boat, Age into the harbour rows. THE DIVER “Which of you, knight or squire, will dare Plunge into yonder gulf? A golden beaker I fling in it—there! The black mouth swallows it like a wolf! Who brings me the cup again, whoever, It is his own—he may keep it for ever!” Tis the king who speaks; and he flings from the brow Of the cliff, that, rugged and steep, Hangs out o’er the endless sea below, The cup in the whirlpool’s howling heap:— “Again I ask, what hero will follow? What brave heart plunge into yon dark hollow?” The knights and the squires, the king about, Hear him, and dumbly stare Into the wild sea’s tumbling rout; But to win the beaker, they hardly care! The king, for the third time, round him glaring— “Not a soul of you has the daring?” Speechless all, as before, they stand: When a vassal bold, gentle, and gay, Steps out from his comrades’ shrinking band, Flinging his girdle and cloak away; And all the women and men that surrounded Gazed on the grand-looking youth, astounded. And when he stepped to the rock’s rough brow Looking down on the gulf so black, The waters which it had swallowed, now Charybdis bellowing rendered back; And, with a roar as of distant thunder, Foaming they burst from the dark lap under. It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout, As when water wrestles with fire, Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout; And flood upon flood keeps mounting higher: It will never its endless coil unravel, As the sea with another sea were in travail! But, at last, slow sinks the writhing spasm, And, black through the foaming white, Downward gapes a yawning chasm— Bottomless, cloven to hell’s wide night; And, sucked up, see the billows roaring Down through the whirling funnel pouring! Then in haste, ere the out-rage return again, The youth to his God doth pray, And—ascends a cry of horror and pain— Already the vortex hath swept him away! And o’er the bold swimmer, in darkness eternal, Close the great jaws of the gulf infernal! Then the water above grows smooth as glass, While, below, dull roarings ply; And, trembling, they hear the murmur pass— “High-hearted youth, farewell! good-bye!” And, hollower still, comes the howl affraying, Till their hearts are sick with the frightful delaying. If the crown itself thou in should fling, And say, “Who back with it hies Himself shall wear it, and shall be king,” I should not covet the precious prize! What Ocean hides in that howling hell of it, Live soul will never come back to tell of it! Ships many, caught in that whirling surge, Shot sheer to their dismal doom: Keel and mast only did ever emerge, Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!— Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer, Comes its roaring nearer and ever nearer! It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout, As when water wrestles with fire, Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout, Wave upon wave’s back mounting higher; And as with the rumble of distant thunder Bellowing it bursts from the dark lap under. And see, from its bosom, flowing dark, Something heave up, swan-white! An arm and a shining neck they mark, And it rows with unrelaxing might! It is he! and aloft in his left hand holden, He swings, recovered, the beaker golden! With long deep breaths his path he ploughed, Glad greeting the heavenly day; Jubilant shouted the gazing crowd, “He lives! he is free! he has burst his way! Out of the grave, the whirlpool uproarious, The hero hath rescued his life victorious!” He comes; they surround him with shouts of glee; At the king’s feet he sinks on the sod, And hands him the beaker upon his knee. To his lovely daughter the king gives a nod: She fills it brim-full of wine sparkling and raying; And then to the monarch the youth turned, saying: “Long live the king!—Ah, well doth he fare Who breathes in this rosy light! For frightful, yea, horrible is it down there; And man ought not to tempt the heavenly Might, Or long to see, with prying unwholesome, What He graciously covers with darkness dolesome! “It tore me down as on lightning’s wing— When a shaft in a rock outpours, Wild-rushing against me, a torrent spring: Its conflict seized me with raging force And like a top, with giddy twisting, Spun me about: there was no resisting! “Then God did show me, sore beseeching In deepest, frightfullest need, Up from the bottom a rock-ledge reaching— At it I caught, and from death was freed! And behold, on spiked corals the beaker suspended Which had else to the very abyss descended! “For below me it lay yet mountain-deep The purply darksome maw! And, though to the ear it was dead asleep, The ghasted eye, down staring, saw How, with dragons, lizards, salamanders, crawling, The hell-jaws horrible were sprawling! “Black-swarming, in medley miscreate, In masses lumped hideously, Wallowed the conger, the thorny skate, The lobster’s grisly deformity; And, baring its teeth with cruel sheen, a Terrible shark, the sea’s hyena. “So there I hung, and shuddering knew That human help was none; One thinking soul mid the horrid crew, In the ghastly desert I was alone— Deeper than human speech e’er sounded, By the sad waste’s dismal monsters surrounded! “Thus thought I, and shivered. Then a something crept near Upon legs with a hundred joints! It snaps at me suddenly: frantic with fear I lost my grasp of the coral points: Away the whirl in its raging tore me— But it was my salvation, and upward bore me!” The king at the tale is filled with amaze:— “The beaker, well won, is thine; And this ring I will give thee too,” he says, “Precious with gems that are more than fine, If thou dare it yet once, and bring me the story Of what’s in the sea’s lowest repertory.” His daughter she hears him with tender dismay, And with sweet words suasive doth plead: “Father, enough of this cruel play! For you he has done an unheard-of deed! If you may not master your heart’s desire, ‘Tis the knights’ turn now to shame the squire!” The king sudden snatches and hurls the cup Into the swirling pool:— “If thou bring me once more that beaker up, Thou art best of my knights, the most worshipful! And this very day to thy home thou shalt lead her Who stands there—for thee such a pitiful pleader.” A passion divine his being invades; His eyes dart a lightning ray; He sees of her blushes the changeful shades, He sees her grow pallid and sink away! Determination thorough him flashes, And downward for life or for death he dashes! They hear the dull roar: ‘tis returning again, Announced by the thunderous brawl! Downward they bend with loving strain: They come! they are coming, the waters all!— They rush up!—they rush down! they rush ever and ever: The youth to the daylight rises never! KNIGHT TOGGENBURG True love, knight, as to a brother, Yield I you again; Ask me not for any other, For it gives me pain. Calmly I behold you come in, Calm behold you go; Your sad eyes the weeping dumb in I nor read nor know. And he hears her uncomplaining, Tears him free by force; To his heart but once her straining, Flings him on his horse; Sends to all his vassals merry In old Switzerland; To the holy grave they hurry, White-crossed pilgrim band. Mighty deeds, the foe outbraving, Works their hero-arm; From their helms the plumes float waving Mid the heathen swarm; Still his “Toggenburg” upwaking Frays the Mussulman; But his heart its grievous aching Quiet never can. One whole year he did endure it, Then his patience lost; Peace, he never could secure it, And forsakes the host; Sees a ship by Joppa’s entry At her cable saw; Sails him home to that dear country Where she breath doth draw. At the gate, her castle under, Pilgrim sad, he knocked; Straight, as with a word of thunder Was the gate unlocked: “She you seek, with rites most solemn Is betrothed to heaven; Yesterday, beneath that column, She to Christ was given.” Then the halls he leaves for ever Of his ancestors; Shield or sword sets eyes on never, Or his faithful horse. Down from Toggenburg he fareth, None to see or care; On his noble limbs he weareth Sackcloth made of hair: And himself a hovel buildeth That same cloister nigh, Where the lime-tree thicket yieldeth Cover whence to spy. There, from morning’s earliest traces Till red evening shone, Thither turned his hoping face is, There he sits alone. On the walls so high above him, His eyes waiting hang, Waiting, though she would not love him, For her lattice-clang— Waiting till the loved should send her Glance into the vale, And, unthinking, toward it bend her Visage, angel-pale. Then he laid him, sadness scorning, Comforted to sleep; Quietly joyous till the morning Out again should peep. And so sat he, years a many, Years without a pang, Waiting without murmur any Till her window rang— For the lovely one to send her Glance into the vale, And, unseeing, toward him bend her Angel visage pale. And thus sat he, staring wanly, His last morning there: Toward her window still the manly Silent face did stare.LONGING Ah, from out this valley hollow, By cold fogs always oppressed, Could I but the outpath follow— Ah, how were my spirit blest! Hills I see there, glad dominions, Ever young, and green for aye! Had I wings, oh, had I pinions, To the hills were I away! Harmonies I hear there ringing, Tones of sweetest heavenly rest; And the gentle winds are bringing Balmy odours to my breast! Golden fruits peep out there, glowing Through the leaves to Zephyr’s play; And the flowers that there are blowing Will become no winter’s prey! Oh, what happy things are meeting There, in endless sunshine free! And the airs on those hills greeting, How reviving must they be! But me checks yon raving river That betwixt doth chafe and roll; And its dark waves rising ever Strike a horror to my soul! See a skiff on wild wave heaving! But no sailor walks the mole. Quick into it, firm believing, For its sails they have a soul! Thou must trust, nor wait to ponder: God will give no pledge in hand; Nought but miracle bears yonder To the lovely wonderland!FROM GOETHE
POEMS
LEGEND
THE CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN
POEMS Poems are painted window-panes: Look from the square into the church— Gloom and dusk are all your gains! Sir Philistine is left in the lurch: Outside he stands—spies nothing or use of it, And nought is left him save the abuse of it. But you, I pray you, just step in; Make in the chapel your obeisance: All at once ‘tis a radiant pleasaunce: Device and story flash to presence; A gracious splendour works to win. This to God’s children is full measure: It edifies and gives them pleasure.LEGEND AFTER THE MANNER OF HANS SACHS While yet unknown, and very low, Our Lord on earth went to and fro; And some of his scholars his word so good Very strangely misunderstood— He much preferred to hold his court In streets and places of resort, Because under the heaven’s face Words better and freer flow apace; There he gave them the highest lore Out of his holy mouth in store; Wondrously, by parable and example, Made every market-place a temple. So faring, in his heart content, Once with them to a town he went— Saw something blinking on the way, And there a broken horse-shoe lay! He said thereon St. Peter to, “Prithee now, pick up that shoe.” St. Peter was not in fitting mood: He had been dreaming all the road Some stuff about ruling of the world, Round which so many brains are twirled— For in the head it seems so easy! And with it his thoughts were often busy; Therefore the finding was much too mean; Crown and sceptre it should have been! He was not one his back to bow After half an iron-shoe! Therefore aside his head he bended, And that he had not heard pretended. In his forbearance the Lord did stoop And lift himself the horse-shoe up; Then for the present he did wait. But when they reach the city-gate, He goes up to a blacksmith’s door, Receives three pence the horse-shoe for; And as they through the market fare, Seeing for sale fine cherries there, He buys of them so few or so many As they will give for a three-penny; Which he, thereon, after his way, Up in his sleeve did quietly lay. Now, from the other gate, they trod Through fields and meads a housless road; The path of trees was desolate, The sun shone out, the heat was great; So that one in a region such For a drink of water had given much. The Lord goes ever before them all, And as by chance lets a cherry fall: In a trice St. Peter was after it there As if a golden apple it were! Sweet to his palate was the berry. Then by and by, another cherry Down on the ground the Master sends, For which St. Peter as quickly bends. So, many a time, the Lord doth let Him bend his back a cherry to get. A long time thus He let him glean; Then said the Lord, with look serene: “If at the right time thou hadst bent, Thou hadst found it more convenient! Of little things who little doth make For lesser things must trouble take.”THE CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN Up there, upon yonder mountain, Stands a castle old, in the gorse, Where once, behind doors and portals, Lurking lay knight and horse. Burnt are the doors and the portals; All round it is very still; Its old walls, tumbled in ruins, I scramble about at my will. Close hereby lay a cellar Full of wine that was old and rare; But the cheery maid with the pitchers No more comes down the stair; No more in the hall, sedately Sets the beaker before the guest; No more at the festival stately, The flagon fills for the priest; No more to the page so thirsty Gives a draught in the corridor; And receives for the hurried favour The hurried thanks no more. For every rafter and ceiling Long ago were to ashes burned, And stair and passage and chapel To rubbish and ruin turned. Yet when, with flask and cittern, On a day in the summer’s prime, Up to the rocky summit I watched my darling climb— Out came the old joy reviving On the face of the ancient rest, And on went the old life driving, In its lordliness and zest; It seemed as for strangers distinguished Their state-rooms they did prepare, And out of that brave time, shadowy Came stepping a youthful pair. And the worthy priest in his chapel Stood already in priestly dress, And asked—Will you two take one another? And smiling we answered—Yes; And the hymns with deep pulsation Stirred every heart at once; And instead of the congregation The echo yelled response. And when, in the gathered evening, Profound the stillness grew, And the red-glowing sun at the broken Gable came peering through, Then damsel and page, in his rays, are Grandees of the olden prime; She tastes of his cup at her leisure, And he to thank her takes time.