cending pure, the bell-like fame this or that down-trodden name, icate spirits, push'd away the hot press of the noon-day. do'er the plain, where the dead age its now silent warfare wage—
r that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,
ere many a splendor finds its tomb, ny spent fames and fallen mights— e one or two immortal lights e slowly up into the sky shine there everlastingly,
e stars over the bounding hill. e epoch ends, the world is still.
undering and bursting
torrents, in waves-
olling and shouting
er tombs, amid graves-
e! on the cumber'd plain
Paring a stage,
attering the past about,
mes the new age.
rds make new poems,
Linkers new schools,
atesmen new systems,
itics new rules.
I things begin again; fe is their prize
rth with their deeds they fill, Il with their cries.
et, what ails thee, then?
-y, why so mute?
orth with thy praising voice!
rth with thy flute!
Diterer! why sittest thou
ink in thy dream?
empts not the bright new age? ines not its stream? ok, ah, what genius, rt, science, wit! oldiers like Cæsar, atesmen like Pitt!
culptors like Phidias,
phaels in shoals,
Dets like Shakespeare-
eautiful souls!
e, on their glowing cheeks
eavenly the flush!
-Ah, so the silence was!
was the hush!
SET where the upper streams of Simois flow
Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;
And Hector was in Ilium, far below, And fought, and saw it not-but there it stood !
It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall,
Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight
Round Troy-but while this stood, Troy could not fall.
I ASK not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favor'd sons, not me.
I ask not each kind soul to keep Tearless, when of my death he hears. Let those who will, if any, weep!
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 el
Solemn, unlighted. austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arie
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
hose who with hall-open eyes read the border-land dim wixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, accorest!--this was thy work ; his was thy life upon earth.
What is the course of the life
f mortal men on the earth ?fost men eddy about
lere and there-eat and drink, hatter and love and hate, Father and squander, are raised loft, are hurl'd in the dust, triving blindly, achieving fothing; and then they dieerish; and no one asks Who or what they have been, fore than he asks what waves, n 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 hairsHolds 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 smile,
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 moun tain-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, fol lowed 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,
Montbovon. See Byron's Journal, in his Works,
vol. iii. p. 258. The river Saane becomes the Sarine below Montbovon. (Arnold).
"In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay:
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.
"He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crown'd his hair with flowers
No easier nor no quicker pass'd
The impracticable hours.
"The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd, And on her head was hurl'd.
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