Kitabı oku: «The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 05», sayfa 35

EVENING SONG⁵⁶ (1823)

 
  I stood on the mountain summit,
    At the hour when the sun did set;
  I mark'd how it hung o'er the woodland
    The evening's golden net.
 
 
  And, with the dew descending,
    A peace on the earth there fell—
  And nature lay hushed in quiet,
    At the voice of the evening bell.
 
 
  I said, "O heart, consider
    What silence all things keep,
  And with each child of the meadow
    Prepare thyself to sleep!
 
 
  "For every flower is closing
    In silence its little eye;
  And every wave in the brooklet
    More softly murmureth by.
 
 
  "The weary caterpillar
    Hath nestled beneath the weeds;
  All wet with dew now slumbers
    The dragon-fly in the reeds.
 
 
  "The golden beetle hath laid him
    In a rose-leaf cradle to rock;
  Now went to their nightly shelter
    The shepherd and his flock.
 
 
  "The lark from on high is seeking
    In the moistened grass her nest;
  The hart and the hind have laid them
    In their woodland haunt to rest.
 
 
  "And whoso owneth a cottage
    To slumber hath laid him down;
  And he that roams among strangers
    In dreams shall behold his own."
 
 
  And now doth a yearning seize me,
    At this hour of peace and love,
  That I cannot reach the dwelling,
    The home that is mine, above.
 

* * * * *

CHIDHER⁵⁷ (1824)

 
  Chidher, the ever youthful, told:
    I passed a city, bright to see;
  A man was culling fruits of gold,
    I asked him how old this town might be.
  He answered, culling as before
  "This town stood ever in days of yore,
  And will stand on forevermore!"
    Five hundred years from yonder day
    I passed again the selfsame way,
 
 
  And of the town I found no trace;
    A shepherd blew on a reed instead;
  His herd was grazing on the place.
    "How long," I asked, "is the city dead?"
  He answered, blowing as before
  "The new crop grows the old one o'er,
  This was my pasture evermore!"
    Five hundred years from yonder day
    I passed again the selfsame way.
 
 
  A sea I found, the tide was full,
    A sailor emptied nets with cheer;
  And when he rested from his pull,
    I asked how long that sea was here.
  Then laughed he with a hearty roar
  "As long as waves have washed this shore
  They fished here ever in days of yore."
    Five hundred years from yonder day
    I passed again the selfsame way.
 
 
  I found a forest settlement,
    And o'er his axe, a tree to fell,
  I saw a man in labor bent.
    How old this wood I bade him tell.
  "'Tis everlasting, long before
  I lived it stood in days of yore,"
  He quoth; "and shall grow evermore."
    Five hundred years from yonder day
    I passed again the selfsame way.
 
 
  I saw a town; the market-square
    Was swarming with a noisy throng.
  "How long," I asked, "has this town been there?
    Where are wood and sea and shepherd's song?"
  They cried, nor heard among the roar
  "This town was ever so before,
  And so will live forevermore!"
    "Five hundred years from yonder day
    I want to pass the selfsame way."
 

* * * * *

AT FORTY YEARS⁵⁸ (1832)

 
  When for forty years we've climbed the rugged mountain,
    We stop and backward gaze;
  Yonder still we see our childhood's peaceful fountain,
    And youth exulting strays.
 
 
  One more glance behind, and then, new strength acquiring,
    Staff grasped, no longer stay;
  See, a further slope, a long one, still aspiring
    Ere downward turns the way!
 
 
  Take a brave long breath and toward the summit hie thee—
    The goal shall draw thee on;
  When thou think'st it least, the destined end is nigh thee—
    Sudden, the journey's done!
 

* * * * *

BEFORE THE DOORS⁵⁹

 
  I went to knock at Riches' door;
  They threw me a farthing the threshold o'er.
 
 
  To the door of Love did I then repair—
  But fifteen others already were there.
 
 
  To Honor's castle I took my flight—
  They opened to none but to belted knight.
 
 
  The house of Labor I sought to win—
  But I heard a wailing sound within.
 
 
  To the house of Content I sought the way—
  But none could tell me where it lay.
 
 
  One quiet house I yet could name,
  Where last of all, I'll admittance claim;
 
 
  Many the guests that have knocked before,
  But still—in the grave—there's room for more.
 

AUGUST VON PLATEN-HALLERMUND

* * * * *

THE PILGRIM BEFORE ST. JUST'S⁶⁰ (1819)

 
  'Tis night, and tempests whistle o'er the moor;
  Oh, Spanish father, ope the door!
  Deny me not the little boon I crave,
  Thine order's vesture, and a grave!
  Grant me a cell within thy convent-shrine—
  Half of this world, and more, was mine;
  The head that to the tonsure now stoops down
  Was circled once by many a crown;
  The shoulders fretted now with shirt of hair
  Did once the imperial ermine wear.
  Now am I as the dead, e'er death is come,
  And sink in ruins like old Rome.
 

* * * * *

THE GRAVE OF ALARIC⁶¹ (1820)

 
  On Busento's grassy banks a muffled chorus echoes nightly,
  While the swirling eddies answer and the wavelets ripple lightly.
 
 
  Up and down the river, shades of Gothic warriors watch are keeping,
  For they mourn their people's hero, Alaric, with sobs of weeping.
 
 
  All too soon and far from home and kindred here to rest they laid him,
  While in youthful beauty still his flowing golden curls arrayed him.
 
 
  And along the river's bank a thousand hands with eager striving
  Labored long, another channel for Busento's tide contriving.
 
 
  Then a cavern deep they hollowed in the river-bed depleted,
  Placed therein the dead king, clad in proof, upon his charger seated.
 
 
  O'er him and his proud array the earth they filled, and covered loosely,
  So that on their hero's grave the water-plants would grow profusely.
 
 
  And again the course they altered of Busento's waters troubled;
  In its ancient channel rushed the current—foamed, and hissed, and bubbled.
 
 
  And the Goths in chorus chanted: "Hero, sleep! Tiny fame immortal
  Roman greed shall ne'er insult, nor break thy tomb's most sacred portal!"
 
 
  Thus they sang, and paeans sounded high above the fight's commotion;
  Onward roll, Busento's waves, and bear them to the farthest ocean!
 

* * * * *

REMORSE⁶² (1820)

 
  How I started up in the night, in the night,
    Drawn on without rest or reprieval!
  The streets with their watchmen were lost to my sight,
        As I wandered so light
        In the night, in the night,
    Through the gate with the arch medieval.
 
 
  The mill-brook rushed from its rocky height;
    I leaned o'er the bridge in my yearning;
  Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight,
        As they glided so light
        In the night, in the night,
    Yet backward not one was returning.
 
 
  O'erhead were revolving, so countless and bright,
    The stars in melodious existence;
  And with them the moon, more serenely bedight;
        They sparkled so light
        In the night, in the night,
    Through the magical, measureless distance.
 
 
  And upward I gazed in the night, in the night,
    And again on the waves in their fleeting;
  Ah woe! thou hast wasted thy days in delight;
        Now silence, thou light,
        In the night, in the night,
    The remorse in thy heart that is beating.
 

* * * * *

WOULD I WERE FREE AS ARE MY DREAMS⁶³ (1822)

 
  Would I were free as are my dreams,
    Sequestered from the garish crowd
  To glide by banks of quiet streams
    Cooled by the shadow-drifting cloud!
 
 
  Free to shake off this weary weight
    Of human sin, and rest instead
  On nature's heart inviolate—
    All summer singing o'er my head!
 
 
  There would I never disembark,
    Nay, only graze the flowery shore
  To pluck a rose beneath the lark,
    Then go my liquid way once more,
 
 
  And watch, far off, the drowsy lines
    Of herded cattle crop and pass,
  The vintagers among the vines,
    The mowers in the dewy grass;
 
 
  And nothing would I drink or eat
    Save heaven's clear sunlight and the spring
  Of earth's own welling waters sweet,
    That never make the pulses sting.
 

* * * * *

SONNET⁶⁴ (1822)

 
  Oh, he whose pain means life, whose life means pain,
    May feel again what I have felt before;
    Who has beheld his bliss above him soar
  And, when he sought it, fly away again;
  Who in a labyrinth has tried in vain,
    When he has lost his way, to find a door;
    Whom love has singled out for nothing more
  Than with despondency his soul to bane;
  Who begs each lightning for a deadly stroke,
    Each stream to drown the heart that cannot heal
  From all the cruel stabs by which it broke;
    Who does begrudge the dead their beds like steel
  Where they are safe from love's beguiling yoke—
    He knows me quite, and feels what I must feel.