Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

In God's still memory folded Keeping cadence to my praising 10

deep;

The bravely dumb that did their

deed,

And scorned to blot it with a name,

Men of the plain heroic breed, That loved Heaven's silence more than fame.

Such lived not in the past alone, But thread to-day the unheeding street,

[blocks in formation]

And, when he had tampered with thee,

And stairs to Sin and Famine (Too confiding little maid!)

known

In a reed's precarious hollow

Sing with the welcome of their To our frozen earth conveyed:

feet:

The den they enter grows a shrine, The grimy sash an oriel burns, Their cup of water warms like wine, Their speech is filled from heavenly urns.

About their brows to me appears An aureole traced in tenderest light,

For he swore I know not what; 20
Endless ease should be thy lot,
Pleasure that should never falter,
Lifelong play, and not a duty
Save to hover o'er the altar,
Vision of celestial beauty,
Fed with precious woods and
spices;

Then, perfidious! having got
Thee in the net of his devices,

The rainbow- gleam of smiles Sold thee into endless slavery,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

And gloriously dost vindicate
The legend of thy lineage great,
Earth exiled daughter of the
Pythian god!

Now in the ample chimney-place,
To honor thy acknowledged race,
We crown thee high with laurel
good,

Thy shining father's sacred wood, Which, guessing thy ancestral right,

Sparkles and snaps its dumb delight,

80 And, at thy touch, poor outcast one,

Feels through its gladdened fibres go

The tingle and thrill and vassal glow

Of instincts loyal to the sun.

[blocks in formation]

Once more a Princess lithe and Gropes for the latch-string in the

[blocks in formation]

Thou dancest with a whispering The love that wanders not beyond His earliest nest, but sits and

tread,

[blocks in formation]

Therefore with thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs

Or poises on its tremulous stalk
A flower of frailest revery,
So winds and loiters, idly free,

Life in the withered words! how The current of unguided talk,
Now laughter-rippled, and now

swift recede

Time's shadows! and how glows again

Through its dead mass the incandescent verse,

As when upon the anvils of the brain

It glittering lay,

wrought

caught

In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought.

Meanwhile thou mellowest every word,

A sweetly unobtrusive third; cyclopically For thou hast magic beyond wine, unlock natures each to each;

By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's thought!

Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred,

The aspirations unattained,

IIO

The rhythms so rathe and delicate,
They bent and strained

To

140

The unspoken thought thou canst divine;

Thou fill'st the pauses of the

speech

With whispers that to dream-land reach

And broke, beneath the sombre And frozen fancy-springs unchain

weight

Of any airiest mortal word.

VII

In Arctic outskirts of the brain:
Sun of all inmost confidences,
To thy rays doth the heart unclose
Its formal calyx of pretences,

What warm protection dost thou That close against rude day's ofbend

fences,

Round curtained talk of friend And open its shy midnight rose! 150

[blocks in formation]

Now the kind nymph to Bacchus And, with a far-heard ring,

[blocks in formation]

And, as her incense floats and To humbler chambers of the self

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

How struggles with the tempest's In vain for me their trumpets

swells

That warning of tumultuous bells! The fire is loose! and frantic knells Throb fast and faster,

As tower to tower confusedly tells News of disaster.

blow

As unto him that lieth low

In death's dark arches, And through the sod hears throbbing slow

The muffled marches.

[blocks in formation]

Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling

[blocks in formation]

His health! be Luck his fast | Oh, born beneath the Fishes' sign,

ally!

Of constellations happiest,

« ZurückWeiter »