Hartley Coleridge

1796 – 1849           Großbritannien

http://www.bruck-grossglockner.at/buergerservice/aktuelles.html

 

 

& aber echt ist

 

 

Original

Nachdichtung von ZaunköniG

Not in Vain

 

Let me not deem that I was made in vain,

Or that my being was an accident

Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,

Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign.

 

Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain

Hath its own mission, and is duly sent

To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent

‘Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main.

 

The very shadow of an insect’s wing,

For which the violet cared not while it stayed

Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,

 

Proved that the sun was shining by its shade.

Then can a drop of the eternal spring,

Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?

 

 

 

Nicht vergebens

 

Laß mich nicht glauben, daß ich Zufall sei,

daß meine Schöpfung nichtig und vergebens.

Das Schicksal, Ziel gewissenhaften Webens

kann nicht umsonst sein, noch ist’s einerlei.

 

Kein Regentropfen fällt umsonst herbei,

er hat den Zweck im Spenden neuen Lebens

im Blattwerk schließt er seinen Kreis des Gebens

und hält sein Fallen doch für leicht und frei.

 

Der Schatten des Insektenflügels kreist

farbschillernd und beweist erhabnes Sein,

so wie der Schatten auch das Licht beweist.

 

Und ist mein Teil der Ewigkeit auch klein;

Kann Schatten, der sich aus dem Lichte speist,

denn jemals unnütz und vergebens sein?

 

Night

 

The crackling embers on the hearth are dead;

The indoor note of industry is still;

The latch is fast; upon the window-sill

The small birds wait not for their daily bread;

 

The voiceless flowers – how quietly they shed

Their nightly odours; -- and the household rill

Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill

The vacant expectation, and the dread

 

Of listening night. And haply now She sleeps;

For all the garrulous noises of the air

Are hush’d in peace; the soft dew silent weeps,

 

Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair: --

Oh! that I were the happy dream that that creeps

To her soft heart, to find my image there.

 

 

 

Nacht

 

Wo prasselnd tags im Herd ein Feuer loht,

als Zeichen der Betriebsamkeit, herrscht Stille.

Fest schließt der Haustürriegel in die Rille,

und draußen harrt kein Vogel seinem Brot.

 

Die Rosen wandeln Düfte aus dem Rot

und herbe Süße strömt aus der Kamille

und ferner Klang, vielleicht von einer Grille

nährt neu die leere Hoffnung und die Not.

 

Horch in die Nacht! und sieh: Die Nacht ist seicht.

Das Taggeschwätz verstummt, ist so entbehrlich.

Der sanfte Tau beweint das Land so leicht,

 

wie furchtsam Liebende, herzrein und ehrlich,

Wär ich doch Traum, der sich tief in sie schleicht,

bis an ihr Herz und sich dort findet. herrlich!

September

 

The dark green summer, with its massive hues,

Fades into autumn’s tincture manifold;

A gorgeous garniture of fire and gold

The high slope of the ferny hills indues;

 

The mists of morn in slumbering layers diffuse

O’er glimmering rock, smooth lake, and spiked array

Of hedgerow thorns, a unity of gray;

All things appear their tangible form to lose

 

In ghostly vastness. But anon the gloom

Melts, as the sun puts off his muddy veil;

And now the birds their twittering songs resume,

 

All summer silent in the leafy dale.

In spring they piped of love on every tree,

But now they sing the song of memory.

 

 

September

 

Der dunkle Sommer mit dem satten Grün

verklingt im Herbst, der mit den Farben praßt.

Wie prächtig läßt sein Tuch aus Gold und Glast

die farnbewachsnen Hügel überglühn.

 

Der Morgen, der in Nebelnestern döst,

glänzt silbrig über See und Ährenheer,

taucht Felsen, Hecken in ein graues Meer

in dem sich geisterhaft die Form auflöst.

 

Doch bald zerschmelzt den Dunst ein Sonnenstrahl,

als ob er einen Schleier von sich nimmt,

und mancher Vögel hat sein Lied gesungen,

 

vorm trägen Sommer im verlaßnen Tal.

Hat er im Mai noch Liebeslieder angestimmt,

singt er inzwischen von Erinnerungen.

 

 

November

 

The mellow year is hastening to its close;

The little birds have almost sung their last,

Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast –

That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows;

 

The patient beauty of the scentless rose,

Oft with the morn’s hoar crystal quaintly glassed,

Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past,

And makes a little summer where it grows:

 

In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day

The dusky waters shudder as they shine,

The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way

 

Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define,

And the gaunt woods, in ragged scant array,

Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy-twine.

 

 

 

November

 

Das mürbe Jahr zielt nur noch auf den Schluß;

Die Vögel sangen längst ihr letztes Lied.

Ein schriller Ton nur noch dem Spatz entflieht,

der ahnt, daß früh der Neuschnee fallen muß.

 

Gelassen, schön wächst noch ein Rosenkuß,

den Rauhreif morgens gläsern überzieht,

der trauernd nach vergangnem Sommer sieht,

und sich sein eigner Sommer bleiben muß.

 

Im kalten Sonnenstrahl der Nebeltage

verdümpelt trüb im Pfuhl ein fahler Schein;

Die falben Blätter streu’n sich in die Hage.

 

Gemoder liegt im Bach, der einst so rein.

Der Wald hebt knöchern jeden Ast zur Klage;

Nur Efeu rankt sich um das Baumgebein.

Prayer

 

I.

 

There is an awful quiet in the air,

And the sad earth, with moist imploring eye,

Looks wide ans wakeful al the pondering sky,

Like Patience slow subsiding to Despair.

 

But see, the blue smoke as a voiceless prayer,

Sole witness of a secret sacrifice,

Unfolds its tardy wreaths, and multiplies

Its soft chameleon breathings in the rare

 

Capacious ether, -- so it fades away,

And nought is seen beneath the pendent blue,

The undistinguishable waste of day.

 

So have I dreamed! – oh may the dream be true! –

That praying souls are purged from mortal hue,

And grow as pure as He to whom they pray.

 

 

II.

 

Be not afraid to pray – to pray is right.

Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,

Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay;

Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.

 

Far is the time, remote from human site

When war and discord on the earth shall cease;

Yet every prayer for universal peace

Avails the blessed time to expedite.

 

Whate’er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven,

Though it be what thou canst not hope to see:

Pray to be perfect, though material leaven

 

Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;

But if for any wish thou darest not pray,

Then pray to God to cast that wish away.

 

 

Betende

 

I.

 

Die Luft steht furchtbar still. So dicht bedrängt,

und tränend sieht geschundne Erde auf

zum Himmel, der aus ewig gleichem Lauf

geduldig, langsam sich in Demut senkt.

 

Doch sieh: Der blaue Rauch, vom Geist gelenkt,

wird Zeuge reinigender Nebeltaufe,

legt um den Beter seine leichte Schlaufe

weichen wandelbaren Atems, sanft geschwenkt

 

im gotterfüllten Äther und verschwindet.

Und unter diesem blauen Band blieb nichts

des öden Alltags der uns frißt und schindet.

 

Oh, laß es wahr sein, denn so träumte ich’s! -

Entledigt sei der Beter des Gewichts,

daß er sich rein und leicht mit Gott verbindet.

 

 

II.

 

Hab keine scheu zu beten – es ist recht.

In Hoffnung bete, wenn du kannst, doch bete.

Fühlst du dich krank und hoffnungslos, so bete

in der Dunkelheit, fehlt auch das Licht.

 

Fern ist die Zeit von allgemeinem Glück

und Frieden, wo die Kriegs- und Streitlust endet,

doch ein Gebet, das in die Welt gesendet,

sorgt dafür, daß der Segen näher rückt.

 

Bist zu zermürbt, wünsch einen Hoffnungsstern,
und bete, dich im Geiste aufzuschwingen:
als seist du frei von allen Erdendingen.

Erbete das Unmögliche vom Herrn.
Und solltest du dich deiner Wünsche schämen,
so bete, Gott, mag dir die Wünsche nehmen.

 

 

The Birth of Speech

(The first Man)

 

What was’t awakened first the untried ear

Of that sole man who was all human kind?

Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind,

Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere?

 

The four mellifluous streams which flowed so near,

Their lulling murmurs all in one combined?

The note of bird unnamed? The startled hind

Bursting the brake, in wonder, not in fear,

 

Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground

Send fourth mysterious melody to greet

The gracious pressure of immaculate feet?

 

Did viewless seraphs rustle all around

Making sweet musik out of air as sweet?

Or his own voice awake him with its sound?

 

 

 

Die Geburt der Sprache

 

 

Was weckte einst das ungenutzte Ohr,

damit der Mensch sein Menschtum erst finde?

War es der frohe Gruß der Morgenwinde,

das leise Rascheln im bewegten Rohr?

 

Der Paradiesesquellen Plätscherchor

der flüstert seinen Singsang klar und linde?

Ein Vogelruf? Einer erschreckten Hinde

gepresster Laut, der stieg vom Wald hervor?

 

War’s ein Geräusch, das aus dem Grund herandrang

als ein geheimnisvoller Morgen-Gruß?

Der leichte Tritt von unbekanntem Fuß?

 

War Engelsflüstern einst der Sprache Anfang?

Erklang dort Ahnung von Musik difus?

War's eigner Laut, der unvermittelt anklang??

Dedicatory Sonnet, To S. T. Coleridge

 

Father, and Bard revered! to whom I owe,

Whate’er it be, my little art of numbers,

Thou, in thy night-watch o’ver my cradled slumbers,

Didst meditate the verse that lives to show,

 

(And long shall live, when we alike are low)

Thy prayer how ardent, and thy hope how strong,

That I should learn of Nature’s self the song,

The lore which none but Nature’s pupils know.

 

The prayer was heard: I “wandered like a breeze,”

By mountain brooks and solitary meres,

And gathered there the shapes and fantasies

 

Which, mixed with passions of my sadder years,

Compose this book. If good therein there be,

That good, my sire, I dedicate to thee.

 

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge gewidmed

 

Vater! Dichter! Dir muß ich mich neigen,

Was wären meine Reime, die ich mach’,

Wie oft bliebst Du an meiner Wiege wach,

Sannst über Versen, die das Leben zeigen,

 

(die weiterleben, wenn wir beide schweigen),

in  Hoffnung und mit feurigem Gebet,

daß ich von der Natur selbst lern’ ihr Lied,

Das Wort, das Schülern der Natur nur eigen.

 

Es wurd erhört: Ich „wandere wie der Wind“,

alleine über klare Bäche hin

und sammle dort Ideen und die Rythmen,

 

die eins mit meinem Leid geworden sind

für dieses Buch. Liegt etwas gutes drin,

so will ich dieses Gute dir gern widmen.

 

 

 

Full well I know – my Friends – ye look on me

A living spectre of my Father dead –

Had I not borne his name, had I not fed

On him, as one leaf trembling on a tree,

 

A woeful waste had been my minstrelsy –

Yet have I sung of maidens newly wed

And I have wished that hearts too sharply bleed

Should throb with less of pain, and heave more free

 

But my endeavour. Still alone I sit

Counting each throught as Miser counts a penny,

Wishing to spend my penny-worth of wit

 

On antic wheel of fortune like a Zany:

You love me for my sire, to you unknown,

Revere me for his sake, and love me for my own.

 

Meine Freunde

 

Ich weiß genau, wie ihr mich seht: bin kaum

mehr als des toten Vaters neuer Geist;

bin ich denn nicht allein aus ihm gespeist,

so wie das Espenblatt vom starken Baum,

 

Ein Abgesang die eitle Dichterei –

Ich hab ein neues Hohelied gesungen

und wünschte mir die Herzen tief durchdrungen.

Sie sollten schmerzlos glühen und sich frei

 

erheben. Gut. Nun sitz ich hier und starr

auf all das, wie ein Geizhals auf den Cent,

und wünsch Fortunas Rad doch zu bewegen,

 

mich Cent für Cent zu geben, wie ein Narr.

Ihr liebt den Vater, den ihr gar nicht kennt;

Ehrt mich für ihn, doch liebt mich meinetwegen.

 

 

 

Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No,

It is immortal as immaculate truth.

‘Tit not a blossom, shed as soon as youth

Drops from the stem of life – for it will grow

 

It barren regions, where no waters flow,

Nor ray of promise cheats the pensive gloom.

A darkling fire, faint hovering o’er a tomb,

That but itself and darkness nought doth show,

 

Is my love’s being, - yet it cannot die,

Nor will it change, though all the changed beside;

Though fairest beauty be no longer fair,

 

Though vows be false, and faith itself deny,

Though sharp enjoyment be a suicide,

And hope a spectre in a ruin bare.

 

 

 

Ist Liebe Phantasie? Gefühl? Oh nein,

Sie ist unsterblich, wie die wahre Tugend,

nicht eine Blüte, Spende reicher Jugend,

um später Frucht am Lebensbaum zu sein.

 

Kein frisches Wasser für ein karges Land,

Kein Licht, das Hoffnung gibt durch blosen Schein.

Sie ruht noch dunkel über dem Gebein,

Als Flamme, die dem Tod noch nicht bekannt.

 

Ist’s Liebe, ist sie ewig – und darum

verwandelt sie der Wandel nicht ringsum;

Sonst denk dir Schönheit, die das schöne flieht,

 

Denk Schwüre falsch, und ein Bekenntnis schnöde,

Denk dir Genuß als Weg zum Suizid

und Hoffnung als ein Irrlicht in der Öde.

 

 

All Natur ministers to Hope. The snow

Of sluggard Winter, bedded on the hill,

And the small tinkle of the frozen rill -

The swol’n flood’s sullen roar, the storms that go

 

With crash, and howl, and horrid voice of woe,

Making swift passage for their lawless will –

All prophecy of good. The hungry thrill

Of the lone birdie, cowering close below

 

The dripping eaves – it hath a kindly feeling,

And cheers the life that lives for milder hours.

Why, then, since Nature still is busy healing,

 

And Time, the waster, his own work concealing,

Decks every grave with verdure and with flowers, -

Why should Despair oppress immortal powers?

 

 

 

Ein Jedes dient der Hoffnung, auch der Schnee

des trägen Winters, ausgestreckt am Hang,

des kaltes Baches klingelnder Singsang,

die Fluten, Stürme, die oft tosend gehen.

 

Heulend, klagend, voller Ach und Weh

ziehn sie vorbei in regellosem Gang.

Ein Gotteswink. Der Vogel unter Zwang

von Frost und Nässe will die Federn blähen,

 

beim tropfenden Gesims, mit Kindsgemüt

und feiert dieses Leben um die milden Stunden.

Warum heilt die Natur die alten Wunden?

 

will Zeit ihr fehlerhaftes Werk verdecken,

bis jedes Grab im Frühjahr neu erblüht?

Wie soll Verzweiflung diese Kraft ersticken?

May, 1840

 

A lovely morn, so still, so very still,

It hardly seems a growing day of Spring,

Though all the odorous buds are blossoming,

And the small matin birds were glad and shrill

 

Some hours ago; but now the woodland rill

Murmurs along, the only vocal thing,

Save when the wee wren flits with stealthy wing,

And cons by fits and bits her evening trill.

 

Lovers might sit on such a morn as this

An hour together, looking at the sky,

Nor dare to break the silence with a kiss,

 

Long listening for the signal of a sigh;

And the sweet Nun, diffused in voiceless prayer,

Feed her own soul through all the brooding air.

 

 

Mai 1840

 

So lieblich war der Morgen; - still, so still,

und schien kaum einen Frühlingstag zu bringen.

Obwohl die duftig-zarten Knospen springen,

vor Stunden mancher Vogel glücklich schrillt

 

sein Lied. Und auch im Wald die Bäche schillern,

glucksen, murmeln. Ein vokales Singen;

ein Zeisig huscht vorbei auf leisen Schwingen

und lernt ein klingenderes Abendtrillern.

 

Ein Morgen, wie ein Liebespaar ihn mag

sich selbst verlierend in den Himmelsauen,
die sich nicht küssen, nur andächtig schauen,

auf einen Seufzer lauschend, der verweht...
und eine Nonne senkt sich sanft in ihr Gebet,
fühlt ihre Seele aufgehn mit dem Tag.

 

To a Deaf and Dumb little Girl

 

Like a loose island on the wide expanse,

Unconscious floating on the fickle sea,

Herself her all, she lives in privacy;

Her waking life as lonely as a trance,

 

Doomed to behold the universal dance,

And never hear the music which expounds

The solemn step, coy slide, the merry bounds,

The vague, mute language of the countenance.

 

In vain for her I smooth my antic rhyme;

She cannot hear it, all her little being

Concentred in her solitary seeing –

 

What can she know of beauteous or sublime?

And yet methinks she looks so calm and good,

God must be with her in her solitude.

 

 

An ein taubstummes Mädchen

 

Ein Eiland, treibend in des Ozeans

zerwühlten Wellen, ohnmächtig umringt,

mit sich allein, und nur durch sich bedingt,

verläuft ihr Leben einsam wie in Trance,

 

verdammt zu seh’n den allgemeinen Tanz,

doch nie zu hören, wer da spielt und singt,

wozu man schreitet, gleitet, oder springt:

Nur vage, stumme, mimische Semanz.

 

Umsonst, wenn ich antike Reime schlichte:

Sie kann nicht hör’n, ihr ganzes kleines Sein;

Es konzentriert sich nur im Augenlichte.

 

Was könnte sie von dem Erhabnen fassen?

Und doch scheint sie so gütig und gelassen,

als sei sie ganz mit sich und Gott all-ein.

 

A Confession

 

Long time a child, and still a child, when years

Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I, -

For yet I lived like one not born to die;

A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,

 

No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.

But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and waking,

I waked to sleep no more; at once o’ertaking

The vanguard of my age, with all arrears

 

Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,

Nor youth, nor sage, I find my heard is gray,

For I have lost the race I never ran:

 

A rathe December blights my lagging May;

And still I am a child, though I be old:

Time is my debtor for my years untold.

 

 

Bekenntnis

 

So lang ein Kind, und immernoch ein Kind,
als ich mich schon im Mannesalter sonnte;
als ob der Tod mir nichts zuleid tun konnte,
und fühlt Gefühle, die vergeudet sind.

Was brauch ich Hoffnung? Wo ist die Gefahr?
Doch Schlaf bleibt Schlaf, ist er auch angenehm.
Ich wachte auf - für immer - und mit dem
Gefühl, daß so viel noch zu tuen war,

daß mich die Pflicht erdrückt. Kein Kind, kein Mann,
nicht jung, nicht weise, ist mein Haupt ergraut,
weil ich mein Rennen nie gelaufen bin.

Und meinen Scheinmai haucht der Winter an;
Ich bin noch immer Kind, nur alt. Nun schaut,
was ich der Zeit für'n schlechter Schuldner bin.

Liberty

 

Say, What is Freedom? What the right of souls

Which all who know are bound to keep, or die,

And who knows not, is dead? In vain ye pry

In musty archives, or retentive scrolls,

 

Charters and statutes, constitutions, rolls,

And remnants of the old world’s history: -

These show what has been, not what ought to be,

Or teach at best how wiser Time controls

 

Man’s futile purposes. As vain the search

Of restless factions, who, in lawless will,

Fix the foundations of a creedless church –

 

A lawless rule – an anarchy off ill:

But what is Freedom? Rightly understood,

A universal license to be good.

 

 

Freiheit

 

Sag, was ist Freiheit? - was der Seele Rechte,
die jeder kennen muss, dass er nicht stirbt
und wer sie nicht kennt, ist schon tot, erwirbt

man sie beim Lesen von Gerichtsberichten,

 

Gesetzen, Briefen, Akten und Statuten,

im Studium von aller welt Geschichte?

Dies zeigt nur wie es ist, doch nicht das Rechte,

oder bestenfalls lehrt es die guten

 

Fäden seh’n, an denen Zeit uns führt

und die Vergeblichkeit in unsren Wünschen.

Wer kein Gesetz will, reißt auch Rechte ein,

 

schürt Anarchie, die uns ins Chaos führt.

Doch was ist Freiheit? Die Lizenz des Menschen

Immer ungehindert gut zu sein!

 

 

 

“Multum Dilexit”

 

She sat and wept beside His feet; the weight

Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame,

And the poor malice of the worldly shame,

To her was past, extinct, and out of date:

 

Only the sin remained, - the leprous state;

She would be melted by the heat of love,

By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove

And purge the silver ore adulterate.

 

She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair

Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;

And He wiped off the soiling of despair

 

From her sweet soul, because she loved so  much.

I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears:

Make me a humble thing of love and tears.

 

 

“Multum Dilexit”

 

Sie weinte, ihm zu Füßen, schwer bedrückt

von ihrer Schuld, zu der ihr klammes Herz

sich stumm bekennt. Nicht Scham, nicht andrer Schmerz

blieb ihm; das alles war so weit entrückt.

 

Nur die Sünden blieben, die leprösen.

Sie schürt die Gluten, und nicht lange währt’s,

bis sie geläutert ist wie Silbererz,

das glüht um Schmutz und Schlacke auszulösen.

 

Sie saß und weinte, wusch ihm mit dem Haar

die Füße um Berührungen zu zählen.

Und er wischt fort den Schmutz von dunklem Wähnen,

 

weil ihre Seele doch so zärtlich war:

Ich bin der Sünder, voll von Furcht und Fehlen,

und Du weist mir den Weg mit Liebestränen.

 

Could I but harmonize on kindly thought,

Fix one fair image in a snatch of song,

Which maids might warble as they tripped along;

Or could I ease the labouring heart, o’erfrauht

 

With passionate truths for which the mind untaught

Lacks form and utterance, with a single line;

Might rustic lovers woo in phrase of mine,

I should not deem that I had lived for nought.

 

The world were welcome to forget my name,

Could I bequeath a few remembered words –

Like his, the bard that never dreamed of fame,

 

Whose rhymes preserve from harm the pious birds;

Or his, that dim full many a star-bright eye

With woe for Barbara Allen’s cruelty.

 

 

 

Was gäbe ich, daß die Gedanken paßten,

sich fügten in ein Bild und in Gesang,

der es hinausschallt, schreitet sie entlang.

Sei’s nur mein Hein Herz ein Körnchen zu entlasten

 

von tiefster Wahrheit, die mein Geist nicht faßt.

Es fehlt an Form und Ausdruck. Nur ein Vers,

den Liebende zitier’n: das wär’s!

Ich wäre nicht umsonst hier Erdengast.

 

Vergißt man meinen Namen, wär’s willkommen,

wenn nur eine Zeile übrig wäre,

wie des Barden, der nie träumt von Ehre,

 

dessen Reime einem Beter frommen,

oder dessen, der mit sternenhellen

Augen leidet für Barbara Allen.

 

 

 

 

To a Lofty Beauty,
from her Poor Kinsman

 

Fair maid, had I not heard thy baby cries,

Nor seen thy girlish, sweet vicissitude,

Thy mazy motions, striving to elude,

Yet wooning still a parent’s watchful eyes,

 

Thy humours, many as the opal’s dyes,

And lovely all; - methinks thy scornful mood,

And bearing high of stately womanhood, -

Thy brow, where Beauty sits to tyrannize

 

O’er humble love, had made me sadly fear thee;

For never sure ws seen a royal bride

Whose gentleness gave grace to so much pride –

 

My very thoughts would tremble to be near thee:

But when I see thee at thy father’s side,

Old times unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee.

 

 

An eine stolze Schöne,

von ihrem armen Verwandten

 

Hab’ ich dich nicht als Baby schrei’n gehört,

und sah ich nicht die wandlung, erste Zeichen

verwirrten Fühlens, Mühe auszuweichen

der elterlichen Obhut, die nun stört?

 

Die Launen, wie Opale irisierend,

sind liebenswert; - doch die Verächtlichkeit,

die elitäre stolze Weiblichkeit,

mit scharfen Brauen zu tyrannisieren,

 

wer dich in Demut liebt, beängstigt mich.

Nie sah man eine königliche Braut

so vornehm, stolz, so anmutig erhaben.

 

Ich zitterte, hätt’st du mich angeschaut;

doch sehe ich an Vaters Seite dich

sinkst du vom Thron, - und könntest Alles haben.

 

 

 

 

Homer

 

Far from the sight of earth, yet bright and plain

As the clear noon-day sun, an ‘orb of song’

Lovely and bright is seen, amid the throng

Of lesser stars, that rise, and wax, and wane,

 

The transient rulers of the fickle main,

One constant light gleams through the dark and long

And narrow aisle of memory. How strong,

How fortified with all the numerous train

 

Of truths wert thou, Great Poet of mankind,

Who told’st in verse as mighty as the sea,

And various as the voices of the wind,

 

The strength of passion rising in the glee

Of battle. Fear was glorified by thee,

And Death is lovely in thy tale enshrined.

 

 

Homer

 

Nun aus der Welt entrückt, ganz hell und klar,

stehst du als Mittagssonne der Gesänge

strahlend in der großen Sternenmenge

die steigt und wieder niedersinkt, der Schar,

 

die flüchtig Herrscher unsrer Launen war.

Du leuchtest nun als stetes Licht im engen

Flur „Erinnerung“. Mit welcher Strenge,

und wie kraftvoll legst du Wahrheit dar

 

in jedem Vers! Der Menschheit großer Dichter:

Wer schüfe Zeilen, mächtig wie die see

und wechselvoll wie unzähmmbarer Wind.

 

Aus Leidenschaft erstehen die Gesichter

der Schlacht, die in der Angst noch herrlich sind,

und sanft legt sich der Tod auf sie wie Schnee.

 

 

 

 

 

To Shakespeare

 

The soul of man is larger than the sky,

Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark

Of the unfathomed centre. Like that Ark,

Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,

 

O’er the drowned hils, the human family,

And stock reserved of every living kind;

So, in the compass of the single mind,

The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie

 

That make all worlds. Great poet, ‘twas thy art

To know thyself, and in thyself to be

Whate’er love, hate, ambition, destiny,

 

Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart,

Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,

Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.

 

An Shakespeare

 

Des Menschen Seele: Meerestief und auch
so himmelweit. Direkt ins Zentrum triffst
du jedes Dunkel! So wie Noahs Schiff,
das heiligt und erhebt in seinem Bauch

das menschliche Geschlecht über die Flut,
und Tiere in sich birgt von jeder Art.
So ist im Zirkel deines Geists verwahrt,
was als ein Keim von neuen Welten ruht

in klarester Essenz. Großer Poet:
Du kennst dich selbst, was Menschsein ist und war,
was auch Verzweiflung, Liebe, Ehrgeiz, Wut,

das Ziel, das Menschen in den Herzen steht,
aus ihnen machen kann; nur du bleibst klar
im Denken, unversehrt von eigner Glut.

 

The First Birthday

 

The sun, sweet girl, hath run his year-long race

Through the vast nothing of the eternal sky –

Since the glad hearing of the first faint cry

Announced a stranger from the unknown place

 

Of unborn souls. How blank was then the face,

How uninformed the weak light-shunning eye,

That wept and saw not. Poor mortality

Begins to mourn before it known its case,

 

Prophetic in its ignorance. But soon

The hospitalities of earth engage

The banished spirit in its new exile –

 

Pass some few changes of the fickle moon,

The merry babe has learned its mother’s smile,

Its father’s frown, its nurse’s mimic rage.

 

 

Der erste Geburtstag

 

Die Sonne schließt heut ihre Jahresbahn

durchs weite Nichts im steten Himmelskreis,

seit deines ersten langersehnten Schreis,

der kündigt diesen fremden Menschen an

 

vom Ort der ungebornen Seelen. Hell

war dein Gesicht, dein Auge, dieses scheue,

weinte, sah noch nicht. Oh, - arme neue

Sterblichkeit, weiß nicht wie tief sie fällt.

 

Prophetisch warst du in der Weltverachtung,

doch bald war deine Göttlichkeit gebunden,

der Geist gebannt im neuen Erdexil.

 

Es flogen Sonnentage und Umnachtung,

bald hast du Mutters Lächeln nachempfunden,

und Vaters Fratzen, - Ach: du lernst so viel.

 

 

 

Think upon Death, ‘tis good to think of Death,

But better far to think upon the Dead.

Death is a spectre with a bony head,

Or the mere mortal body without breath,

 

The state foredoomed of every son of Seth,

Decomposition – dust, or dreamless sleep.

But the dear Dead are they for whom we weep,

For whom I credit all the Bible saith.

 

Dead is my father, dead is my good mother,

And what on earth have I to to but die?

But if by grace I reach the blessed sky,

 

I fain would see the same, and not another;

The very father that I used to see,

The mother that has nursed me on her knee.

 

 

 

Bedenk den Tod, gut wenn man ihn versteht;
Gedenk der Toten lieber, die du kennst:
Der Tod ist Knochenschädel und Gespenst,
und leere Hülle, wo kein Atem geht.

Wir sind dem Tod gebor’n als Sohn von Seth,
Zerfall zu Staub, ein Schlaf, der ewig dauert,
jedoch die Liebsten sind’s die man betrauert,
für die ich glaub’ was in der Bibel steht.

Mein Vater, meine Mutter: bei den Toten.
Und was soll ich auf Erden, außer sterben?
Doch sollte ich das Himmelreich erwerben,

Was würde meinem Auge dort geboten;
Der Vater, in dem mir vertrauten Bild,
Die Mutter, die mich an der Brust gestillt.

 

Faith

 

Too true it is, my time of power was spent

In idly watering weeds of casual growth, -

That wasted energy to desperate sloth

Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent, -

 

That the huge debt for all that Nature lent

I sought to cancel, - and was nothing loth

To deem myself an outlaw, severed both

From duty and from hope, - yea, blindly sent

 

Without an errand, where I would to stray: -

Too true it is that knowing now my state,

I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate,

 

Nor love the law I yet would fain obey:

But true it is, above all law and fate

Is Faith, abiding the appointed day.

 

Glaube

 

Wohl wahr: Ich habe Kraft und Zeit verschwendet,

hab mir mein Beet mit Unkraut nur bestellt,

daß mir zur Faulheit meine Kraft zerfällt

und mein Bestreben so im Zaudern endet.

 

Doch meine Lehensschuld wird bald gepfändet,

die ich zu tilgen suchte, und ich dachte,

daß sie mich vogelfrei, gesetzlos machte

ohne Pflicht und Hoffnung, - blind gesendet

 

um ohne Auftrag ziellos hinzugehen.

Wohl wahr: Ich weiß wie meine Dinge stehen,

beklag die Sünde, die ich hassen sollte,

 

beug’ mich dem Wort, das ich doch lieben sollte,

Doch wahr ist auch, was auch geschehen mag,

der Glaube an den vorbestimmten Tag.

 

To a Friend

 

We parted on the mountains, as two streams

From one clear spring pursue their several ways;

And thy fleet course hath been thro’ many a maze

In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams

 

To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams

Brightened the tresses that old poets praise;

Where Petrarch’s patient love and artful lays,

And Ariosto’s song of many themes,

 

Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook,

As close pent up within my native dell,

Have crept along from nok to shady nook,

 

Where flow’rest blow, and whispering Naiads dwell.

Yet now we met, that parted were so wide,

O’er rough and smooth to travel side by side.

 

 

An einen Freund

 

Wir trennten uns im Berg, gleich diesen Strömen,

von einem Quell in zweierlei Mäandern.

Und mußtest du den Lauf in fremden Ländern,

wo silbern Padus glänzt, verschlungen nehmen,

 

wo noch am Horizont als lichte Schemen

die Locken wehn, die Dichter überkronen;

Petrarka fand dort Liebe – und Kanzonen

und Ariosto sang von manchen Themen,

 

die die Luft bewegen, sollte ich,

ein Bach im engen Bett, von Kluft zu Kluft

mich ziehen, wo der Blumenduft

 

sich unter flüsternde Najaden schlich.

Nun treffen wir uns wieder, die so weit

getrennt war’n, und wir reisen Seit an Seit.

 

 

To a Friend

 

When we were idlers with the loitering rills,

The need of human love we little noted:

Our love was nature; and the peace that floated

On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,

 

To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:

One soul was ours, one mind, one heard devoted,

That, wisely doating, asked not why it doated,

And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.

 

But now I find how dear thou wert to me;

That man is more than half of nature’s treasure,

Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,

 

Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;

And now the streams may sing for others’ pleasure,

The hills sleep on in their eternity.

 

 

 

An einen Freund

 

Als wir so schlenderten an trägen Bächen,

da hatten wir von Liebe kurz notiert:

Sie ist Natur, die Frieden uns gebiert

mit weißem Dunst, der schwillt über die Flächen,

 

in Harmonie mit unsren kleinen Schwächen;

Ein Herz und eine Seele, und sie müssen

nicht närrisch um ihr Wissen bangen. Wissen

würde unsre schlichten Freuden brechen.

 

Nun weiß ich, welcher Schatz einst zu mir kam,

wie Freundschaft zwischen Mensch und Mensch geschieht,

in einer Schönheit, die kein Auge sieht,

 

in der Musik, die nie ein Ohr vernahm;

Nun sich ein Andrer an dem Bach vergnügt,

und sich die Eb’ne in die Ewigkeiten fügt.

 

 

 

 

Whither is gone the wisdom and the power

That ancient sages scattered with the notes

Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats

In the void air; even at this breathing hour,

 

In every cell and every blooming bower

The sweetness of old lays is hovering still;

But the strong soul, the self-constraining will,

The rugged root that bare the winsome flower

 

Is weak and withered. Were we like the Fays

That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells,

Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipped shells

 

Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays,

Then might our pretty modern Philomels

Sustain our spirits with their roundelays.

 

 

 

Wo sind die Kraft und Weisheit hin verschwunden,

die einst verbreitet mit den alten Noten

die inspirierte Lyra? Klänge fluten

den leeren Raum in diesen Atemstunden:

 

In jeder Kammer, jeder Gartenhütte

liegt schwebend ihre alte weiche Stille,

doch strenger Geist, der selbstbeherrschte Wille,

die knorrig harte Wurzel, ohne eine Blüte,

 

ist saftlos, dürr. Dort wo wir wie die Feen

in den Glockenblumenkelchen tuscheln,

und murmeln aus rosébelippten Muscheln,

 

die Neptun zahlt als Zins für seine Lehen,

Dort tragen unsre neuen Musen wieder

unsre Ideen in die modernen Lieder.

 

May-Time in England

(1832)

 

Is this the merry May of tale and song?

Chill breathes the north, the sky looks chilly blue,

The waters wear a cold and iron hue,

Or wrinkle as the crisp wave creeps along,

 

Much like an ague-fit.  The starry throng

Of flow’rest droop, o’verdone with drenching dew,

Or close their leaves at noon, as if they knew

And felt, in helpless wrath, the season’s wrong.

 

Yet in the half-clad woods, the busy birds

Chirping with all ther might to keep them warm,

The young hare flitting from her ferny form,

 

The vernal lowing of the amorous herds,

And swelling buds, impatient of delay,

Declare it should be, though it is not, May.

 

 

 

Zur Maienzeit in England

(1832)            

 

Ist dies der Wonnenmai, den man besang?

Ein kühler Nord, der Himmel eisig blau,

Die Flüsse fließen kalt und silbergrau

Wie Fieberschübe ihrem Bett entlang.

 

Die Wiesen sind mit Blumen übergossen,

glitzernd, nass von frischem Morgentau.

Die Blütenstände hängen welk und flau,

in falscher Zeit, in stummer Wut verschlossen.

 

Die Vögel zwitschern im halbnackten Wald

mit ganzer Kraft um endlich warm zu werden.

Und auch die jungen Hasen rennen bald

 

aus den Verstecken. Die verliebten Herden

brüllen, Knospen schwellen, denn es sei

doch eigentlich nun endlich Zeit für Mai.

 

 

 

Second Nuptials

 

There is no jealousy in realms above:

The spirit, purified from earthly strain,

And knowing that is earthly loss was gain,

Transfers its property in earthly love

 

(Though love it was she does not yet reprove)

To her by Heaven appointed to sustain

The honored matron’s part; to bear the pain,

The joy, the duty, all things that behoove

 

A Christian wedded.  She that dwells on high

May be a guardian angel to the wife

That her good husband chooses to supply

 

Her place, vacated in the noon of life;

With holy gladness may support the bride

Through happy cares, to her by death denied.

 

 

Zweite Ehe

 

Man ist nicht neidisch in den höh’ren Sphären;
von Erdenzwängen ist der Geist befreit.
Verlust im Hier ist dort Gewinn, so weit
gereift, kann sie der Neuen Glück gewähren

(Ob es auch Liebe war? sie zweifelt nicht.)
die neue Frau mit dem Madonnenherz
zu stärken; die gebären wrd den Schmerz,
die Freude, und die jede Christenpflicht,

der Ehefrau erfüllt. Als Engel schaut
sie gütig aus dem Himmel auf das Weib,
das ihr Gemahl als neue Freundin nahm,

die auf den Thron, den früh verwaisten kam.
und sorgt sich um das junge Glück der Braut,
das ihr durch frühen Tod verweigert bleibt.

 

Sweet Love

 

Sweet love, the shadow of thy parting wings

Hangs on my soul, like the soft shade of even,

Farewell to thee, for thou art going to Heaven,

And I must stay behind, with all the things

 

Which thou, and thy benign administerings

Once made most sweet, of sweetness now bereaven;

Whose memory, as a sour fermenting leaven,

Perverts all nature with an ill that springs

 

From good corrupted.   Oh! for mercy, Love,

Stay with me yet, altho’ thy comrade fair,

The smiler Hope, be gone to realms above,

 

Stay with thy younger sister, meek Despair; -

For meek she is in truth, as brooding dove,

If thou with her the lowly bosom share.

 

 

 

Sanfte Liebe

 

Der Schatten Deiner weitgespreizten Schwingen

Hängt über mir wie'n weicher Abendzug.

Fahr wohl, für Dich und Deinen Himmelsflug.

Ich bleibe hier zurück mit all den Dingen,

 

Die Du, und die dein guter Rat zu bringen

Vermochten; Zartes, Zartem nun beraubt,

An Sauerteig man sich erinnert glaubt,

Der gärt, und dessen wandlungen entspringen

 

Der guten Infektion. - Sei gnädig, Liebe:

Bleib hier! Wenn auch Dein froher Bruder Glaube

Mild lächelnd auf zu höh'ren Sphären eilt;

 

Wenn mit Dir auch die Schwester Trauer bliebe,

Die brütet über mir wie eine Taube,

Solang Du mit ihr meinen Busen teilst!

 

 

Young Love

 

The nimble fancy of all-beauteous Greece,

Fabled young love an everlasting boy,

That held of nature an eternal lease

Of childhood, beauty, innocence, and joy;

 

A bow he had, a preaty childish toy,

That would not terrify his mother’s sparrows,

And ‘twas his favourite play to sport his arrows,

Light as the glances of a wood-nymph coy.

 

O happy error!   Musical conceit,

Of old idolatry, and youthful time!

Fit emanation of a happy clime,

 

Where but to live, to breathe, to be, was sweet,

And Love, tho’ even then a little cheat,

Dream’d not his craft would e’er be call’d a crime
Junge Liebe

 

Der Griechen Ideal, die größte Huld,

das legendäre immerjunge Kind,

das glücklich von Natur, dem ewig sind

die Jugend, Schönheit, Freuden ohne Schuld.

 

Er spielt, sein Flitzebogen ist noch neu

und kann der Mutter Vögel nicht erschrecken.

Den Pfeil zu testen ist sein liebstes Stecken,

wie einer Nymphe Blick, so flink und scheu.

 

O schöner Irrtum! Musische Idee

vom alten Ideal der Jugendzeit,

von einer heitren Landschaft inspiriert,

 

wo's frei zu atmen ist und mild wie je,

und Liebe ihren Schwindel nicht bereit

sich zu gestehn, der Sünde mit sich führt.

 

A Premature Old Bachelor,

He Congratulates A Bridegroom.

 

To a newly-married friend

 

How shall a man fordoomed to lone estate,

Untimely old, irreverendly gray,

Much like a patch of dusky snow in May,

Dead sleeping in a hollow, all too late, -

 

How shall so poor a thing congratulate

The best completion of a patient wooing,

Or how commend a younger man for doing

What ne’er to do hath been his fault, or fate?

 

There is a fable, that I once did read,

Of a bad angel that was someway good,

And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood,

 

Looking each way, and no way could proceed;

Till at the last he purged away his sin,

By loving all the joy he saw within.

 

 

 

Ein überreifer Junggeselle

gratuliert einem Bräutigam

 

An einen frisch vermählten Freund

Wie soll ein Mann, zur Einsamkeit verdammt,
zu früh gealtert, vor der Zeit ergraut,
der, wie ein Flecken Restschnee, angetaut
den Mai verschläft, zu spät dran insgesamt, -

wie soll so’n armer Kerl dir gratulieren
zum Erfolg der langen Werbungsmühen,
für Dinge eine Lobesrede führen,
die ihm, warum weiß Gott, selbst nie passieren?

Als ob ein Engel, dessen Mut dahin war,
der bitter einst am Rand des Himmels stand,
lang jeden Weg betrachtend, jeden Ort,

für sich doch keine Straße gangbar fand.
Doch schließlich wusch er seine Sünde fort,
weil er die Freude liebte, die darin war.

 

 

The Man, whose lady-love is virgin Truth

Must woo a lady that is hard to win:

She smiles not on the wild and wordy din

Of all-confiding, all-rotesting Youth;

 

The Sceptic’s apathy, the garb uncouth,

And Cynic sneer of o’er-experienced Sin,

The Serpent, writhing in its worn-out skin,

Craving again to flesh its sated tooth,

 

She quite abhors.   She is not fond, nor coy –

Self-seeking love, and self-appraising scorn,

She knows not.   She hath utterly forsworn

 

Her worldly dower of wealth, and pride, and joy –

Her very beauty none but they discover,

Who for herself, not for her beauty, love her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wählt jemand sich zur Frau die wahre Tugend

wird diese schwierig zu gewinnen sein.
Kein Lächeln gibt sie ihm für Schmeicheleien
der ungestümen siegessichren Jugend.

Der Skeptiker, bei jeder auf der Hut,
von viel Erfahrung süffisant erzählt.
Die Schlange, die sich wieder frisch geschält,
die immer Fleisch begehrt und süßes Blut

verachtet sie. - Sie ist nicht kess, nicht prüde,
nicht selbstverliebt und auch nicht überheblich.
Sie ist nur dieser Erdendinge müde,
sieht Reichtum oder Stolz an als vergeblich.

Es gilt ihr ihre Schönheit nichts, doch gibt
sich dem, der sie um ihretwillen liebt.

 

I loved thee once, when every thought of mine

Was hope and joy, - and now I love thee still,

In sorrow and despair:- a hopeless will

From its lone purpose never can decline.

 

I did not choose thee for my Valentine

By the blind omen of a merry season, -

‘Twas not thy smile that brib’d my partial reason,

Tho’ never maiden’s smile was good as thine: -

 

Nor did I to thy goodness wed my heart,

Dreaming of soft delights and honied kisses,

Although thou wert complete in every part,

 

A stainless paradise of holy blisses:

I loved thee for the lovely soul thou art, -

Thou canst not change so true a love as this is.

 

 

 

 

Ich liebte dich, als ich voll Hoffnung war

Und Freude. Meine Liebe ist von Dauer,

Auch heute in Verzweifelung und Trauer;

Ein einsamer Entschluß, so fest wie klar.

 

Du sollst mir nicht nur eine Liebschaft sein,

Die sich in einem Frühlingsrausch verliert.

Dein Lächeln hatte mich nicht korumpiert,

Ist auch kein Mädchenlächeln gut wie deins,

 

Noch hatte ich mich deiner Güte binden müssen,

Sanft schwelgend nur in deinen süßen Küssen,

Obwohl du all dies an dir hast, gewiß:

 

Ein heiles, unbeflecktes Paradies.

Ich lieb dich für die Seele, die du bist.

Es änders sich kein Lieben, rein wie dies.

 

 

Youth, love, and mirth, what are they but the portion

Wherewith the Prodigal left his Father’s home,

Through foreign lands in search of bliss to roam,

And find each seeming joy a mere abortion,

 

And every smile, an agonised distortion

Of pale Repentance’ face, and barren womb?

Youth, love, and mirth! too quickly they consume

Their passive substance, and their small proportion

 

Of fleeting life, in memory’s backward viev,

Still dwindless to a point, a twinkling star,

Long gleaming o’er the onward course of Being,

 

That tells us whence we came, and where we are,

And tells us too, how swiftly we are fleeinf

From all we were and loved, when life was new.

 

 

 

Der verlorene Sohn

 

Jugend, Liebe, Freud das Erbteil sind,

Mit dem der Sohn verließ das Vaterhaus,

Sein Glück zu suchen, in die Welt hinaus,

Und sieht, daß jede Freude bald zerrinnt.

 

Und jedes Lächeln ist gequält, verzerrt

Von schaler Reue und fruchtlosem Bauch.

Die Jugend, Liebe, Freude: schnell verbraucht

Sind träger Inhalt, Formen ohne Wert

 

Des flüchtgen Lebens. In der Rückschau find’

Man einen Punkt, den hellen Stern,

Der lange auf den Weg des Lebens schien,

 

Der uns erzählen könnte, wer wir sind

Und auch erzählt, wovon wir eilig fliehn –

Bedingungslos hat uns die Heimat gern.

 

 

How long I sail’d, and never took a thought

To what port I was bound!   Secure as sleep,

I dwelt upon the bosom of the deep

And perilous sea.   And though my ship was fraught

 

With rare and precious fancies, jewels brought

From fairy-land, no course I cared to keep,

Nor changeful wind nor tide I heeded ought,

But joy’d to feel the merry billows leap,

 

And watch the sunbeams dallying with the waves;

Or haply dream what realms beneath may lie

Where the clear ocean is an emerald sky,

 

And mermaids warble in their coral caves,

Yet vainly woo me to their secret home; -

And sweet it were for ever so to roam.

 

 

 

 

 

Wie lange ich auch schon gesegelt bin,
fragt' ich doch nicht wohin. Als ob ich schlief
verweilte ich am Busen dieser tiefen,
gefährnisvollen See. Mit Phantasien

beladen war mein Schiff, Juwelen bringend
vom Feenland, ich keine Pläne machte.
ich weder Wind noch Tidenhub beachte,
nur schauend, wie die lustgen Wellen springen.

Ich seh die Sonne auf dem Wasser flimmern
und kann in frohen Träumen Reiche schauen,
wo meine See gleicht dem smaragdnen Himmel.

In ihren Grotten singen Meerjungfrauen
mir ihr Geheimstes noch anzuvertrauen.
Ach, süß war's so umherzuschweifen immer.

 

 

 

Once I was young, and fancy was my all

My love, my joy, my grief, my hope, my fear,

And ever ready as an infant’s tear,

Whate’er in Fancy’s kingdom might befall,

 

Some quaint device had Fancy still at call,

With seemly verse to greet the coming cheer.

Such grief to soothe, such airy hope to rear,

To sing the birth-song, or the funeral

 

Of such light love, it was a pleasant task;

But ill accord the quirks of wayward glee,

That wears affliction for a wanton mask,

 

With woes that bear not Fancy’s livery;

With Hope that scorns of Fate its fate to ask,

But is itself its own sure destiny.

 

 

 

Als ich jung war

Die Phantasie mein Ein und Alles war:
Die Liebe, Freude, Gram, mein scheues Wähnen
war alles echt, wie eines Kleinkinds Tränen,
was auch im Reich der Phantasie geschah;

Und manchen Einfall Phantasie nur traf
um mit dem Vers nach Beifall auszuschauen,
den Gram zu lindern, Hoffnung aufzubauen.
Zu singen Wiegenlied und Epitaph,

solch leichter Liebe war mir leicht zu tragen.
Doch Übles Launenhaftigkeit bewirkt,
will sie mit ihrer Trauermaske werben,

mit Leid, das keine Phantasie verbirgt,
und hofft des Schicksals Gleichmut zu befragen,
doch ist sich selbst ihr sicheres Verderben.

 
On a Picture of the Corpse of Napoleon
Lying in State

 

Lo! there he lies.  Is Death no more than this?

Is this the worst that mighty mortal can

Inflict upon his fellow?   Could the man –

The strongest arm of angry Nemesis, -

 

The rod that routed hosts were fain to kiss,

Whom failing Faith afar with terror eyed,

And Atheism madly deified –

Could he with all his wars and policies

 

Effect but this?   To antedate a year

That cold unfeeling calm, that even now

Blanks the dark meaning of that deep-lined brow,

 

And from the loose lip half uncurls the sneer?

If such be Death, o man, then what art thou,

That for the fear of Death would’st live in fear?

 

 

 

Auf ein Bild von Napoleons

feierlich aufgebahrtem Leichnam

Dort liegt er. - Ist der Tod nicht mehr als dies? -
War dies das Ärgste, was er antum kann
dem eignen Knecht? - Nein, könnte dieser Mann,
- der stärkste Arm der strengen Nemesis -

Das Todeszepter hat er gern geküsst;
Gottlosigkeit macht ihn zu dem Tyrann;
Er betet nur den Atheismus an -
Kann der, nach Krieg und aller Hinterlist,

denn anders wirken, wenn wir rückwärts schauen?
Wenn uns die kalt-fühllose Ruhe schon
verblüfft, die dunkle tiefgezogne Braue,

die lose Lippe, leicht umspielt von Hohn;
wenn dieser starb, o Mensch, was bist du dann,
der todesfürchtig lebt im Todesbann?

 
To Wordsworth

 

There have been poets that in verse display

The elemental forms of human passion:

Poets have been, to whom the fickle fashions

And all the wilful humours of the day

 

Have furnish’d matter for a polish’d lay:

And many are the smooth elaborate tribe

Who, emulous of thee, the shape describe,

And fain would every shifting hue portray

 

Of restless Nature.   But, thou mighty Seer!

‘T is thine to celebrate the thoughts that make

The life of souls, the truths for whose sweet sake

 

We to ourselves and to our God are dear.

Of Nature’s inner shrine thou art the priest,

Where most she works when we perceive her least.

 

 

 

An Wordsworth

Es gab Poeten, deren Vers erschien
als klarer Ausdruck menschlicher Passion.
Poeten gab's, die fanden ihren Ton
in ihrer Zeit, und jeder schräge Spleen

hat ihnen Stoff geliefert für ein Lied.
Und viele von der künstlerischen Gilde
sind dir gefolgt und formten ihr Gebilde,
daß man die fein schattierten Farben sieht

der rastlosen Natur. - Doch, großer Seher!
Der feierliche Akt gebührt dir eher.
Der Seelen Wahrheit tatest du uns kund,
um deretwillen Gott uns lieb hat und
du bist der Priester am Naturaltar:
Sie schuf, wo sie am unscheinbarsten war.

To Wordsworth

 

Yes, mighty Poet, we have read thy lines,
And felt our hearts the better for the reading,
A friendly spirit, from thy soul proceeding,
Unites our souls; the light from thee that shines

Like the first break of morn, dissolves, combines
All creatures with a living flood of beauty.
For thou hast proved that purest joy is duty,
And love a foundling, that the trunk entwines

Of sternest fortitude. Oh, what must be
Thy glory here, and what the huge reward
In that blest region of thy poesy?

For long as man exist, immortal Bard,
Friends, husbands, wives, in sadness or in glee,
Shall love each other more for loving thee.

 

 

 

To Wordsworth

 

And those whose lot may never be to meet
Kin souls confined in bodies sever'd far,
As if thy Genius were a potent star,
Ruling their life at solemn hours and sweet

Of secret sympathy, do they not greet
Each other kindly, when the deep full line
Hath ravish'd both - high as the haunt divine
And presence of celestial Paraclete?

Three thousand years have pass'd since Homer spake,
And many thousand hearts have bless'd his name,
And yet I love them all for Homer's sake,

Child, woman, man, that e'er have felt his flame;
And thine, great Poet, is like power to bind
In love far distant ages of mankind.


April 24 - 27, 1842

 

 

 

 
On Parting with a very Pretty, but very Little Lady

 

‘T is ever thus.   We only meet on earth

That we may know how sad it is to part:

And sad indeed it were, if, in the heart,

There were no store reserved against a dearth,

 

No calm Elysium for departed Mirth,

Haunted by gentle shadows of past Pleasure:

Where the sweet folly, the light-footed measure,

And graver triftles of the shining hearth

 

Live in their own dear image.   Lady fair,

Thy presence in our little vale has been

A visitation of the Fairy Queen,

 

Who for brief space reveals her beauty rare,

And shows her tricksy feats to mortal eyes,

Then fades into her viewless Paradise.

 

 

 

 

Beim Abschied von einer sehr hübschen,
sehr kleinen Lady
 
So ist es. Trifft man sich auf seinen Wegen,
ist immer schon der Abschiedsschmerz bewußt.
Und er wird schwer, dem, der in seiner Brust
versäumt, sich einen Vorrat anzulegen.
 
In kein Elysium die Freuden zieh'n,
als sanfte Schemen des vergang'nen Glücks;
der neckisch leichte Schritt, der so berückt,
der feierliche Blick in den Kamin;
 
sie leben nur in ihrem eignen Bild.
Daß du in unsrem Tal geweilt hast, war
wie ein Besuch der Feenkönigin,
 
die nur befristet ihren Eigensinn
und Zauber uns zu offenbar'n gewillt,
zur Anderswelt entschwindet, unsichtbar.

Whither – Oh – whither, in the wandering air

Fly the sweet notes that ‘twixt the soul and sense

Make blest communion?   When and where commence

The self-unfolding sounds, that every where

 

Expand through silence?  seems that never were

A point and instant of that sound’s beginning,

A time when it was not as sweet and winning,

As now it melts amid the soft and rare

 

And love-sick ether?   Gone it is – that tone

Hath pass’d for ever from the middle earth;

Yet not to perish in the music flown –

 

Ah no! – it hastens to a better birth!

Then joy be with it; - wheresoe’er it be,

To us it leaves a pleasant memory.

 

 

 

 

Wohin entflieht in diesem Wechselwind
die Note, die bewirkt die Kommunion
von Seele und Gemüt? - Wann und wo beginnt
sich zu entfalten dieser erste Ton,
 
der jede Stille füllt? Es scheint, nie war
er nur ein Punkt, von Anbeginn
den Raum durchmessend, den er ganz gewinnt,
mit ihm verschmolzen, dennoch zart und klar
 
im liebe-vollen Äther. - Bald verklungen,
für immer schwindet die Musik von hier.
Nur nicht im Abklang nun zugrunde gehen, -
 
Oh nein! weit voller wird sie neu erstehen,
und Freude sei dann allezeit mit ihr.
Uns hinterläßt sie die Erinnerungen.

Love is but folly, - since the wisest love

Itself disclaiming, would invent a use

For its free motion. – penitents recluse,

That scarce allow the natural heart to move,

 

With amorous ditties woo the mystic dove,

Or fondly bid their heavenly Spouse unloose

Their sacred zones. – The politic excuse

Of worldlings would to wourdly ends improve

 

The gentle madness. – Courtiers glibly preach

How Love and Woman best rehearse the play

That statesmen act. – The grave fine-spoken leech

 

Counts how the beatings of the pulse betray

The sweet disease. – And all the poets teach

That love alone can build the lofty lay

 

 

 

 

Die Liebe ist nur Narretei, - sie streitet
ja selbst den Nutzen ab, wo sie sich regt. -
Der Einsiedler bereut, wenn's sich bewegt
im Herzen, wenn ihn das Gefühl verleitet,
 
die Taube süß ihr Liebeslied parliert
und zärtlich um den Himmelsgatten freit.
Dagegen die politische verzeiht
und meint, das Weltkind würde bald kuriert
 
von seinem sanften Wahn. Der Höfling lobt
die Frauen und das Liebesspiel: Es probt
den Takt der Diplomaten; jener späht,

 

was wohl die Zahl der Pulsschläge verrät
über die Krankheit - doch der Dichter sieht:
allein die Liebe singt das Hohelied.

Youth, thou art fled, - but where are all the charms

Which, tho’ with thee they came, and pass’d with thee,

Should leave a perfume and sweet memory

Of what they have been? – All thy boons and harms

 

Have perish’d quite. – Thy oft-renew’d alarms

Forsake the fluttering echo. – Smiles and tears

Die on my cheek, or, petrified with years,

Shew the dull woe which no compassion warms,

 

The mirth none shares.   Yet could a with, a thought,

Unravel all the complex web of age, -

Could all the characters that Time hath wrought

 

Be clean effaced from my memorial page

By one short word, the word I would not say: -

I thank my God, because my hairs are grey.

 

 

 

 

Jugend, du bist fort. Wo ist dein Charm,
der mit dir kam? Soll die Erinn'rung fliehen,
wie zarte Düfte mit den Winden ziehen?
Wo ist nun all dein Glück und all dein Harm?

Sie sind vergangen. Schlägst du heut Alarm,
verhallt das Echo. Trauer, Fröhlichkeit
ersterben auf den Wangen mit der Zeit.
Der Schmerz ist dumpf, das Mitleid nur lauwarm,

die Freude ungeteilt. Vermutlich kann
ein Wort entwirren das Gespinst der Jahre,
die Rollen, die das Alter mir ersann

und wischte die Erinnerungen fort
mit einem kleinen ungesagten Wort:
Ich danke Gott für die ergrauten Haare.

I thank my God because my hairs are grey!

But have gray hairs brought wisdom? Doth the flight

Of summer birds, departed while the light

Of life is lingering on the middle way,

 

Predict the harvest nearer by a day?

Will the rank weeds of hopeless appetite

Droop at the glance and venom of the blight

That made the vermeil bloom, the flush so gay,

 

Dim and unlovely as a dead worm’s shroud?

Or is my heart, that, wanting hope, has lost

The strenght and rudder of resolve, at peace?

 

Is it no longer wrathful, vain, and proud?

Is it a Sabbath, or untimely frost,

That makes the labour of the soul to cease?

 

 

 

 

 

Ich danke Gott für meine grauen Haare!
Doch machten mich die grauen Haare klug?
Erzählte mir der Sommervögel Flug,
die tiefe Sonne meiner besten Jahre,

daß nun die Zeit der Ernte näher rückt?
Wird nicht das Kraut, die hoffnungslosen Ranken,
bald welken und am Gift des Mehltaus kranken,
der all den Blumen und dem Rausch des Glücks

sich überwirft, ganz wie ein Leichentuch?
Ist diesem Herz, das Hoffnung braucht, statt Fluch
des Zweifels nun der Friede zugelost?

Entbehrt nun Wut und Stolz mein neues Leben?
Ist es ein Sabath oder früher Frost,
der meine Seele heißt, bald aufzugeben?

It must be so, my infant love must find

In my own breast a cradle and a grave;

Like a rich jewel hid beneath the wave,

Or rebel spirit bound within the rind

 

Of some old wreathed oak, or fast enshrined

In the cold durance of an echoing cave: -

Yea, better thus than cold disdain to brave; -

Or worse, - to taint the quiet of that mind,

 

That decks its temple with unearthly grace.

Together must we dwell, my dream and I, -

Unknown must live, and unlamented die,

 

Rather than soil the lustre of that face,

Or drive that laughing dimple from its place,

Or heave that white breast with a painful sigh.

 

 

 

 

So sei's denn. Meine Liebe, so naiv,

muß in mir selber Grab und Wiege finden;

wie ein Juwel am Meeresboden tief,

ein starker Geist gebunden in der Rinde

 

von knorrig alten Eichen oder immer

entrückt in einer kalten Grotte Haft,

sich der Verachtung zu entzieh'n - nein schlimmer,

dem Ansturm jener unheilvollen Kraft

 

des Geistes stille Anmut zu verderben.

Gemeinsam wohnen wir, mein Traum und ich,

verkannt zu leben, unbeklagt zu sterben,

 

statt zu beflecken allen Glanz des Schönen,
daß jedes Lächeln flieht aus dem Gesicht,
dem Busen zu entringen schweres Stöhnen.

From Country to Town

Written in Leeds, July 1832

 

I left the land where men with Nature dwelling,

Know not how much they love her lovely forms, -

Nor heed the history of forgotten storms,

On the blank folds inscribed of drear Helvellyn;

 

I sought the town, where toiling, buying, selling –

Getting and splending, poising hope and fear,

Make but one season of the live-long year.

Now for the brook from moss-girt fountain welling,

 

I see the foul stream hot with sleepless trade

For the slow creeping vapours of the morn,

Black hurrying smoke, in opake mass up-borne,

 

O’er dinning engines hangs, a stifling shade: -

Yet Nature lives e’en here, and will not part

From her best home, the lowly-loving heart.

 

 

Continued

 

‘T is strange to me, who long have seen no face,

That was not like a book, whose every page

I knew by heart, a kindly commonplace,

And faithful record of progressive age, -

 

To wander forth, and view an unknown race;

Of all that I have been, to find no trace,

No footstep of my by-gone pilgrimage.

Thousands I pass, and no one stays his pace

 

To tell me that the day is fair, or rainy;

Each one his object seeks with anxious chase,

And I have not a common hope with any:

 

Thus like one drop of oil upon a flood,

In uncommunicating solitude,

Single am I amid the countless many.

 

 

 

 

Vom Lande in die Stadt
geschrieben in Leeds im Juli 1832

Dort war Natur, die Menschen mittendrin,
nicht wissend, wie sie liebten ihre Formen,
nicht achtend die Geschichte früher Stürme,
die das Profil geprägt des Helvellyn.

Ich ging, um in der Stadt mich zu verdingen,
zu handeln und zu arbeiten für Bares,
statt Hoffnung, Furcht im Wechselspiel des Jahres.
Statt Quellen, die dort moosumsäumt entspringen,

fault hier der heiße Strom schlaflosen Handels.
Ein zäher Dunst kriecht morgens himmelwärts,
ein schwarzer Rauch, der massenhaft geboren

von den erstickend lärmenden Motoren.
Doch die Natur lebt ewig, bleibt verbandelt
mit ihrer Heimat: einem lieben Herzen.

 

 

Zum gleichen Thema

 

Es ist mir fremd, der nie sah ein Gesicht,

das nicht war wie ein Buch und dessen Seiten

mein Herz gekannt als Selbstverständlichkeiten

in dem die Zeit führt treulichen Bericht,

 

nun diesen unbekannten Weg zu sehen,

den eigenen, dort wo er angefangen,

kein Schritt mehr sichtbar, den ich einst gegangen.

Dort gehn so viele, niemand bleibt mehr stehen

 

und sagt, der Tag ist trübe oder mild;

ein jeder jagt nur nach dem eignen Bild,

mit niemand eine Zuversicht gemein:

 

so wie ein Tropfen Oel auf weiter Flut

in Unteilbaren Einsamkeiten ruht,

inmitten dieser Menge doch allein.

 

It were a state too terrible for man,

Too terrible and strange, and most unmeer,

To look into himself, his state to scan,

And find no precedent, no chart, or plan,

 

But think himself an embryo incomplete,

Or else a remnant of a world effete,

Some by-blow of the universal Pan,

Great Nature's waif, that must by law escheat

 

To the liege-lord Corruption. Sad the case

Of man, who knows not wherefore he was made;

But he that knows the limits of his race

 

Not runs, but flies, with prosperous winds to aid;

Or if he limps, he knows his path was trod

By saints of old, who knew their way to God.

 

 

 

 
If I have sinn’d in act, I may repent;

If I have err’d in thought, I may disclaim

My silent error, and yet feel no shame:

But if my soul, big with an ill intent,

 

Guilty in will, by fate be innocent,

Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse

And incapacity of being worse,

That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent

 

In keen expectance of a Carnival;

Where, in all worlds, that round the sun revolve

And shed their influence on this passive ball,

 

Abides a power that can my soul absolve?

Could any sin survive, and be forgiven,

One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.

 

 

 

Bei schlimmer Tat genügt die Reue schon.

Bei Irrtum reicht es schon zurückzunehmen

den stillen Fehler, um sich nicht zu schämen.

Wenn auf dem Geist mit kranker Intension

 

jedoch alleine böse Willen lasten,

der Geist auf diesem Kurs beharrt und immer

nur klagt, daß er es nicht vermag noch schlimmer,

dann wär's an meiner Leidenschaft zu fasten,

 

erwartend einen langen Carneval.

Wo in den sonnenumlaufenden Welten,

die Einfluß haben auch auf diesen Ball,

blieb eine Kraft, die Seele freizusprechen?

Kann jede Sünde als verzeihlich gelten,

wird sie den Himmel bald zur Hölle machen.

Why should I murmur at my lot forlorn?

The self-same Fate that doom’d me to be poor

Endures me with a spirit to endure

All, and much more, than is or has been borne

 

By better men, of want, or worldly scorn.

My soul has faith, my body has the nerve

To brave the penance that my sins deserve.

And yet my helpless state I deeply mourn:

 

Well could I bear to be deserted quite, -

Less should I blame my fortune were it worse; -

But taking all, it yet hath left me friends,

 

For whom I needs must mourn the wayward spite

That hides my purpose in an empty purse,

Since what I grateful wish, in wishing ends.

 

 

 

 

 

Warum soll ich beklagen, was verloren?
Das selbe Los, das mich mit Armut schlägt,
befähigt meinen Geist, daß er sie trägt,
und mehr als alle, die jemals geboren,
als bessrer Menschen Wünsche oder Plage.
Der Geist hat Zutrau'n und der Körper Nerven,
sich rechter Buße so zu unterwerfen.
Doch heute meine Ohnmacht ich beklage.
 
Leb ich um nach Gesellschaft nur zu haschen?
Ich rügte nie mein Los, doch wurd es schlimmer:
Es raubte mir die besten Freunde immer.
 
Verläßlich war mir dieses Schicksal kaum,
und jeder Wunsch versank in leeren Taschen.
Was ich mir groß erträumte, blieb ein Traum.
What is young Passion but a gusty breeze

Ruffling the surface of a shallow flood?

A vernal motion of the vital blood,

That sweetly gushes from a heart at ease,

 

As sugar’d sap in spicy-budding trees?

And tho’ a wish be born with every morrow,

And fondest dreams full oft are types of sorrow,

Eyes that can smile may weep just when they please.

 

But adult Passion, centred far within,

Hid from the moment’s venom and its balm,

Works with the fell inherency of sin,

 

Nor feels the joy of morn, nor evening calm:

For morn nor eve can change that fiery gloom

That glares within the spirit’s living tomb.

 

 

 

 

Ist junge Liebe nicht blos eine Brise,
die lau den Spiegel kräuselt seichter Flut?
Ein Lenzerwachen im lebendgen Blut,
das zärtlich aus noch leichten Herzen fließt?
 
Wie Nektar in den duftend blüh'nden Bäumen,
und solch ein Wunsch geboren jeden Morgen,
mit Augen, die beim Lächeln weinen, sorgend
um all zu vieles in den sanften Träumen?
 
Gereifte Leidenschaft ruht ganz in sich,
vor der Momente Glück und Gift verborgen,
und tötet längsam durch der Sünde Duft.
 
Sie fühlt nicht Nachtruh, noch den heitren Morgen.
Bei Tag und Nacht gleißt unabänderlich
ihr Geist im Leib als einer Feuergruft.
To the Memory of Canning

 

Early, but not untimly, Heaven recall’d

To perfect bliss, thy pure, enlighten’d mind;

And tho’ the new born freedom of mankind

Is sick of fear to be again enthrall’d,

 

Since thou art gone; and this fair island, wall’d

With the impregnable, unmaster’d sea,

Mourns with a wido’s grief for loss of thee, -

Should we repine, as if thou wert install’d

 

In Heaven too soon?   Nay, I will shed no tear.

Thy work is done.   It was enough for thee

To own the glorious might of Liberty,

 

And cast away the bondage and the fear

Of rotten custom; so the hope, which Fate

Snatch’d from thy life, thy Fame shall consummate.

 

 

 

 

Im Andenken an George Canning

 

Der Himmel dich beizeiten wiederfand

in seinen Freuden, deinen wachen Geist.

Die neugeborne Freiheit, wie es heißt,

ist krank vor Furcht, daß man sie wieder bannt,

 

seitdem du gingst; Bewehrt die Insel jetzt,

von unbeherrschter See wie eingemauert,

wie eine Witwe den Verlust betrauert.

Soll man, da du dem Himmel eingesetzt

 

nun klagen? Ich vergieße keine Träne.

Du hast dein Werk getan. Es war genug,

dich voller Freiheit teilhaftig zu wähnen

 

und unsrer Furcht die Fesseln zu entwenden

von faulem Brauch. Das Schicksal fügt sich klug;

Dein Leben soll im Nachruhm sich vollenden.

Who is the Poet?

 

Who is the poet?   Who the man whose lines

Live in the souls of men like household words?

Whose thought, spontaneous as the song of birds,

With eldest truth coeval, still combines

 

With each day’s product, and like morning shines,

Exempt from age? ‘Tis he, and only he,

Who knows that Truth is free, and only free;

That Virtue, acting in the strict confines

 

Of positive law, instructs the infant spirit

In its best strength, and proves its mere demerit

Rooted in earth, yet tending to the sky:

 

With patient hope surveys the narrow bound,

Culls every flower that loves the lowly ground,

And fraught with sweetness, wings her way on high.

 

 

 

 

Wer ist Poet?

 

Wer ist Poet? Der einen Vers erfunden,

der sprichworthaft im Volke widerklang?

Dem die Idee spontan wie Vogelsang

mit alter Menschenweisheit gleich verbunden

 

sein Tagewerk, das alterslos wie jetzt

und immerdar der helle Morgenschein?

Der seine Freiheit kennt, der wird es sein!

und sie in selbstgesteckte Grenzen setzt,

 

der dadurch Tugend und den Geist belebt,

der seine Kraft auf eigne Fehler lenkt,

der wurzelnd in der Welt zum Himmel strebt,

 

geduldig überschaut, was ihn beengt,

der Blüten pflückt, Geliebte dieser Erde,

daß ihnen leicht ein Weg zum Himmel werde.

 

 

Isaiah XLVI. V. 9

 

When I consider all the things that were,

And count them upwards from the generel flood, -

The tricks of fraud, and violent deeds of blood,

Weigh down the heart with sullen, deep despair.

 

I well believe that Satan, Prince of Air,

Torments to ill the pleasurable feeling;

But ever and anon, a breeze of healing

Proclaims that God is always everywhere.

 

‘Twas hard to see him in the days of old,

And harder still to see our God to-day;

For prayer is slack, and love, alas! is cold,

 

And Faith, a wanderer, weak and wide astray:

Who hath the faith, the courage, to behold

God in the judgments that have passed away?

 
Jesaja 46;9
 
Wenn ich zusammenzähle all das Neue,
was so geschehn ist seit der großen Flut;
die Arglist, und die Zwietracht bis aufs Blut,
und abzieh' die Verzweiflung und die Reue,
 
glaub ich, daß Satan, Prinz im Weltenall
uns mit Vergnügen täglich martern ließe.
Doch allezeit weht eine milde Brise,
verkündend Gottes Herrschaft überall.
 
So schwer zu sehen war er für die Alten,
und schwerer sieht man ihn in unsrer Zeit,
wo das Gebet schlaff, Liebe am erkalten,
 
Der Glaube kraftlos, kam vom Weg ab weit.
Wer mag sich heute noch so gläubig nennen
um Gott in seinem Ratschluß zu erkennen. 

Faith

 

How much thy Holy Name hath been misured,

Beginner of all good, all-mighty Faith!

Some men thy blesséd symbols have abused,

Making them badge or secret Shibboleth

 

For greed accepted, or for spite refused,

Or just endured for fear of pain or death.

To some, by fearful conscience self-accused,

Thou com’st a goblin self, a hideous wraith.

 

With such as these thou art an inward strife,

A shame, a misery, and a death in life,

A self-asserting, self-disputing lie;

 

A thing to unbelief so near allied,

That it would gladly be a suicide,

And only lives because it dare not die.

 

 
Glaube

 

Dein heil’ger Name wird so oft beschmutzt,

Mein Glaube, aus dem Gutes nur entsteht.

Von manchen wird dein Zeichen falsch genutzt,

Als Markenzeichen oder Schibboleth,

 

Aus Habgier und aus Angst vorm bösen Blick,

Um leichter an der Furcht vorm Tod zu tragen,

Und manchen, die sich ängstlich selbst beklagen,

Sitzt du als Kobold ständig im Genick.

 

Mit solchen liegst du innerlich im Streit;

Bist Schande, Elend, ein lebendger Tod,

Selbst für- und widerspechender Betrug,

 

Ein fernes Ding, dem Zweifel nah genug,

Das feierlich mit seinem Selbstmord droht

Und nur noch lebt, weil es das Sterben scheut.

 

 

Believe and Pray

 

Believe and Pray.   Who can believe and pray

Shall never fail nor falter, though the fate

Of his abode, or geniture, or date,

With charms beguile, or threats obstruct his way.

 

For free is Faith, and potent to obey,

And Love, content in patient prayer to wait,

Like the poor cripple at the Beautiful Gate,

Shall be relieved on some miraculous day.

 

Lord, I believe! – Lord, help mine unbelief!

If I could pray, I know that Thou would’st hear;

Well were it though my faith were only grief,

 

And I could pray but with a contrite tear.

But none can pray whose wish is not Thy will,

And none believe who are not with Thee still.

 

 

 

Vertraue und Bete

 

Vertrau' und bete. - Der, der glauben kann,

soll immer standhaft bleiben, ungebrochen.

Wenn auch die Herkunft, Wohnort und Epoche

mit Reizen täuscht, den weg vernebeln kann.

 

Stark dir zu folgen ist, wer glauben mag,

bereit die Liebe, im Gebet zu warten,

Wie Lahme vor dem Tor zu Edens Garten

und wird erhört an wunderbarem Tag.

 

Ich glaube, Herr! Zerstreu Ungläubigkeit!

Ich weiß, ich werd als Beter angehört.

Ich glaube recht, befleckt mein Glaub' auch Leid

weil dem Gebet die Träne zugehört.

 

Doch niemand betet, dessenj Wunsch nicht gut;

und niemand glaubt, der nicht schon in dir ruht.

 

The vale of Tempe had in vain been fair,
Green Ida never deem'd the nurse of Jove;
Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,
Had idly murmure'd to the idle air;

The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair
In Delphi's cell, and old Trophonius' cave,
And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave
Had never blended with the sweet despair

Of Sappho's death-song, if the sight inspired
Saw only what the visual organs shew,
If heaven-born phantasy no more required,
Than what within the sphere of sense may grow:

The beauty to perceive of earthly things,
The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.

 

 

 
The Use of a Poet

 

A Thousand thoughts were stirring in my mind,

That strove in vain to fashion utterance meet,

And each the other cross’d – swift as a fleet

Of April clouds, perplex’d by gusts of wind,

 

That veer, and veer, around, before, behind.

Now History pointed to the custom’d beat,

Now Fancy’s clue unravelling, led their feet

Through mazes manifold, and quaintly twined.

 

So were they straying – so had ever stray’d;

Had not the wiser poets of the past

The vivid chart of human life display’d,

 

And taught the laws that regulate the blast,

Wedding wild impulse to calm forms of beauty,

And making peace ‘twixt libety and duty.

 

 

Vom Nutzen eines Poeten

 

Tausend Ideen durchwühlen meinen Geist

Vergeblich, Stil und Ausdruck zu verbinden.

Sie kreuzuen sich wie Wolken in den Winden,

Wo beide eine Brise bald zerreißt,

 

Die sich verwirbelt, vorströmt und zurück.

Geschichte läuft so, wie am ersten Tag.

Nun Phantasie die Spur erkennen mag,

In Labyrinthen, merkwürdig verstrickt.

 

So irrten sie herum – und alle irrten,

Hätten denn die Dichter nicht

Die Karte, mit der sie den Weg entwirrten.

 

Sie lehrten, wie man bändigt diese Böen,

Vermählten Drang und Anmut, wild und schön,

Befriedend unsre Freiheit mit der Pflicht.

 

 

To S. T. Coleridge

 

If when thou wert a living man, my sire,

I shrank unequal from the task to praise

The ripening worth of thy successive days,

What shall I do since that imputed fire,

 

Extinct its earthly aliment, doth aspire,

Purged from the passionate subject of all lays,

From all that fancy fashions and obeys,

Beyond the argument of mortal lyre?

 

If while a militant and suffering saint,

Thou walk'dst the earth in penury and pain,

Thy great Idea was too high a strain

 

For my infirmity, how shall I dare

Thy perfect and immortal self to paint?

Less awful task to 'draw empyreal air'.

 

 

 

Oh! my dear mother, art thou still awake?

Or art thou sleeping on thy Maker's arm, -

waiting in slumber for the shrill alarm

Ordain'd to give the world its final shake?

 

Art thou with 'interlunar night' opaque

Clad like a worm while waiting for its wings;

Or doth the shadow of departed things

Dwell on thy soul as on a breezeless lake!

 

Oh! would that I could see thee in thy heaven

For one brief hour, and know i was forgiven

For all the pain and doubt and rankling shame

 

Which i have caused to make thee weep or sigh.

Bootless the wish! for where thou art on high,

Sin casts no shadow, sorrow hath no name.

 

 

 

Hast thou not seen an aged rifted tower,
Meet habitation for the Ghost of Time,
Where fearful ravage makes decay sublime,
And destitution wears the face of power?

Yet is the fabric deck'd with many a flower
Of fragance wild, and many-dappled hue,
Gold streak'd with iron-brown and nodding blue,
Making each ruinous chink a fairy bower.

E'en such a thing methinks I fain would be,
Should Heaven appoint me to a lengthe'd age;
So old in look, that Young and Old may see

The record of my closing pilgrimage:
Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing
To which young sweetness may delight to cling!

 

 

Pains I have known, that cannot be again,
And pleasures too that never can be more:
For loss of pleasure I was never sore,
But worse, far worse it is, to feel no pain.

The throes and agonies of a heart explain
Its very depth of want at inmost core;
Prove that it does believe, and would adore,
And doth with ill for ever strive and strain.

I not lament for happy childish years,
For loves departed, that have had their day,
Or hopes that faded when my head was grey;

For death hath left me last of my compeers:
But for the pain I felt, the gushing tears
I used to shed whed I had gone astray.

 

 

 

When I review the course that I have run,
And count the loss of all my wasted days,
I find no argument for joy or praise
In whatsoe'er my soul hath thought or done.

I am a desert, and the kindly sun
On me hath vainly spent his fertile rays.
Then wherefore do I tune my idle lays,
Or dream that haply I may be the one

Of the vain thousands, that shall win a place
Among the Poets, - that a single rhyme
Of my poor wit's devising may find grace

To breed high memories in the womb of time?
But to confound the time the Muse I woo;
Then 'tis but just that time confound me too.

 

 

 

A lonely wanderer upon earth am I,

The waif of nature - like uprooted weed

Borne by the stream, or like a shaken reed,

A frail dependent of the fickle sky.

 

Far, far away, are all my natural kin:

The mother that erewhile hath hush'd my cry,

Almost hath grown a mere fond memory.

Where is my sister's smile? my brother's boisterous din?

 

Ah! nowhere now. A matron grave and sage,

A holy mother is that sister sweet.

And that bold brother is a pastor meet

 

To guide, instruct, reprove a sinful age,

Almost I fear, and yet I fain would greet;

So far astray hath been my pilgrimage.

 

 

How many meanings may a single sigh

Heave from the bosom; early, yet too late,

I learn'd with sighs to audit mine estate,

While yet I deem'd my hope was only shy

 

And wishing to be woo'd. Fain to descry

The little cloud I thought could never vex

My vernal season, I would still perplex

With sighs the counsel of my destiny.

 

Still it moved on, and ever larger grew,

And still I sigh'd and sigh'd - and then I panted;

For now the cloud is huge, and close to view.

 

It burst; the thunder roar'd, the sharp rain slanted, -

The tempest pass'd, and I was almost fain

To sigh forlorn, and hear the sigh again.

 

 

 

 

What is the meaning of the word 'sublime',
Utter'd full oft, and never yet explain'd?
It is a truth that cannot be contain'd?
In formal bounds of thought, in prose, or rhyme.

'Tis the Eternal struggling out of Time.
It is the man a birth-mark of his kind
That proves him kindred with immaculate mind,
The son of him that in the stainless prime

Was God's own image. Whatsoe'er creates
At once abasement, and a sense of glory,
Whate'er of sight, sound, feeling, fact, or story,

Exalts the man, and yet the self rebates,
That is the true sublime, which can confess
In weakness strength, the great in littleness.

 

 

 

'Twere surely hard to toil without an aim.
Then shall the toil of an immortal mind
Spending its strength for good od human kind
Have no reward on earth but empty fame?

Oh, say not so. 'Tis nos the echoed name,
Dear though it be - dear to the wafting wind,
That is not all the poet leaves behind,
That once has kindled an undying flame.

And what is that? It is a happy feeling
Begot by bird, or flower, or vernal bee.
'Tis aught that acts, unconsciously revealing

To mortal man his immortality.
Then think, O Poet, think how bland, how healing,
The beauty thou hast taught thy fellow men to see.

 

 

 

 

Rydal

Nigh to the mansion of a titled dame,
A charitable lady, though recluse,
Begirt with trees too reverend for use,
A village lies, and Rydal is its name.

Its natives know not what is meant by fame;
They little know how men in future time
Will venerate the spot, where prose and rhyme
Too strong for aught hut Heaven itself to tame,

Gush'd from a mighty Poet. Yet all calm,
Calm as the antique trunks whose hollow age
The woodman spares, sweet thoughts on every page

Breathe for the soul admonitory balm.
'Tis Nature teaching what she never knew;
The beautiful is good, the good is true.

 

 

 

From infancy to retrospective eld,
Year after year, we slide from day to day
Like a sleek stream, from bay to sinuous bay
Wearing the course it evermore hath held.

The crumbling banks, that have so long compell'd
The stream to wind, to haste, to strive, or stay,
Drop down at last and quite choke up the way
That once they foil'd. The river that rebell'd

Becomes a marsh, prolific of ill weeds.
Such is the life of him who streams along
A lazy course, unweeting of his deeds;

Till duty, hope, love, custom, prayers and creeds
Crumble away, and yield to helpless wrong,
That from the mere disuse of right proceeds.

 

 

 

 

To Alfred Tennyson

Long have I known thee as thou art in song,
And long enjoy'd the perfume that exhales
From thy pure soul, and odour sweet entails
And permanence, on thoughts that float along

The stream of life, to join the passive throng
Of shades and echoes that are memory's being.
Hearing we hear not, and we see not seeing,
If passion, fancy, faith move not among

The never-present moments of reflection.
Long have I view'd thee in the crystal sphere
Of verse, that, like the beryl, makes appear

Visions of hope, begot of recollection.
Knowing thee now, a real earth-treading man,
Not less I love thee, and no more i can.

 

 

 

 

To a Friend

I know too little of thee, my dear friend,
Or else too much, - for nothing less than all
Were quite enough to guide me to the end
And fatal purpose of thine earthly call.

I know thy will is stubborn as a wall
Against all acts that trespass or offend.
I know there is no sin or fault so small
Wherewith the current of thy soul would blend;

But yet I know that there is something yet
Which I know not, a burden on thy breast
No joy of earth can make thy heart forget;

The sleepless thought that will not be at rest,
That, like a wee bird struggling in the net,
Still whines and twitters of its distant nest.

April 1846

 

 

 

 

To Dr Dalton

This world so beautiful can not produce
A thing more beauteous than a head of snow,
Or smoothly bald and bright with sunny glow,
That has been busied still in things of use.

The adventurous restlessness of Scottish Bruce
Led him to trace the backward course of Nile;
But I would rather trace that serious smile,
That seems habitual to a lip, not loose,

Nor yet constrain'd; a brow not wrinkled much,
An eye not dimm'd but disciplined by age.
I could not know thee when thou wast the page

Of the young Lady Science, ere the touch
Unfelt of years had worn thy youth away;
I cannot trace thee to thy youthful day.

 

 

 

 

To Joanna Baillie

Long ere my pulse with nascent life had beat,
The ripe spring of thy early Paradide
With many a flower, and fruit, and hallow'd spice,
Was fair to fancy and to feeling sweet.

Time, that is aye reproach'd to be so fleet,
Because dear follies vanish in a trice,
Shall now be clean absolved by judjement nice,
Since his good speed made thee so soon complete.

But less I praise the bounty of old Time,
Lady revered, our Island's Tragic Queen,
For all achievements of thy hope and prime,

Than for the beauty of thine age serene,
That yet delights to weave the moral rhyme,
Nor fears what is, should dim what thou hast been.

 

 

 

 

On Reading the Memoir of miss Grizzle Baillie

Genius, what is't? A motion of the brain.
And valour is the toughness of a nerve,
And the strong virtue that will never swerve
Is but the 'lazy temperance' of a vein.

And what is pity but a twitching pain,
Seeking its own relief by pious acts?
Thus wisdom, seeking all things to explain,
Out of all good the soul of good detracts.

The simple woman that records the worth
Of the brave saints to whom she owed her birth,
Confutes a doctrine that she never knew.

For goodness, more than ever was perceived
By sense, or in the visible world achieved,
By might of mere believing, she makes true.

 

 

 

 

While I survey the long, and deep, and wide
Expanse of time, the Past with things that were
Throng'd in dark multitude; the Future bare
As the void sky when not a star beside

The thin pale moon is seen; the race that died
While yet the families of earth were rare,
And human kind had but a little share
Of the world's heritage, before me glide

All dim and silent. Now with sterner mien
Heroic shadows, names renown'd in song,
Rush by. And, deck'd with garlands ever green,

In light and music sweep the bards along;
And many a fair, and many a well-known face,
Into the future dive, and blend with empty space.

 

 

 

 

Accuse not gracious Nature of neglect,
Nor doubt the wise intent of Providence,
Because a human thing not quick of sense,
With scarce a twinkling spark of intellect,

With much of body's, more of mind's defect,
Hath hobbled upon earth for eighty years;
And now, unconscious of the hopes and fears
That the past life of wiser men dissect,

Is dozing deathward. Deep and dark immured
The corn-seed in the dead-throng'd catacomb,
From light shut out, was yet from blight secured

And Turk and Mam'luke, in oblivious tomb:
And thus, for eighty years, good man, in thee
The seed has slept, sepulchred in simplicity.

 

 

 

 

Musik

Sweet music steals along the yielding soul,
Like the brisk wind that sows autumnal seeds;
And it hath tones like vernal rain that feeds
The light green vale, ordain'd ere long to roll

In golden waves o'er many a wealthy rood;
And tones it hath, that make a lonely hour
The silent dwelling of some lovely flower,
Sweet Hermitess of Forest solitude.

i loved sweet Musik when I was a child,
For then my mother used to sing to me:
I loved it besser when a youth so wild,

With thoughts of love it did so well agree;
Fain would I love it to my latest day,
If it would teach me to believe and pray.

 

 

 

 

To a lady, on her singing a sweet old air

Oh! that a tone were lasting as a thought,
A feeling joy, eternal as a truth!
Then were my spirit charm'd to endless youth,
All time enrich'd with what a moment brought.

That one sweet note, so sweet itself, and fraught
With all the warbled sweetness of the stream
Of rippling sound, continuous as a dream -
A dream of song, that waking turns to nought.

I cannot find it, I cannot resume
The thrilling calm, the gladness so intense,
So simple, perfect, neither soul nor sense

For hope had need, for hoarding thought had room:
Yet shall the moral heart for aye retain
The once-seen songstress, and the once-heard strain.

 

 

 

 

I would, my friend, indeed, thou hadst been here
Last night, beneath the shadowy sycamore,
To hear the lines, to me well known before,
Embalm'd in music so translucent clear.

Each word of thine came singly to the ear,
Yet all was blended in a flowing stream.
It had the rich repose of summer dream,
The light distinct of frosty atmosphere.

Still have I loved thy verse, yet never knew
How sweet it was, till woman's voice invested
The pencill'd outline with the living hue,

And every note of feeling proved and tested.
What might old Pindar be, if once again
The harp and voice were trembling with his strain.

 

 

 

 

Diana and Endymion

It was a learned fancy, that bestowed
A living spirit and a human will
On those far lights that, whether fixt and still,
Or moving visibly along their road,

Were mighty to predestine, rule, forebode;
Yea, to disclose, to long observant skill,
Not season's course alone, but good and ill,
For aye appointed in no changeful code.

A freer, yet a gentler wit, devised
That quaint old Fable, that beheld the Moon
Gazing for hours on her Endymion,

Till she turned pale, by jocund morn surprised;
While he, wrapped up in trance or vision dim,
Sleeps in her sight that ever wakes for him.

 

 

 

 

Eclipse

So pure, so clear, amid the vast blue lake,
Sole regent of the many-scattered isles,
Making of myriad million, billion miles
One beauty, floats she brilliantly awake,

Unconscious of the doom that must o'ertake
Her maidenhood before the night goes by,
And make a lurid blot upon the sky,
And all her cheer transform to dim opaque.

But happy art thou, Moon; no fault of thine,
No just displeasure of thy lord, the Sun,
Clothes thee in weed of penance, murk and dun;
For thine own self thou still art free to shine.

That earth which moves between mankind and thee,
Inflicts no stain upon thy purity.

 

 

 

 

To an aged beauty

Once thou wert young, 'twas very long ago,
Yet some there are to whom thy fixt idea,
Even now, is fresh as sea-born Cytherea.
The waves of time, that ever backward flow,

Behind them leave the quiet tints that glow
On each successive billow. Months, nor years,
Nor maddest mirth, nor dim heart-wasting tears
Attaint the truths that true minds truly know.

Once thou wert young, and still art young to me,
Though fifty summers faded since we met;
Thy timid glance I cannot cease to see,

Thy bird-like voice to me is piping yet.
If Time turn back to say that thou art old,
I'll swear he lies, and will thy youth uphold.

 

 

 

 

I saw thee in the beauty of thy sping,
And then I thought how blest the man shall be
That shall persuade thy maiden modesty
To hearken to his fond soliciting.

Thou wert so fair, so exquisite a thing,
I thought the very dust on which thy feet
Had left their mark exhaled a scent more sweet
Than honey-dew dropt from an angel's wing.

I see thee now a matron and a mother,
And I, alas! am old before my day.
Both to myself and thee I owe another -

A holier passion, a devoter lay.
Each spark of earthly fire I now must smother,
And wish for nought for which I dare not pray.

 

 

 

 

To Miss Martha H.

Martha, thy maiden foot is still so light,
It leaves no legible trace on virgin snows,
And yet I ween that busily it goes
In duty's path from happy morn to night.

Thy dimpled cheek is gay, and softly bright
As the fixt beauty of the mossy rose;
Yet will it change its hue for others' woes,
And native red contend with piteous white.

Thou bear'st a name by Jesus known and loved,
And Jesus gently did the maid reprove
For too much hast to show her eager love.

But blest is she that may be so reproved.
Be Martha still in deed and good endeavour,
In faith like Mary, at His feet for ever.

 

 

 

 

Not in one clime we oped the infant eye
To the blank light of yet unmeaning day;
Nor in one language timely taught to pray,
Did we lisp out the babies' liturgy.

But even then, we both alike did cry
Our joys and sorrows in the self-same way,
instinct the same sweet native tune did play,
From laugh to smile, from sob to chasten'd sigh,

Our tutor'd spirits were alike subdued.
What wonder, then, if, meeting in this isle,
We eke imperfect speech with sigh and smile,
The catholic speech of infancy renew'd.

True love is still a child, and then most true
When most it talks, and does as children do.

 

 

 

 

Two nations are there of one common stock;
One in the heart of Europe fortified,
The other freshen'd by the daily tide
Shaping from age to age her bulwark rock.

Two faithful members of the holy flock,
In the most holy bond of love allied,
Unite the valour, worth, and selfless pride
Of two great kindreds, like a braided look -

A braided lock, I've seen - so nicely braided,
With softest interchange of brown and gold,
Each into each so exquisitely shaded,

That they were ever twain could not be told.
E'en so for thee, sweet daughter of my friend,
May Albion and Allmain their virtues blend.

 

 

 

To H. N. Coleridge

Kinsman - yea, more than kinsman - brother, friend, -
O more than kinsman! more than friend or brother!
My sister's spouse, son to my widow'd mother! -
How shall I praise thee right, and not offend?

For thou wert sent a sore heart-ill to mend.
Twin stars were ye, thou and thy wedded love,
Benign of aspect as those imps of Jove,
In antique faith commission'd to portend

To sad sea-wanderers peace; or like the tree
By Moses cast into the bitter pool,
Which made the tear-salt water fresh and cool;

Or even as spring, that sets the boon earth free -
Free to be good, exempt from winters's rule:
Such hast thou been to our poor family.

 

 

To H. W.

In days of old, if any days be old,
Beneath the shadow of the ancient hill,
We roam'd together by the wandering rill;
Thou a light-footed hunter, free and bold,

And I a straggler from the self-same fold,
Rough, ragged, wild, with haggard looks that still
Dwelt on the ground, as if predestined ill
Blighted the joy of youth. Twelve years are told,

And now we meet again; thou, like the wind
That drives the grey cloud to the infinite sea,
Hast traversed all the world's variety,

From Western isles to Oriental Ind;
I am the lazy pool among the heather
That slumbers sound in spite of wind and weather.

 

 

Fear

Dim child of darkness and faint-echoing space,
That still art just behind, and never here,
Death's herald shadow, unimagined Fear;
Thou antic, that dost multiply a face,

Which hath no self, but finds in every place
A body, feature, voice, and circumstance,
Yet art most potent in the wide expanse
Of unbelief, - may I beseech thy grace?

Thou art a spirit of no certain clan,
For thou wilt fight for either God or Devil.
Man is thy slave, and yet thy lord is man;

The human heart creates thee good or evil:
As goblin, ghost, or fiend I ne'er have known thee,
But as myself, my sinful self, I own thee.

 

 

 

There was a seed which the impassive wind,
Now high, now low, now piping loud, now mute,
Or like the last note of a trembling lute,
The loved abortion of a thing design'd,

Or half-said prayer for good of human-kind,
Wafted along for ever, ever, ever.
It sought to plant itself; but never, never,
Could that poor seed or soil or water find.

And yet it was a seed which, had it found,
By river's brink or rocky mountain cleft,
A kindly shelter and a genial ground,

Might not have perish'd, quite of good bereft;
Might have some perfume, some faint echo left,
Faint as the echo of the Sabbath sound.

 

 

 

Heard, not seen

Sounds I have heard 'by distance made more sweet',
And whispering sounds, more sweet that they are near.
But those glad sounds so close upon mine ear,
How had they made my younger heart to beat!

The bounding strain that rules the silken feet,
Like warbling Nymph of old Winandermere,
That bubbles music through the crystal clear,
Comes soften'd to my solitary seat.

Yet though I see it not, I more than dream
Of the blithe beauty that is tripping nigh:
Mine ear usurps the funktion of mine eye,

As cooly shaded from the maddening beam
Of present loveliness, I love the stream
Unseen of happiness that gurgles by.

 

 

 

Still for the world he lives, and lives in bliss,
For God and for himself. Ten years and three
Have now elapsed since he was dead to me
And all that were on earth intensely his.

Not in the dim domain of Gloomy Dis,
The death-got of the ever-guessing Greek,
Nor in the paradise of Houris sleek
I think of him whom I most sorely miss.

The sage, the poet, lives for all mankind,
As long as truth is true, or beauty fair.
The soul that ever sought its God to find

Has found Him now - no matter how, or where.
Yet can I not but mourn because he died
That was my father, should have been my guide.

 

 

 

February 1st, 1842

One month is past, another is begun,
Since merry bells rung out the dying year,
And buds of rarest green begin to peer,
As if impatient for a warmer sun;

And though the distant hills are bleak and dun,
The virgin snowdrop, like a lambent fire,
Pierces the cold earth with its green-sheath'd spire
And in dark woods the wandering little one

May find a primerose. Thus the better mind
Puts forth some flowers, escaped from Paradise,
Though faith be dim as faintest wintry skies,

And passion fierce as January wind.
O God, vouchsafe a sunbeam clear and kind,
To cheer the pining flow'ret ere it dies.

 

 

 

March, 1846

Now Nature in her vernal green is clad,
And windy March puts on the robe of May;
The primerose is abroad, the buds half-way
Open their lips; all things are blithe and glad:

Then wherefore should I droop in semblance sad,
And contradict the promise of the air?
Ah, me! I can but think of those that were,
And now are not - of those dear friends I had,

And have not. Alice, thou art very meek,
And hast the faith that makes affliction good.
It would be wholesome to my perilous mood

If I could see the tear upon thy cheek.
Methinks we could talk out a day - a week,
Of those we loved. Oh, Alice! would we could.

 

 

 

The Vernal Shower

Welcome once more, my pretty Lady Spring:
So young a Spring we have not seen for years.
Even thy brief morning fit of girlish tears
was bright and sweet as dropping from the wing

Of kindly sylph, through ether voyaging
On some good errand to the distant spheres;
And every bud and blade, to which adheres
The pure aspersion, sems a conscious thing,

Renew'd in spirit. Light the birdie leaps,
Shaking translucent gems from every spray;
And merrily down the many-shadow'd steeps

The streamlets whiten, all in new array.
Joy to the vale if Summer do but keep
The bounteous promise of this April day.

Grasmere, April, 1842

 

 

 

1st of April, 1845

Sweet month of Venus, meekly thus begun,
Too pensive for a day of antique folly,
In yellow garb of quiet melancholy
Thy patient pastures sleep beneath the sun;

And if a primrose peep, there is but one
Where wont the starry crowd to look so jolly.
Alone, amid the wood, the Christmas holly
Gleams on the bank with streaming rain fordone,

And yet the snowdrop and the daffodils
Have done their duty to the almanack.
And though the garden mould is blank and black,

With bloom and scent the gay mezeron fills
The longing sense; and plants of other climes
In the warm greenhouse tell of better times.

 

 

 

May Morning

In days of yore, while yet the world was young,
Fair nymphs arose to grace the morn of May,
And ere the East had doffed the pearly grey,
Went forth to catch the jewell'd drops that hung

On the fresh virgin leaves the woods among;
And many a delicate foot-mark might be seen,
Tinting the silvery lawn with darker green;
And many a bird, untimely waked, upsprung,

Scattering the maythorn's white. O lovely season,
Where art thou gone? Methinks the cold neglect
Of thy old rites, perchance, may be the reason

Thou wilt not punctual keep thy wonted time,
But, angry at our slothful disrespect,
Carest not to quit some duteous happier clime.

 

 

 

 

May 25th, 1844

How strange the cold ungenial atmosphere,
Beneath the cover of so bright a sky!
Each way-side flower hath oped its little eye;
The very coyest buds of all the year

Have ventured forth to see if all be clear.
Full-leaved the pendant birches droop and sigh;
The oak is clothed in vernal majesty;
White-chaliced lilies float upon the mere.

The very warmth that made this world of beauty
Is summon'd to another tract of duty,
And leaves a substitute so stern and cold,

We half reget old Winter's honest rule,
The roaring chimney and the log of yule:
May hath such airs as May had not of old.

 

 

 

 

To Dora Quillinan

Well, this is really like the poet's May,
The merry May of which we used to hear,
Big with the promise of the coming year!
The apple-trees their rosy bloom display,

The flowerets, many-hued, that line the way,
Long-soak'd with rain, and chill'd with whistling blast,
Look happy now, like maidens, that at last
Are to be wedded, after long delay.

Oh! that the joy, the fragance, and the bloom,
That bid all life and even poor man be glad,
might waft a breath of comfort to the room

Where she lies smitten, yet not wholly sad,
Waiting with frame immortal to be clad,
In patient expectation of her doom!

 

 

 

 

Oh, what a joy is in the vernal air!
For Nature now is like a budding girl,
Whose merry laugh displays, more white than pearl,
Teeth that make lovers old as me despair.

And yet, though Time has written on my hair
A notice from all amorous thoughts to part,
This day persuades long slumbering hopes to start,
Like cuckoo notes, from winter's drowsy lair.

Yet, my young love, I hope not for the thing
That is the prism of my soul. Oh, no!
I scorn the wish that to my love would bring

Laborious days, and poverty, and woe.
I only wish thou mayst beloved be
By a much better man, as I love thee.

 

 

 

 

Autumn Flowers

The flowers of spring, they come in sweet succession,
Snowdrop and crocus, and mezereon, thick
Studded with blossom upon leafless stick,
And the young ivy, ceaseless in progression;

They triumph in their hour of brief possession.
Then Summer comes, with her voluptuous rose,
And sweet carnation in half-blown repose;
The plant where pious maids discern the passion,

The death by which we live. But I was born
When the good year was like a man of fifty,
When the wild crabtree show'd a naked thorn,

And tall brown fern disguised the red deer's horn;
Like meats upon a board, august yet thriftly,
Large flowers blaze out at intervals forlorn.

 

 

 

 

November

Now the last leaves are hanging on the trees,
And very few the flowers that glint along
The deep dark lanes and braes, erewhile as throng
With peeping posies as the limes with bees;

Nought in the garden but stiff sticks of peas,
And climbing weeds inextricably strong;
And scare a fragment of autumnal song
Whistles above the surly morning breeze.

Yet still at eve we hear the merry owl,
That sings not sweetly, but he does his best;
The little brown bird with the scarlet vest

Chirrups away, thought distant storms do howl.
Then let us not at dark November scowl,
But wait for Christmas with a cheerful breast.

 

 

 

 

Written in a period of great monetary distress

 

Though Night and Winter are two gloomy things,
Yet Night has stars, and Winter has the moss,
And the wee pearly goblets that emboss
The lumbering wall on which the redbreast sings.

Now the old year spreads wide his dusky wings,
And hovers o'er his many children dead;
Few are the blessings on his hoary head
Bestow'd by hearts whom cruel memory wrings,

And sad forebodings, for no stars are seen
In the dull night and winter of distress.
The chaliced mosses and the velvet green,

That clothe November with a seemly dress,
As furry spoils that cheer the red-hair'd Russ,
Shield not the poor from blasts impiteous.

Nov. 3rd, 1847

 

 

 

Christmas Day

Was it a fancy, bred of vagrant guess,
Or well-remember'd fact, that He was born
When half the world was wintry and forlorn,
In Nature's utmost season of distress?

And did the simple earth indeed confess
Its destitution and its craving need,
Wearing the white and penitential weed,
Meet symbol of judicial barrenness?

So be it; for in truth 'tis ever so,
That when the winter of the soul is bare,
The seed of heaven at first begins to grow,

Peeping abroad in desert of despair.
Full many a flowered, good, and sweet, and fair,
Is kindly wrapp'd in coverlet of snow.

 

 

 

Weihnachtstag

 

War es der Sehnsucht, Phantasie gedankt?

War es Historie, daß er geboren

als grad die halbe Erde lag verloren,

und in der schlimmen Zeit der Not versank?

 

Bekennt die schlichte Erde wirklich dort

ihr Elend und die Not, die sie beklemmt?

Trägt sie ihr weißes Buß- und Trauerhemd

als Zeichen, daß das Judentum verdorrt?

 

Die Wahrheit war und ist doch immer diese:

wenn sich die Seele nackt dem Winter neigt

beginnt die Saat des Himmels aufzusprießen,

 

die sich in unsre Wüsteneien streckt.

Und jede Blüte, die sich zärtlich zeigt,

wird gütig durch den weichen Schnee gedeckt.

 

On a calm day towards the close of the year

There never was a hour of purer peace!
Methinks old Time, in mere mortality,
Gives up the ghost, contented not to be,
And all the pulses of great Nature cease.

Whate'er betokens hope, life, or increase,
The gladsome expectation, or the dread
Of chance and change upon to-morrow fed,
Await the expiration of their lease

In dumb dull apathy. Not on the tree
Stirs the brown leaf; or, if detach'd, it drop,
So very slow it wavers to the ground

One might suppose that central gravity,
Prime law of nature, were about to stop:
Ne'er died a year with spirit so profound.

December 22nd 1835

 

 

 

December 1838

 

The poor old year upon its deathbed lies;
Old trees lift up their branches manifold,
Spiry and stern, inveterately old;
Their bare and patient poverty defies

The fickle humour of inconstant skies.
All chill and distant, the great monarch Sun
Beholds the last days of his minion.
What is't to him how soon the old year dies?

Yet some things are, but lowly things and small,
That wait upon the old year to the last;
Some wee birds pipe a feeble madrigal,

Thrilling kind memories of the summer past;
Some duteous flowers put on their best array
To do meet honour to their lord's decay.

 

 

 

St. Thomas' Day

 

So dimly wanes the old year to its end!
And now we are attain'd the very day
When the blest sun hath sent his dimmest ray
From the far south; and now will northward bend.

The days will lengthen, will the days amend?
Alas! the days or lengthen or decay
By law they ne'er would wish to disobey,
And only sink the blither to ascend.

Few lives are strech'd to the long weary night
Of dull December, and its mizzling veil
Of day, brief tarrying in the murky dale;

For some in April melt to happier light;
Some burn away in passionate July;
And happier some in ripe Octobre die.

 

 

 

 

The Nightingale

A mighty bard there was, in joy of youth,
That wont to rove the vernal groves among,
When the green oak puts forth its scallop'd tooth,
And daisies thick the darkening fallows throng;

He listen'd oft, whene'er he sought to soothe
A fancied sorrow with a fancied song,
For Philomela's ancient tale of ruth,
And never heard it, all the long night long;

But heard, instead, so glad a strain of sound,
So many changes of continuous glee,
From lowest twitter, such a quick rebound,

To billowy height of troubled ecstasy -
Rejoice! he said, for joyfully had he found
That mighty poets may mistaken be.

 

 

 

 

The Cuckoo

Thou indefatigable cuckoo! still
Thy iteration says the self-same thing,
And thou art still an utterance of the spring
As constant as a self-determined will.

The quiet patience of a murmuring rill
Had no beginning and will have no ending;
But thou art aye beginning, never blending
With thrush on perch, or lark upon the wing.

Methinks thou art a type of some recluse
Whose notes of adoration never vary:
Who of the gift of speech will make no use

But ever to repeat her Ave Mary. -
Two syllables alone to thee were given,
What mean they in the dialect of heaven?

 

 

 

 

The Cowslip and the Lark

My pretty lady Cowslip! prim and shy,
Dredd'd in the vernal garb of Roman bride,
I wish thee sometimes in a long road-side
My solitary dream to purify.

And thou, bold Lark! thou shivering voice on high!
Invisible warbler of the blue expanse!
Why wilt thou not, my merry bird, advance,
And glad Winander with thy minstrelsy?

The fancy sweet of Persia feign'd the love
Of the voluptuous rose and nightingale.
And Kent flows on. - the merry Lark above

And the meek Cowslip bending in the vale; -
What if there be mysterious love between
The brave bird of the sky and flow'ret of the green!

 

 

 

 

The Celandine and the Daisy

I love the flowers that Nature gives away
With such a careless bounty: some would deem
She thought them baubles, things of no esteem,
Mere idle followers of unthriftly May.

See in the lane, where geese and donkeys stray,
That golden flower, the countless Celandine:
Though long o'erlook'd, it needs no praise of mine,
For 'tis one mightier poet's joy and theme.

See how the Daisies whiten all yon lea!
A thing so dear to poet and to child,
That when we see it on neglected wild,

We prize old Nature's generosity.
The Celandine one mighty bard may prize;
The Daisy no bard can monopolise.

 

 

 

The Snowdrop

Yes, punktual to the time, thou'rt here again,
As still thou art: - though frost or rain may vary,
And icicles blockade the rockbirds' aery,
Or sluggish snow lie heavy on the plain,

Yet thou, sweet child of hoary January,
Art here to harbinger the laggard train
Of vernal flowers, a duteous missionary.
Nor cold can blight, nor fog thy pureness stain.

Beneath the dripping eaves, or on the slope
Of cottage garden, whether mark'd or no,
Thy meek head bends in undistinguish'd row.

Blessings upon thee, gentle bud of hope!
And Nature bless the spot where thou dost grow -
Young life emerging from thy kindred snow!

 

 

 

 

The Dandelion

Strange plants we bring from lands where Kaffirs roam,
And great the traveller in botanic fame
That can inflict hiss queer and ugly name
On product of South Afric sands or loam,

Or on the flexile creeper that hath clomb
Up the tall stems of Polynesian palms;
And now with clusters, or with spikes, embalms
The sickly air beneath the glassy dome

In lordly garden. Haply time may be
When botanist from fire-born Owhyhee
Shall bear thee, milky mother of white down,

Back to his isle, a golden gift superb; -
Give name uncouth to diuretic herb,
And from the Dandelion reap renown.

 

 

 

Childhood

Oh what a wilderness were this sad world
If man were always man, and never child;
If Nature gave no time, so sweetly wild,
When every thought is quaintly crisp'd and curl'd,

Like fragant hyacinth with dew impearl'd,
And every feeling in itself confiding,
Yet never single, but continuous, gliding
With wavy motion as, on wings unfurl'd,

A seraph clips the Empyreal! Such man was
Ere sin had made him know himself too well.
No child was born ere that primeval loss.

What might have been, no living soul can tell:
But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess
Once in their life fair Eden's simpleness.

 

 

 

To an Infant

Wise is the way of Nature, first to make
This tiny model of what is to be,
A thing that we may love as soon as see,
That seems as passive as a summer lake

When there is not a sigh of wind to shake
The aspen leaf upon the tall slim tree.
Yet who can tell, sweet infant mystery,
What thoughts in thee may now begin to wake?

Something already dost thou know of pain,
And, sinless, bear'st the penalty of sin;
And yet as quickly wilt thou smile again

After thy cries, as vanishes the stain
Of breath from steel. So may the peace within
In thy ripe season re-assert its reign.

 

 

 

 

To an Infant

Sure 'tis a holy and a healing thought
That fills my heart and mind at sight of thee,
Thou purest abstract of humanity.
Sweet infant, we might deem thy smile was brought

From some far distant Paradise, where nought
Forbad to hope whate'er of good may be,
Where thou could'st know, and feel, and trust, and see
That innocence which, lost, is vainly sought

In this poor world. Yet, if thou wert so good
As love conceives thee, thou hadst ne'er been born;
For sure the Lord of Justice never would

Have doom'd a loyal spirit to be shorn
Of its immortal glories - never could
Exile perfection to an earth forlorn.

 

 

 

 

To an Infant

Written on a snowy day


Some say, sweet babe, thy mind is but a blank,
As white and vacant as the level field
Of unsunn'd snow, that passively must yield
To human foot, to vapour dull and dank,

To wheel indenting slow, with sullen clank,
To wanton tracery of urchin wild.
I deem not so of any human child,
Nor can believe our nature ever sank

To such a lowness. Nay, my pretty boy!
In thy shrill laugh there is intelligence;
And though we can but guess, or how, or whence

Thy soul was wafted - from what realm of joy
Or mere privation thou hast hither come, -
Thought has come with thee, happy thought, though dumb.

 

 

 

 

The God-Child

I stood beside thee in the holy place,
And saw the holy sprinkling on thy brow,
And was both bond and witness to the vow
Which own'd thy need, confirm'd thy claim of grace;

That sacred sign which time shall not efface
Declared thee His, to whom all angels bow,
Who bade the herald saint the rite allow
To the sole sinless of all Adam's race.

That was indeed an awful sight to see;
And oft, I fear, for what my love hath done,
As voucher of thy sweet communion

In thy sweet Saviour's blessed mystery.
Would I might give thee back, my little one,
But half the good that I have got from thee.

 

 

 

 

Twins

But born to die, they just had felt the air,
When God revoked the mandate of their doom.
A brief imprisonment within the womb,
Of human life was all but all their share.

Two whiter souls unstain'd with sin or care
Shall never blossom from the fertile tomb; -
Twin flowers that wasted not on earth their bloom,
So quickly Heaven reclaim'd the spotless pair.

Let man that on his own desert relies,
And deems himself the creditor of God,
Think how these babes have earn'd their paradise,

How small the work of their small period:
Their very cradle was the hopeful grave,
God only made them for His Christ to save.

 

 

 

 

Boyhood and Girlhood

Did our first parents in their happy seat,
New from the Maker's hand, a wedded pair,
In livelier hues their several sex declare
Than that brave boy, and that wee lady sweet?

Though not in measure nor in mind complete
They come, a perfect husband and a bride;
Yet is the seal impress'd and testified
By prophet Nature, till the season meet.

The girl, a girl instinct with simple arts,
And all the innocent cunning of her sex;
A very girl, delighting to perplex

The eye of love with antic change of parts:
Burly and bold the lad, his mien denotes
One-hearted manhood even in petticoats.

 

 

 

 

To Margaret, on her first Birthday

One year is past, with change and sorrow fraught,
Since first the little Margaret drew her breath,
And yet the fatal names of Sin and Death,
Her sad inheritance, she knoweth not.

That lore, by earth inevitably taught,
In the still world of spirits is untold;
'Tis not of Death or Sin that angels hold
Sweet converse with the slumb'ring infant's thought.

Merely she is with God, and God with her
And her meek ignorance. Guiltless of demur,
For her is faith a hope; her innocence

Is holiness: the bright-eyed crowing glee
That makes her leap her grandsir's face to see,
Is love unfeign'd and willing reverence.

 

 

 

Dent

There is a town, of little note or praise,
Narrow and winding are its rattling streets,
Where cart with cart in cumbrous conflict meets,
Hard straining up or backing down the ways,

Where insecure the crawling infant plays,
And the nigh savour of the hissing sweets
Of pan or humming oven rankly greets
The hungry nose that threats the sinuous maze;

Yet there the lesson of the pictured porch,
The beauty of Platonic sentiment,
The sceptic wisdom, positive in doubt,

All creeds and fancies, like the hunter's torch,
Cought each from each, perfection find in Dent,
Where what they cannot get they do without.

 

 

 

 

Geology

In that small town was born a worthy wight,
(His honest townsmen well approve his worth,)
Whose mind has pierced the solid crust of earth,
And roam'd undaunted in the nether night.

His thought a quenchless incorporeal light,
Has thrid the labyrinth of a world unknown,
Where the old Gorgon time has turn'd to stone
Long thorny snake and monstrous lithophyte.

Long may'st thou wander in that deep obscure,
And issuing thence, good sage, bring with thee still
That honest face, where truth and goodness shine;

Right is thy creed, as all thy life is pure.
And yet if certain persons had their will,
The fate of Galileo had been thine.

 

 

 

 

The Bible

How very good is God! that He hath taught
To every Christian that can hear and see
Both what he is and what he ought to be,
And how and why the saints of old have fought.

Whate'er of truth the antique sages sought,
And could but guess of his benign decree,
Is given to Faith affectionate and free,
Not wrung by force of self-confounding thought

How many generations had gone by
'Twixt suffering Job and boding Malachi!
'Twixt Malachi and Paul - how mute a pause!

Is the book finish'd? May not God once more
Send forth a prophet to proclaim his laws
In holy words not framed by human lore?

 

 

 

 

The Liturgy

Oft as I hear the Apostolic voice
Speaking to God, I blame my heart so cold
That with those words, so good, so pure, and old,
Cannot repent nor hope, far less rejoice.

Yet am I glad, that not the vagrant choice,
Chance child of impulse, timid, or too bold,
The volume of the heart may dare unfold
With figured rhetoric, or unmeaning noise.

Praying for all in those appointed phrases,
Like a vast river, from a thousand fountains,
Swoll'n with the waters of the lakes and mountains,

The pastor bears along the prayers and praises
Of many souls in channel well defined,
Yet leaves no drop of prayer or praise behind.

 

 

 

 

'The just shall live by faith', - and why? That faith
By which they live is all that makes them just,
The sole antagonist to the inborn lust
And malice that subjects them to the death

Which Adam earn'd, Cane, Abel suffer'd, Seth
Bequeath'd to all his progeny; who must
Suffer the primal doom of dust to dust,
And for uncertain respite hold their breath.

Think not the faith by which the just shall live
Is a dead creed, a map correct of heaven,
Far less a feeling fond and fugitive,

A thoughtless gift, withdrawn as soon as given.
It is an affirmation and an act
That bids eternal truth be present fact.

 

 

 

 

Eden

No relevation hath withdrawn the veil
That God hath deigned to cast o'er Eden's bowers.
How many generations of sweet flowers
Young Eve beheld, before the Serpent's trail

Through the long alleys winded fraught with bale,
No tongue hath told, no wit of man divined: -
The blessed twain, the sole of human kind
Dreamed not that love or life could ever fail.

But Eden as an isle by God exempted
From sin or stain, a spot of special grace;
Age upon age, ere mother Eve was tempted,

Heaped world on world and bony race on race: -
What was it all to Adam or his wife?
'Tis from their day of sin we date their life.

 

 

 

 

Seth

Sad was the Mother of Mankind to see
The sad fulfilment of the primitive curse;
The gentle babe she was so fond to nurse,
Her duteous Abel, that would clasp her knee,

So meekly heark'ning to the history
Of the sweet hours his parents pass'd, before
They learn'd of good and ill the fatal lore,
Or pluck'd the fruit of that forbidden tree. -

What is he now? A helpless lump of earth!
Nay, thou poor Mother, do not so distrust
The Lord, that raised thy husband from the dust,

For he shall give to thee another birth,
A holy babe, whose seed shall save his brother,
And give back Abel to their common Mother.

 

 

 

Enoch

He walk'd with God, and like the breath of prayer,
His earthly substance melted all away;
So much he loved the Lord, his mortal clay
Abolish'd quite, or blent with pervious air,

Soft as a rainbow, mixed with things that were
And are not. Surely God did love him well,
And he loved God so much, he could not dwell
Where God was not. The world was blank and bare;

He was most wretched, for he could not love.
But the good Lord took pity on his woe:
For woe it is, with all the heart above,

To walk a heartless corpse on earth below.
He faded from the earth, and was unseen;
A thought of God was all that he had been.

 

 

 

 

Abraham

When Abram was a boy the years were long,
As ours might be, did we for every hour
Extract the good and realise the power,
And train the notes to everlasting song.

And Abram was a comely youth, and strong,
And nimbly 'mid the silky reeds he trod,
When he resolved - 'the Lord shall be my God',
And knew the only God can do no wrong.

Had he not felt that God is God alone,
As holy, as almighty, and all-seeing, -
Foul were his sin, that would with blood atone,

And court the favour of unselfish Being.
But long experience taught him God was true,
And could the life he took by grace renew.

 

 

 

 

Hagar

 

Lone in the wilderness, her child and she,

Sits the dark beauty, and her fierce-eyed boy;

A heavy burden, and no winsome toy

To such as her, a hanging babe must be.

 

A slave without a master - wild, not free,

With anger in their heart! and in her face

Shame for foul wrong and undeserved disgrace,

Poor Hagar mourns her lost virginity!

 

Poor woman, fear not - God is everywhere;

Thy silent tears, thy thirsty infant's moan,

Are known to Him, whose never-absent care

 

Still wakes to make all hearts and souls his own;

He sends an angel from beneath his throne

To cheer the outcast in the desert bare.

 

 

 

Isaac and Rebekah

The child of promise, spared by God's command,
He grew and ripen'd, till his noon of life,
As days were then, deserved and claim'd a wife;
But she must be no toy of faithless land;

So the good steward o'er the thirsty sand
His prescient camels follows to the well,
Where the sweet daughter of old Bethuel
Supplies his need with white and courteous hand.

And oh! what meeter than a maid so fair
To be the answer to that good man's prayer?
And then how sweetly did the Spirit move her,

Without a word of maidenly delay,
Or coy petition for a farewell day,
To quit her home, and seek an unseen lover!

 

 

 

 

Leah

Most patient of all woman, unbeloved,
Yet ever toiling for thy husband's grace,
Methinks I see thee, with thy downcast face,
Pondering on tasks that should not be reproved.

For seven long years their tents were not removed,
And Leah work'd for Jacob all the while,
And yet she hardly got a sullen smile, -
So good a wife, and mother duly proved.

Yet sore it must have been to see her mate
Rising at morn to work, and working late,
And know he work'd so hard to get another;

And yet she bore it all, in hope to be,
What her sweet offspring was, by God's decree,
The better Eve, the second Adam's mother.

 

 

 

 

Moses in the Bulrushes

She left her babe, and went away to weep,
And listen'd oft to hear if he did cry;
But the great river sung his lullaby,
And unseen angels fann'd his balmy sleep, -

And yet his innocence itself might keep.
The sacred silence of his slumb'rous smile
Makes peace in all the monster-breeding Nile;
For God e'en now is moving in the sweep

Of mighty waters. Little dreams the maid,
The royal maid, that comes to woo the wave
With her smooth limbs beneath the trembling shade

Of silver-chaliced lotus, what a child
Her freak of pity is ordain'd to save!
How terrible the thing that looks so mild!

 

 

 

 

On a Picture of Jephthah and his Daughter

I.

'T is true the painter's hand can but arrest
The moment hat in Nature never stays,
But fleets impatient of the baffled gaze.
Yet if that single moment be the best

Of many years, commission'd to attest
The excellence, who beauty ne'er decays,
Let not the mute art lack a rightful praise,
That shows the lovely ever loveliest:

And thou, sweet maid! for ever keep that look:
Thou never hadst so sweet a look till now.
Read in thy father's face, as in a book,

Thy virgin doom, the irrevocable vow.
Well were it if thy father ne'er had shook
Away the doubt that hangs upon his brow.


II.

What if the angry God hath made thy arm
Dread as the thunderbolt or solid fire,
Or pest obedient to his vengeful ire,
Think'st thou thy oath was like a wizard's charm,

Or hadst thou need, with proffer'd blood, to farm
Jehovah's might? It proves thy faith unsure,
Thy creed idolatrous, thy heart impure;
Thy god a greedy trafficker in harm,

Not Israel's hope. But she, thy daughter, mild,
Whose eager love and over-hasty greeting,
Has made thee murderer of thy blameless child,

Loves not the less for that unhappy meeting; -
Guiltless she dies, to save thee from the guilt
Which must be thine, though her pure blood be spilt.

 

 

 

 

Rizpah

Blood will have blood. Here is a grievous pest,
And Gibeon craves the blood of guilty Saul.
And what can David do? He gives not all -
One he reserves, to death resigns the rest.

Poor Rizpah, mother of a brood unbless'd,
Must see Amoni and Mephibosheth
For Israel's life to ignominious death,
Because their sire so fatally transgress'd,

Consign'd tho' guiltless. She, sad mother, staid
On her stern seat of sackcloth day by day,
And, like a statue, scared the fowls away,

Till genial rain the thirst of earth allay'd.
Patient in grief, she won the historic Spirit,
To make immortal mention of her merit.

 

 

 

 

Solomon

Then Solomon sat on the throne as king;
So had his sire appointed: - great and least,
Hebrew and Stranger, warrior chief and priest,
With one glad shout make air, earth, rock to ring.

Ah! sons of Abraham, is it such a thing
That your old monarch is so nigh deceased?
And ye must blow your horns, as if the feast
Of the ripe harvest and the hopeful spring

Fell on one day. 'Tis well the old man dies.
The sweetest string in all the holy lyre
Cracks when the old man heaves his latest sighs,

And with his breath the highest tones expire.
Ten thousand minstrels play for Solomon -
What are they all, if David be not one?

 

 

 

 

Elijah

A little cake he ask'd for, that was all;
And that she gave - 'twas all she had to give
To the poor hungry Prophet fugitive;
Not knowing quite, she yet believed the call,

And she was blest. Within her cottage wall,
By day the Prophet prays, at night he lies,
Whose prayer and presence daily multiplies
The meal and cruse that, let what will befall,

Shall still suffice for each successive day.
She gave a little, and he gave enough,
And taught us how to use the passive stuff

That earth affords, - to give and still to pray.
Hope be the Prophet, and the cruse Content!
Where Hope abides the cruse shall ne'er be spent.

 

 

 

 

The Jewish Captives

By the smooth streams of haughty Babylon
The Jewish Captives sat them down and wept, -
Wept for their king, their country, and their home.
Jerusalem's remembrance, duly kept,

Shadow'd the aspect of a beauteous land,
Darken'd the sun, and ruffled the soft waves;
But chiefly sorrow'd the unhappy band
At the rude taunts of unbelieving slaves.

'Sing us a song!' cried they, 'a song of mirth!'
How could they plume the wing and soar on high,
Forgetful of their sorrow's recent birth,

The dread fulfilment of each prophecy?
Ah no! Jerusalem, they remember'd thee,
And could not touch the harp in thy adversity.

 

 

 

 

Ezra III, 11-13

 

Hark! what a shout! Alas! it sounds but thin,
Though the sad remnant like one man unite,
And the lorn widow brings her widow's mite.
Few are the tribes, and feeble is their din,

Subdued with memory of ancestral sin,
Opprest with conscience of a guilty fear
And faint distrust, and hope but half sincere,
That asks the end before they well begin

The holy renovation. Drear the tone
Of joyous hymns in trembling accents piped;
And faces stain'd with selfish tears unwiped,

Ill emulate the upturn'd look that shone
In God's own light, what time the Cherubim
Made the first Temple's gilded glory dim.

 

 

 

 

Simeon

In the huge temple, deck'd by Herod's pride,
Who fain would bribe a God he ne'er believed,
Kneels a meek woman, that hath once conceived,
Tho' she was never like an earthly bride.

And yet the stainless would be purified,
And wash away the stain that yet was none,
And for the birth of her immaculate Son
With the stern rigour of the law complied:

The duty paid received its due reward
When Simeon bless'd the Baby on her arm;
And though he plainly told her that a sword

Must pierce her soul, she felt no weak alarm,
For that for which a Prophet thank'd the Lord
Once to have seen, could never end in harm.

 

 

 

 

Jesus Praying
Luke VI, 12

He sought the mountain and the loneliest height,
For He would meet his Father all alone,
And there, with many a tear and many a groan,
He strove in prayer throughout the long, long night.

Why need He pray, who held by filial right,
O'er all the world alike of thought and sense,
The fullness of his Sire's omnipotence?
Why crave in prayer what was his own by might?

Vain is the question, - Christ was man in deed,
And being man, his duty was to pray.
The Son of God confess'd the human need,

And doubtless ask'd a blessing every day.
Nor ceases yet for sinful man to plead,
Nor will, till heaven and earth shall pass away.

 

 

 

But Jesus Slept

'But Jesus slept.' The inland sea was wild,
And the good son of Mary was asleep,
For sleep He did, an infant meek and mild,
When fain He would, and fain He would not weep;

As peevish, fond, as any other child,
Close to the Virgin breast He long'd to creep,
And feel the warmth of mother undefiled.
And now the Shepherd of the chosen sheep,

Doth He not watch? Oh, vain and faithless quest!
He slept a man, - but, lo! He wakes our God!
What man is this, at whose almighty nod

The winds are still, and every wave at rest?
'Tis He whose seeming sleep approves our faith,
But ever wakes to save us from the death.

 

 

 

 

The Soul

Is not the body more than meat? The soul
Is something greater than the food it needs.
Prayers, sacraments, and charitable deeds,
They realise the hours that onward roll

Their endless way 'to kindle or control'
Our acts and words are but the pregnant needs
Of future being, when the flowers and weeds,
Local and temporal. in the vast whole

Shall live eternal. Nothing ever dies!
The shortest smile that flits across a face,
Which lovely grief hath made her dwelling-place,

Lasts longer than the earth or visible skies!
It is an act of God, whose acts are truth,
And vernal still in everlasting youth.

 

 

 

 

Privileges

Good is it to be born in Christian land,
Within the hearing of sweet Sabbath bells,
To con our letters in the book that tells
How God vouchsafed His creatures to command.

How once He led His chosen by the hand,
Presending to their young and opening sense
Such pictures of His dread Omnipotence,
As all could see, though none might understand.

Oh! good it is to dwell with Christian folk,
Where even the blind may see, the deaf may hear,
The words that Paul hath wrote, that Jesus spoke,

By book or preacher shown to eye or ear,
Where Gospel truth is rife as song of birds -
'Familiar in our ears as household words.'

 

 

 

 

Faith - How Guarded

Yes, thou dost well, to arm thy tender mind
With all that learning, and stern common sense
Living hath spoke, or dying left behind;
To blank the forwardness of pert pretence

With long experience of a mighty mind,
That. daring to explore the truth immense,
Subsided in a faithful reverence
Of the best Catholic hope of human kind.

Yes, thou dost well to build a fence about
Thine inward faith, and mount a stalwart guard
Of answers, to oppose invading doubt.

All aids are needful, for the strife is hard;
But still be sure the truth within to cherish, -
Truths long besieged too oft of hunger perish.

 

 

 

 

Stay where thou art

Stay where thou art, thou canst not better be,
For thou art pure and noble as thou'rt sweet,
And thy firm faith still working, will complete
A lovely picture of the Deity.

For 'tis in thee, mild maid, and such as thee,
Whose goodness would make any features fair,
I find the hope that bids me not despair,
But know there is a Saviour even for me.

May God in mercy from thy knowledge hide
All but the path in which thou art advancing.
For evil things there are, on either side,

Dark flames on one, like antic demons dancing,
And on the left a desert waste and wide,
Where is no star, no chart, no compass, and no guide.

 

 

The Church

Oh! do not think I slight, or scorn, or hate
The zeal wherewith ye view the strong and vast
Dominion of the Church in agest past,
And gian splendour of her huge estate;

For in her outward semblance she was great, -
A mighty mansion, fit to entertain
All nations, whom the mountain or the plain,
Or Nature, in the lenght of time, could generate.

Ye wish, I know, we could as one unite,
And have a Church as ample as the sky,
Whence every Church might draw its whole of light,

And not divide, but only multiply.
Good is your purpose; but, ye English youth,
Are ye quite sure that this is perfect truth?

 

 

 

 

On the consecration of a small chapel

I.

There was a little spot of level ground,
For many an age unmark'd by casual eyes,
Bleak hills afar and sinuous banks around,
And terraced gardens, graduate mound on mound,

With every season's sweet variety.
And there uprose an house devote to God,
As lowly as befits a house of prayer;
Yet large enough to sanctify the sod,

The heaving earth that may conceal a clod,
Which human love may wish to treasure there.
O Lord! methinks to give this spot to Thee

Did hardly need an act of consecration:
I deem the pile no wilful novelty,
But a good purpose - old as Thy creation.


II.

And yet I deem we rightly may rejoice
When the chief shepherd of the many flocks,
That wait the high call of his pastoral voice
On many lawns or yellow pastures choice,

Or crop the turf beneath the sheltering rocks,-
Comes to unite this lone and sever'd fold,
That feed so gently on their native flowers,
With the blest sheep that bled in days of old.

Oh! should we not be thankful to behold
Our shepherd chief in such a fold as ours?
How may the Sabbath utterance of the dell,

With all the churches, make a mighty one,
And with the minster organ's gorgeous swell
The simple psalm combine in unison.

 

 

 

 

 

Sonette