See, low above the tide at flood,
The sickle-sweep of Quiberon Bay,
Whose beach once ran with loyal blood!
And beyond that, the Atlantic wide!--
All round, no soul, no boat, no hail;
But, on the horizon’s verge descried,
Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail.
Ah! where is he who should have come[20]
Where that far sail is passing now,
Past the Loire’s mouth, and by the foam
Of Finistère’s unquiet brow,--
Home, round into the English wave?--
He tarries where the Rock of Spain
Mediterranean waters lave;
He enters not the Atlantic main.
Oh, could he once have reached this air
Freshened by plunging tides, by showers!
Have felt this breath he loved, of fair
Cool Northern fields, and grass, and flowers!
He longed for it--pressed on. In vain!
At the Straits failed that spirit brave.
The South was parent of his pain,
The South is mistress of his grave.
_A SOUTHERN NIGHT._
The sandy spits, the shore-locked lakes,
Melt into open, moonlit sea;
The soft Mediterranean breaks
At my feet, free.
Dotting the fields of corn and vine,
Like ghosts, the huge gnarled olives stand;
Behind, that lovely mountain line!
While, by the strand,--
Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the light-house beacons bright
Far in the bay.
Ah! such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore[21]
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vexed heart deplore.
But now that trouble is forgot:
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,[22]
Possess me quite.
The murmur of this Midland deep
Is heard to-night around thy grave,
There, where Gibraltar’s cannoned steep
O’erfrowns the wave.
For there, with bodily anguish keen,
With Indian heats at last foredone,
With public toil and private teen,--
Thou sank’st alone.
Slow to a stop, at morning gray,
I see the smoke-crowned vessel come;
Slow round her paddles dies away
The seething foam.
A boat is lowered from her side;
Ah, gently place him on the bench!
That spirit--if all have not yet died--
A breath might quench.
Is this the eye, the footstep fast,
The mien of youth, we used to see?
Poor, gallant boy! for such thou wast,
Still art, to me.
The limbs their wonted tasks refuse;
The eyes are glazed, thou canst not speak;
And whiter than thy white burnous
That wasted cheek!
Enough! The boat, with quiet shock,
Unto its haven coming nigh,
Touches, and on Gibraltar’s rock
Lands thee, to die.
Ah me! Gibraltar’s strand is far;
But farther yet across the brine
Thy dear wife’s ashes buried are,
Remote from thine.
For there, where morning’s sacred fount
Its golden rain on earth confers,
The snowy Himalayan Mount
O’ershadows hers.
Strange irony of fate, alas!
Which, for two jaded English, saves,
When from their dusty life they pass,
Such peaceful graves!
In cities should we English lie,
Where cries are rising ever new,
And men’s incessant stream goes by,--
We who pursue
Our business with unslackening stride,
Traverse in troops, with care-filled breast,
The soft Mediterranean side,
The Nile, the East,--
And see all sights from pole to pole,
And glance, and nod, and bustle by;
And never once possess our soul
Before we die.
Not by those hoary Indian hills,
Not by this gracious Midland sea
Whose floor to-night sweet moonshine fills,
Should our graves be.
Some sage, to whom the world was dead,
And men were specks, and life a play;
Who made the roots of trees his bed,
And once a day
With staff and gourd his way did bend
To villages and homes of man,
For food to keep him till he end
His mortal span,--
And the pure goal of being reach;
Gray-headed, wrinkled, clad in white;
Without companion, without speech,
By day and night
Pondering God’s mysteries untold,
And tranquil as the glacier-snows,--
He by those Indian mountains old
Might well repose.
Some gray crusading knight austere,
Who bore Saint Louis company,
And came home hurt to death, and here
Landed to die;
Some youthful troubadour, whose tongue
Filled Europe once with his love-pain,
Who here outworn had sunk, and sung
His dying strain;
Some girl, who here from castle-bower,
With furtive step and cheek of flame,
’Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower
By moonlight came
To meet her pirate-lover’s ship,
And from the wave-kissed marble stair
Beckoned him on with quivering lip
And floating hair,
And lived some moons in happy trance,
Then learnt his death, and pined away,--
Such by these waters of romance
’Twas meet to lay.
But you--a grave for knight or sage,
Romantic, solitary, still,
O spent ones of a work-day age!
Befits you ill.
So sang I; but the midnight breeze,
Down to the brimmed, moon-charmèd main,
Comes softly through the olive-trees,
And checks my strain.
I think of her whose gentle tongue
All plaint in her own cause controlled;
Of thee I think, my brother! young
In heart, high-souled;
That comely face, that clustered brow,
That cordial hand, that bearing free,--
I see them still, I see them now,
Shall always see!
And what but gentleness untired,
And what but noble feeling warm,
Wherever shown, howe’er inspired,
Is grace, is charm?
What else is all these waters are,
What else is steeped in lucid sheen,
What else is bright, what else is fair,
What else serene?
Mild o’er her grave, ye mountains, shine!
Gently by his, ye waters, glide!
To that in you which is divine
They were allied.
_HAWORTH CHURCHYARD._
APRIL, 1855.
Where, under Loughrigg, the stream
Of Rotha sparkles through fields
Vested forever with green,
Four years since, in the house
Of a gentle spirit now dead,
Wordsworth’s son-in-law, friend,--
I saw the meeting of two
Gifted women.[23] The one,
Brilliant with recent renown,
Young, unpractised, had told
With a master’s accent her feigned
Story of passionate life;
The other, maturer in fame,
Earning, she too, her praise
First in fiction, had since
Widened her sweep, and surveyed
History, politics, mind.
The two held converse; they wrote
In a book which of world-famous souls
Kept the memorial: bard,
Warrior, statesman, had signed
Their names: chief glory of all,
Scott had bestowed there his last
Breathings of song, with a pen
Tottering, a death-stricken hand.
Hope at that meeting smiled fair.
Years in number, it seemed,
Lay before both, and a fame
Heightened, and multiplied power.--
Behold! The elder, to-day,
Lies expecting from death,
In mortal weakness, a last
Summons! the younger is dead!
First to the living we pay
Mournful homage: the Muse
Gains not an earth-deafened ear.
Hail to the steadfast soul,
Which, unflinching and keen,
Wrought to erase from its depth
Mist and illusion and fear!
Hail to the spirit which dared
Trust its own thoughts, before yet
Echoed her back by the crowd!
Hail to the courage which gave
Voice to its creed, ere the creed
Won consecration from time!
Turn we next to the dead.--
How shall we honor the young,
The ardent, the gifted? how mourn?
Console we cannot, her ear
Is deaf. Far northward from here,
In a churchyard high ’mid the moors
Of Yorkshire, a little earth
Stops it forever to praise.
Where behind Keighley the road
Up to the heart of the moors
Between heath-clad showery hills
Runs, and colliers’ carts
Poach the deep ways coming down,
And a rough, grimed race have their homes,--
There on its slope is built
The moorland town. But the church
Stands on the crest of the hill,
Lonely and bleak; at its side
The parsonage-house and the graves.
Strew with laurel the grave
Of the early-dying! Alas!
Early she goes on the path
To the silent country, and leaves
Half her laurels unwon,
Dying too soon; yet green
Laurels she had, and a course
Short, but redoubled by fame.
And not friendless, and not
Only with strangers to meet,
Faces ungreeting and cold,
Thou, O mourned one, to-day
Enterest the house of the grave!
Those of thy blood, whom thou lovedst,
Have preceded thee,--young,
Loving, a sisterly band;
Some in art, some in gift
Inferior--all in fame.
They, like friends, shall receive
This comer, greet her with joy;
Welcome the sister, the friend;
Hear with delight of thy fame!
Round thee they lie; the grass
Blows from their graves to thy own!
She whose genius, though not
Puissant like thine, was yet
Sweet and graceful; and she
(How shall I sing her?) whose soul
Knew no fellow for might,
Passion, vehemence, grief,
Daring, since Byron died,--
The world-famed son of fire,--she who sank
Baffled, unknown, self-consumed;
Whose too bold dying song[24]
Shook, like a clarion-blast, my soul.
Of one, too, I have heard,
A brother: sleeps he here?
Of all that gifted race
Not the least gifted; young,
Unhappy, eloquent; the child
Of many hopes, of many tears.
O boy, if here thou sleep’st, sleep well!
On thee too did the Muse
Bright in thy cradle smile;
But some dark shadow came
(I know not what) and interposed.
Sleep, O cluster of friends,
Sleep! or only when May,
Brought by the west-wind, returns
Back to your native heaths,
And the plover is heard on the moors,
Yearly awake to behold
The opening summer, the sky,
The shining moorland; to hear
The drowsy bee, as of old,
Hum o’er the thyme, the grouse
Call from the heather in bloom!
Sleep, or only for this
Break your united repose!
_EPILOGUE._
So I sang; but the Muse,
Shaking her head, took the harp--
Stern interrupted my strain,
Angrily smote on the chords.
April showers
Rush o’er the Yorkshire moors.
Stormy, through driving mist,
Loom the blurred hills; the rain
Lashes the newly-made grave.
Unquiet souls!
--In the dark fermentation of earth,
In the never-idle workshop of nature,
In the eternal movement,
Ye shall find yourselves again!
_RUGBY CHAPEL._
NOVEMBER, 1857.
Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of withered leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent; hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the schoolroom windows; but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the autumn evening. But ah!
That word _gloom_ to my mind
Brings thee back in the light
Of thy radiant vigor again.
In the gloom of November we passed
Days not dark at thy side;
Seasons impaired not the ray
Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn evening, and think
Of bygone autumns with thee.
Fifteen years have gone round
Since thou arosest to tread,
In the summer-morning, the road
Of death, at a call unforeseen,
Sudden. For fifteen years,
We who till then in thy shade
Rested as under the boughs
Of a mighty oak, have endured
Sunshine and rain as we might,
Bare, unshaded, alone,
Lacking the shelter of thee.
O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely, afar,
In the sounding labor-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!
Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live,
Prompt, unwearied, as here.
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad;
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes
Tread the border-land dim
’Twixt vice and virtue; reviv’st,
Succorest. This was thy work,
This was thy life upon earth.
What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth?
Most men eddy about
Here and there, eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurled in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die,--
Perish; and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild
Of the midmost ocean, have swelled,
Foamed for a moment, and gone.
And there are some whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent,
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave.
We, we have chosen our path,--
Path to a clear-purposed goal,
Path of advance; but it leads
A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o’er mountains in snow.
Cheerful, with friends, we set forth:
Then, on the height, comes the storm.
Thunder crashes from rock
To rock; the cataracts reply;
Lightnings dazzle our eyes;
Roaring torrents have breached
The track; the stream-bed descends
In the place where the wayfarer once
Planted his footstep; the spray
Boils o’er its borders; aloft,
The unseen snow-beds dislodge
Their hanging ruin. Alas!
Havoc is made in our train!
Friends who set forth at our side
Falter, are lost in the storm.
We, we only are left!
With frowning foreheads, with lips
Sternly compressed, we strain on,
On; and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn ’mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs,
Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks,--
Whom in our party we bring?
Whom we have left in the snow?
Sadly we answer, We bring
Only ourselves! we lost
Sight of the rest in the storm.
Hardly ourselves we fought through,
Stripped, without friends, as we are.
Friends, companions, and train,
The avalanche swept from our side.
But thou wouldst not _alone_
Be saved, my father! _alone_
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary, and we
Fearful, and we in our march
Fain to drop down and to die.
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.
If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing: to us thou wast still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.
And through thee I believe
In the noble and great who are gone;
Pure souls honored and blest
By former ages, who else else--
Such, so soulless, so poor,
Is the race of men whom I see--
Seemed but a dream of the heart,
Seemed but a cry of desire.
Yes! I believe that there lived
Others like thee in the past,
Not like the men of the crowd
Who all round me to-day
Bluster or cringe, and make life
Hideous and arid and vile;
But souls tempered with fire,
Fervent, heroic, and good,
Helpers and friends of mankind.
Servants of God!--or sons
Shall I not call you? because
Not as servants ye knew
Your Father’s innermost mind,
His who unwillingly sees
One of his little ones lost,--
Yours is the praise, if mankind
Hath not as yet in its march
Fainted and fallen and died.
See! In the rocks of the world
Marches the host of mankind,
A feeble, wavering line.
Where are they tending? A God
Marshalled them, gave them their goal.
Ah, but the way is so long!
Years they have been in the wild:
Sore thirst plagues them; the rocks,
Rising all round, overawe;
Factions divide them; their host
Threatens to break, to dissolve.
Ah! keep, keep them combined!
Else, of the myriads who fill
That army, not one shall arrive;
Sole they shall stray; on the rocks
Batter forever in vain,
Die one by one in the waste.
Then, in such hour of need
Of your fainting, dispirited race,
Ye like angels appear,
Radiant with ardor divine.
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.
Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.
Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave.
Order, courage, return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God.
_HEINE’S GRAVE._
“_Henri Heine_”--’tis here!
The black tombstone, the name
Carved there--no more; and the smooth,
Swarded alleys, the limes
Touched with yellow by hot
Summer, but under them still,
In September’s bright afternoon,
Shadow, and verdure, and cool.
Trim Montmartre! the faint
Murmur of Paris outside;
Crisp everlasting-flowers,
Yellow and black, on the graves.
Half blind, palsied, in pain,
Hither to come, from the streets’
Uproar, surely not loath
Wast thou, Heine! to lie
Quiet, to ask for closed
Shutters, and darkened room,
And cool drinks, and an eased
Posture, and opium, no more;
Hither to come, and to sleep
Under the wings of Renown.
Ah! not little, when pain
Is most quelling, and man
Easily quelled, and the fine
Temper of genius so soon
Thrills at each smart, is the praise,
Not to have yielded to pain!
No small boast, for a weak
Son of mankind, to the earth
Pinned by the thunder, to rear
His bolt-scathed front to the stars;
And, undaunted, retort
’Gainst thick-crashing, insane,
Tyrannous tempests of bale,
Arrowy lightnings of soul.
Hark! through the alley resounds
Mocking laughter! A film
Creeps o’er the sunshine; a breeze
Ruffles the warm afternoon,
Saddens my soul with its chill.
Gibing of spirits in scorn
Shakes every leaf of the grove,
Mars the benignant repose
Of this amiable home of the dead.
Bitter spirits, ye claim
Heine? Alas, he is yours!
Only a moment I longed
Here in the quiet to snatch
From such mates the outworn
Poet, and steep him in calm.
Only a moment! I knew
Whose he was who is here
Buried: I knew he was yours!
Ah! I knew that I saw
Here no sepulchre built
In the laurelled rock, o’er the blue
Naples bay, for a sweet
Tender Virgil; no tomb
On Ravenna sands, in the shade
Of Ravenna pines, for a high
Austere Dante; no grave
By the Avon side, in the bright
Stratford meadows, for thee,
Shakspeare, loveliest of souls,
Peerless in radiance, in joy!
What, then, so harsh and malign,
Heine! distils from thy life?
Poisons the peace of thy grave?
I chide with thee not, that thy sharp
Upbraidings often assailed
England, my country; for we,
Heavy and sad, for her sons,
Long since, deep in our hearts,
Echo the blame of her foes.
We too sigh that she flags;
We too say that she now--
Scarce comprehending the voice
Of her greatest, golden-mouthed sons
Of a former age any more--
Stupidly travels her round
Of mechanic business, and lets
Slow die out of her life
Glory, and genius, and joy.
So thou arraign’st her, her foe;
So we arraign her, her sons.
Yes, we arraign her! but she,
The weary Titan, with deaf
Ears, and labor-dimmed eyes,
Regarding neither to right
Nor left, goes passively by,
Staggering on to her goal;
Bearing on shoulders immense,
Atlanteän, the load,
Well-nigh not to be borne,
Of the too vast orb of her fate.
But was it thou--I think
Surely it was!--that bard
Unnamed, who, Goethe said,
_Had every other gift, but wanted love_--
Love, without which the tongue
Even of angels sounds amiss?
Charm is the glory which makes
Song of the poet divine.
Love is the fountain of charm.
How without charm wilt thou draw,
Poet! the world to thy way?
Not by the lightnings of wit,
Not by the thunder of scorn.
These to the world too are given;
Wit it possesses, and scorn:
Charm is the poet’s alone.
_Hollow and dull are the great,_
_And artists envious, and the mob profane._
We know all this, we know!
Cam’st thou from heaven, O child
Of light! but this to declare?
Alas! to help us forget
Such barren knowledge a while,
God gave the poet his song.
Therefore a secret unrest
Tortured thee, brilliant and bold;
Therefore triumph itself
Tasted amiss to thy soul.
Therefore, with blood of thy foes,
Trickled in silence thine own.
Therefore the victor’s heart
Broke on the field of his fame.
Ah! as of old, from the pomp
Of Italian Milan, the fair
Flower of marble of white
Southern palaces,--steps
Bordered by statues, and walks
Terraced, and orange bowers
Heavy with fragrance,--the blond
German Kaiser full oft
Longed himself back to the fields,
Rivers, and high-roofed towns
Of his native Germany; so,
So, how often! from hot
Paris drawing-rooms, and lamps
Blazing, and brilliant crowds,
Starred and jewelled, of men
Famous, of women the queens
Of dazzling converse; from fumes
Of praise, hot, heady fumes, to the poor brain
That mount, that madden,--how oft
Heine’s spirit outworn
Longed itself out of the din,
Back to the tranquil, the cool
Far German home of his youth!
See! in the May afternoon,
O’er the fresh short turf of the Hartz,
A youth, with the foot of youth,
Heine! thou climbest again:
Up through the tall dark firs
Warming their heads in the sun,
Checkering the grass with their shade;
Up by the stream, with its huge
Moss-hung bowlders, and thin
Musical water half-hid;
Up o’er the rock-strewn slope,
With the sinking sun, and the air
Chill, and the shadows now
Long on the gray hillside,--
To the stone-roofed hut at the top!
Or, yet later, in watch
On the roof of the Brocken-tower
Thou standest, gazing!--to see
The broad red sun over field,
Forest, and city, and spire,
And mist-tracked steam of the wide,
Wide German land, going down
In a bank of vapors,--again
Standest, at nightfall, alone!
Or, next morning, with limbs
Rested by slumber, and heart
Freshened and light with the May,
O’er the gracious spurs coming down
Of the Lower Hartz, among oaks
And beechen coverts, and copse
Of hazels green, in whose depth
Ilse, the fairy transformed,
In a thousand water-breaks light
Pours her petulant youth;
Climbing the rock which juts
O’er the valley,--the dizzily perched
Rock,--to its iron cross
Once more thou cling’st; to the cross
Clingest! with smiles, with a sigh!
Goethe too had been there.[25]
In the long-past winter he came
To the frozen Hartz, with his soul
Passionate, eager; his youth
All in ferment. But he,
Destined to work and to live,
Left it, and thou, alas!
Only to laugh and to die.
But something prompts me: Not thus
Take leave of Heine! not thus
Speak the last word at his grave!
Not in pity, and not
With half censure: with awe
Hail, as it passes from earth
Scattering lightnings, that soul!
The Spirit of the world,
Beholding the absurdity of men,--
Their vaunts, their feats,--let a sardonic smile,
For one short moment, wander o’er his lips.
_That smile was Heine!_ For its earthly hour
The strange guest sparkled; now ’tis passed away.
That was Heine! and we,
Myriads who live, who have lived,
What are we all, but a mood,
A single mood, of the life
Of the Spirit in whom we exist,
Who alone is all things in one?
Spirit, who fillest us all!
Spirit, who utterest in each
New-coming son of mankind
Such of thy thoughts as thou wilt!
O thou, one of whose moods,
Bitter and strange, was the life
Of Heine,--his strange, alas!
His bitter life,--may a life
Other and milder be mine!
May’st thou a mood more serene,
Happier, have uttered in mine!
May’st thou the rapture of peace
Deep have imbreathed at its core;
Made it a ray of thy thought,
Made it a beat of thy joy!
_STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE._
Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is crossed, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier’s stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,
Over his boiling caldron broods.
Swift rush the spectral vapors white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing--then blotting from our sight!--
Halt--through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.
_Strike leftward!_ cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony forest-way.
At last the encircling trees retire;
Look! through the showery twilight gray,
What pointed roofs are these advance?
A palace of the kings of France?
Approach, for what we seek is here!
Alight, and sparely sup, and wait
For rest in this outbuilding near;
Then cross the sward, and reach that gate;
Knock; pass the wicket. Thou art come
To the Carthusians’ world-famed home.
The silent courts, where night and day
Into their stone-carved basins cold
The splashing icy fountains play,
The humid corridors behold,
Where, ghost-like in the deepening night,
Cowled forms brush by in gleaming white!
The chapel, where no organ’s peal
Invests the stern and naked prayer!
With penitential cries they kneel
And wrestle; rising then, with bare
And white uplifted faces stand,
Passing the Host from hand to hand;
Each takes, and then his visage wan
Is buried in his cowl once more.
The cells!--the suffering Son of man
Upon the wall; the knee-worn floor;
And where they sleep, that wooden bed,
Which shall their coffin be when dead!
The library, where tract and tome
Not to feed priestly pride are there,
To hymn the conquering march of Rome,
Nor yet to amuse, as ours are:
They paint of souls the inner strife,
Their drops of blood, their death in life.
The garden, overgrown--yet mild,
See, fragrant herbs are flowering there:
Strong children of the Alpine wild
Whose culture is the brethren’s care;
Of human tasks their only one,
And cheerful works beneath the sun.
Those halls, too, destined to contain
Each its own pilgrim-host of old,
From England, Germany, or Spain,--
All are before me! I behold
The house, the brotherhood austere.
And what am I, that I am here?
For rigorous teachers seized my youth,
And purged its faith, and trimmed its fire,
Showed me the high, white star of Truth,
There bade me gaze, and there aspire.
Even now their whispers pierce the gloom:
_What dost thou in this living tomb?_
Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearned, so much resigned:
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth;
Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone;
For both were faiths, and both are gone.
Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.
Their faith, my tears, the world deride:
I come to shed them at their side.
Oh, hide me in your gloom profound,
Ye solemn seats of holy pain!
Take me, cowled forms, and fence me round,
Till I possess my soul again;
Till free my thoughts before me roll,
Not chafed by hourly false control!
For the world cries, your faith is now
But a dead time’s exploded dream;
My melancholy, sciolists say,
Is a passed mode, an outworn theme.--
As if the world had ever had
A faith, or sciolists been sad!
Ah! if it _be_ passed, take away,
At least, the restlessness, the pain!
Be man henceforth no more a prey
To these out-dated stings again!
The nobleness of grief is gone:
Ah, leave us not the fret alone!
But,--if you cannot give us ease,--
Last of the race of them who grieve,
Here leave us to die out with these
Last of the people who believe!
Silent, while years engrave the brow;
Silent--the best are silent now.
Achilles ponders in his tent,
The kings of modern thought are dumb;
Silent they are, though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore,
But they contend and cry no more.
Our fathers watered with their tears
This sea of time whereon we sail;
Their voices were in all men’s ears
Who passed within their puissant hail.
Still the same ocean round us raves,
But we stand mute, and watch the waves.
For what availed it, all the noise
And outcry of the former men?
Say, have their sons achieved more joys?
Say, is life lighter now than then?
The sufferers died, they left their pain;
The pangs which tortured them remain.
What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mocked the smart,
Through Europe to the Ætolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?
What boots it, Shelley! that the breeze
Carried thy lovely wail away,
Musical through Italian trees
Which fringe thy soft blue Spezzian bay?
Inheritors of thy distress,
Have restless hearts one throb the less?
Or are we easier, to have read,
O Obermann! the sad, stern page,
Which tells us how thou hidd’st thy head
From the fierce tempest of thine age
In the lone brakes of Fontainebleau,
Or chalets near the Alpine snow?
Ye slumber in your silent grave!--
The world, which for an idle day
Grace to your mood of sadness gave,
Long since hath flung her weeds away.
The eternal trifler breaks your spell;
But we--we learnt your lore too well!
Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age,
More fortunate, alas! than we,
Which without hardness will be sage,
And gay without frivolity.
Sons of the world, oh! speed those years;
But, while we wait, allow our tears!
Allow them! We admire with awe
The exulting thunder of your race;
You give the universe your law,
You triumph over time and space:
Your pride of life, your tireless powers,
We praise them, but they are not ours.
We are like children reared in shade
Beneath some old-world abbey wall,
Forgotten in a forest-glade,
And secret from the eyes of all.
Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves,
Their abbey, and its close of graves!
But, where the road runs near the stream,
Oft through the trees they catch a glance
Of passing troops in the sun’s beam,--
Pennon, and plume, and flashing lance;
Forth to the world those soldiers fare,
To life, to cities, and to war.
And through the woods, another way,
Faint bugle-notes from far are borne,
Where hunters gather, staghounds bay,
Round some old forest-lodge at morn.
Gay dames are there, in sylvan green;
Laughter and cries--those notes between!
The banners flashing through the trees
Make their blood dance, and chain their eyes;
That bugle-music on the breeze
Arrests them with a charmed surprise.
Banner by turns and bugle woo:
_Ye shy recluses, follow too!_
O children, what do ye reply?
“Action and pleasure, will ye roam
Through these secluded dells to cry
And call us? but too late ye come!
Too late for us your call ye blow,
Whose bent was taken long ago.
“Long since we pace this shadowed nave;
We watch those yellow tapers shine,
Emblems of hope over the grave,
In the high altar’s depth divine.
The organ carries to our ear
Its accents of another sphere.
“Fenced early in this cloistral round
Of revery, of shade, of prayer,
How should we grow in other ground?
How can we flower in foreign air?
--Pass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease;
And leave our desert to its peace!”
_STANZAS_
IN MEMORY OF THE AUTHOR OF OBERMANN.[26]
NOVEMBER, 1849.
In front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;
The autumn storm-winds drive the rack,
Close o’er it, in the air.
Behind are the abandoned baths[27]
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are on the valley-paths,
The mists are on the Rhone,--
The white mists rolling like a sea;
I hear the torrents roar.
--Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee;
I feel thee near once more.
I turn thy leaves; I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;
That air of languor, cold, and death,
Which brooded o’er thy soul.
Fly hence, poor wretch, whoe’er thou art,
Condemned to cast about,
All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,
For comfort from without!
A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spirit turns,
Here, on its bed of pain.
Yes, though the virgin mountain air
Fresh through these pages blows;
Though to these leaves the glaciers spare
The soul of their mute snows;
Though here a mountain murmur swells
Of many a dark-boughed pine;
Though, as you read, you hear the bells
Of the high-pasturing kine,--
Yet through the hum of torrent lone,
And brooding mountain bee,
There sobs I know not what ground-tone
Of human agony.
Is it for this, because the sound
Is fraught too deep with pain,
That, Obermann! the world around
So little loves thy strain?
Some secrets may the poet tell,
For the world loves new ways:
To tell too deep ones is not well,--
It knows not what he says.
Yet, of the spirits who have reigned
In this our troubled day,
I know but two who have attained,
Save thee, to see their way.
By England’s lakes, in gray old age,
His quiet home one keeps;
And one, the strong much-toiling sage,
In German Weimar sleeps.
But Wordsworth’s eyes avert their ken
From half of human fate;
And Goethe’s course few sons of men
May think to emulate.
For he pursued a lonely road,
His eyes on Nature’s plan;
Neither made man too much a god,
Nor God too much a man.
Strong was he, with a spirit free
From mists, and sane and clear;
Clearer, how much! than ours--yet we
Have a worse course to steer.
For, though his manhood bore the blast
Of a tremendous time,
Yet in a tranquil world was passed
His tenderer youthful prime.
But we, brought forth and reared in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise,--
What shelter to grow ripe is ours?
What leisure to grow wise?
Like children bathing on the shore,
Buried a wave beneath,
The second wave succeeds before
We have had time to breathe.
Too fast we live, too much are tried,
Too harassed, to attain
Wordsworth’s sweet calm, or Goethe’s wide
And luminous view to gain.
And then we turn, thou sadder sage,
To thee! we feel thy spell!
--The hopeless tangle of our age,
Thou too hast scanned it well.
Immovable thou sittest, still
As death, composed to bear;
Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill,
And icy thy despair.
Yes, as the son of Thetis said,
I hear thee saying now:
_Greater by far than thou are dead;_
_Strive not! die also thou!_
Ah! two desires toss about
The poet’s feverish blood;
One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.
_The glow_, he cries, _the thrill of life,_
_Where, where do these abound?_
Not in the world, not in the strife
Of men, shall they be found.
He who hath watched, not shared, the strife,
Knows how the day hath gone:
He only lives with the world’s life,
Who hath renounced his own.
To thee we come, then! Clouds are rolled
Where thou, O seer! art set;
Thy realm of thought is drear and cold--
The world is colder yet.
And thou hast pleasures, too, to share
With those who come to thee,--
Balms floating on thy mountain air,
And healing sights to see.
How often, where the slopes are green
On Jaman, hast thou sate
By some high chalet-door, and seen
The summer day grow late;
And darkness steal o’er the wet grass
With the pale crocus starred,
And reach that glimmering sheet of glass
Beneath the piny sward,--
Lake Leman’s waters, far below;
And watched the rosy light
Fade from the distant peaks of snow;
And on the air of night
Heard accents of the eternal tongue
Through the pine branches play,--
Listened, and felt thyself grow young!
Listened, and wept-- Away!
Away the dreams that but deceive!
And thou, sad guide, adieu!
I go, fate drives me; but I leave
Half of my life with you.
We, in some unknown Power’s employ,
Move on a rigorous line;
Can neither, when we will, enjoy,
Nor, when we will, resign.
I in the world must live; but thou,
Thou melancholy shade!
Wilt not, if thou canst see me now,
Condemn me, nor upbraid.
For thou art gone away from earth,
And place with those dost claim,
The children of the second birth,
Whom the world could not tame;
And with that small transfigured band,
Whom many a different way
Conducted to their common land,
Thou learn’st to think as they
Christian and Pagan, king and slave,
Soldier and anchorite,
Distinctions we esteem so grave,
Are nothing in their sight.
They do not ask, who pined unseen,
Who was on action hurled,
Whose one bond is, that all have been
Unspotted by the world.
There without anger thou wilt see
Him who obeys thy spell
No more, so he but rest, like thee,
Unsoiled; and so, farewell!
Farewell! Whether thou now liest near
That much-loved inland sea,
The ripples of whose blue waves cheer
Vevey and Meillerie;
And in that gracious region bland,
Where with clear-rustling wave
The scented pines of Switzerland
Stand dark round thy green grave,--
Between the dusty vineyard-walls
Issuing on that green place,
The early peasant still recalls
The pensive stranger’s face,--
And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date
Ere he plods on again;
Or whether, by maligner fate,
Among the swarms of men,--
Where between granite terraces
The blue Seine rolls her wave,
The Capital of Pleasure sees
Thy hardly-heard-of grave,--
Farewell! Under the sky we part,
In this stern Alpine dell.
O unstrung will! O broken heart!
A last, a last farewell!
_OBERMANN ONCE MORE._
(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.)
_Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d’un monde?_
OBERMANN.
Glion? Ah! twenty years, it cuts[28]
All meaning from a name!
White houses prank where once were huts;
Glion, but not the same!
And yet I know not! All unchanged
The turf, the pines, the sky!
The hills in their old order ranged;
The lake, with Chillon by;
And ’neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff
And stony mounts the way,
The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if
I left them yesterday.
Across the valley, on that slope,
The huts of Avant shine;
Its pines, under their branches, ope
Ways for the pasturing kine.
Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,
Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,
Invite to rest the traveller there
Before he climb the pass,--
The gentian-flowered pass, its crown[29]
With yellow spires aflame;
Whence drops the path to Allière down,
And walls where Byron came;[30]
By their green river, who doth change
His birth-name just below,
Orchard and croft and full-stored grange
Nursed by his pastoral flow.
But stop! to fetch back thoughts that stray
Beyond this gracious bound,
The cone of Jaman, pale and gray,
See, in the blue profound!
Ah, Jaman! delicately tall
Above his sun-warmed firs,--
What thoughts to me his rocks recall,
What memories he stirs!
And who but thou must be, in truth,
Obermann! with me here?
Thou master of my wandering youth,
But left this many a year!
Yes, I forget the world’s work wrought,
Its warfare waged with pain:
An eremite with thee, in thought
Once more I slip my chain,--
And to thy mountain chalet come,
And lie beside its door,
And hear the wild bee’s Alpine hum,
And thy sad, tranquil lore.
Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm; serene,
Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that _might_ have been,--
The harmony from which man swerved
Made his life’s rule once more;
The universal order served,
Earth happier than before.
--While thus I mused, night gently ran
Down over hill and wood.
Then, still and sudden, Obermann
On the grass near me stood.
Those pensive features well I knew,--
On my mind, years before,
Imaged so oft, imaged so true!
--A shepherd’s garb he wore;
A mountain flower was in his hand,
A book was in his breast.
Bent on my face, with gaze which scanned
My soul, his eyes did rest.
“And is it thou,” he cried, “so long
Held by the world which we
Loved not, who turnest from the throng
Back to thy youth and me?
“And from thy world, with heart opprest,
Choosest thou _now_ to turn?
Ah me! we anchorites read things best,
Clearest their course discern!
“Thou fled’st me when the ungenial earth,
Man’s work-place, lay in gloom:
Return’st thou in her hour of birth,
Of hopes and hearts in bloom?
“Perceiv’st thou not the change of day?
Ah! Carry back thy ken,
What, some two thousand years! Survey
The world as it was then.
“Like ours it looked in outward air.
Its head was clear and true,
Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare,
No pause its action knew;
“Stout was its arm, each thew and bone
Seemed puissant and alive:
But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone,
And so it could not thrive!
“On that hard Pagan world, disgust
And secret loathing fell;
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
“In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian Way.
“He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers;
No easier nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.
“The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
And on her head was hurled.
“The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
“So well she mused, a morning broke
Across her spirit gray;
A conquering, new-born joy awoke,
And filled her life with day.
“‘Poor world!’ she cried, ‘so deep accurst,
That runn’st from pole to pole
To seek a draught to slake thy thirst.--
Go, seek it in thy soul!’
“She heard it, the victorious West,
In crown and sword arrayed;
She felt the void which mined her breast,
She shivered and obeyed.
“She vailed her eagles, snapped her sword,
And laid her sceptre down;
Her stately purple she abhorred,
And her imperial crown.
“She broke her flutes, she stopped her sports,
Her artists could not please.
She tore her books, she shut her courts,
She fled her palaces.
“Lust of the eye, and pride of life,
She left it all behind,
And hurried, torn with inward strife,
The wilderness to find.
“Tears washed the trouble from her face;
She changed into a child;
’Mid weeds and wrecks she stood,--a place
Of ruin,--but she smiled!
“Oh, had I lived in that great day,
How had its glory new
Filled earth and heaven, and caught away
My ravished spirit too!
“No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love which set so deep and strong
From Christ’s then open grave.
“No cloister-floor of humid stone
Had been too cold for me;
For me no Eastern desert lone
Had been too far to flee.
“No lonely life had passed too slow,
When I could hourly scan
Upon his cross, with head sunk low,
That nailed, thorn-crownèd Man;
“Could see the Mother with the Child
Whose tender winning arts
Have to his little arms beguiled
So many wounded hearts!
“And centuries came, and ran their course;
And, unspent all that time,
Still, still went forth that Child’s dear force,
And still was at its prime.
“Ay, ages long endured his span
Of life,--’tis true received,--
That gracious Child, that thorn-crowned Man!
--He lived while we believed.
“While we believed, on earth he went,
And open stood his grave;
Men called from chamber, church, and tent,
And Christ was by to save.
“Now he is dead! Far hence he lies
In the lorn Syrian town;
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down.
“In vain men still, with hoping new,
Regard his death-place dumb,
And say the stone is not yet to,
And wait for words to come.
“Ah! from that silent sacred land
Of sun, and arid stone,
And crumbling wall, and sultry sand,
Comes now one word alone!
“From David’s lips that word did roll;
’Tis true and living yet,--
_No man can save his brother’s soul,_
_Nor pay his brother’s debt._
“Alone, self-poised, henceforward man
Must labor; must resign
His all too human creeds, and scan
Simply the way divine;
“But slow that tide of common thought,
Which bathed our life, retired;
Slow, slow the old world wore to naught,
And pulse by pulse expired.
“Its frame yet stood without a breach,
When blood and warmth were fled;
And still it spake its wonted speech,
But every word was dead.
“And oh! we cried, that on this corse
Might fall a freshening storm!
Rive its dry bones, and with new force
A new-sprung world inform!
“--Down came the storm! O’er France it passed
In sheets of scathing fire.
All Europe felt that fiery blast,
And shook as it rushed by her.
“Down came the storm! In ruins fell
The worn-out world we knew.
It passed, that elemental swell:
Again appeared the blue;
“The sun shone in the new-washed sky.
--And what from heaven saw he?
Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,
Float on a rolling sea!
“Upon them plies the race of man
All it before endeavored:
‘Ye live,’ I cried, ‘ye work and plan,
And know not ye are severed!
“‘Poor fragments of a broken world,
Whereon men pitch their tent!
Why were ye too to death not hurled
When your world’s day was spent?
“‘That glow of central fire is done
Which with its fusing flame
Knit all your parts, and kept you one;
But ye, ye are the same!
“‘The past, its mask of union on,
Had ceased to live and thrive:
The past, its mask of union gone,
Say, is it more alive?
“‘Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead,
Your social order too.
Where tarries he, the Power who said,--
_See, I make all things new?_
“‘The millions suffer still, and grieve.
And what can helpers heal
With old-world cures men half believe
For woes they wholly feel?
“‘And yet men have such need of joy!
But joy whose grounds are true,
And joy that should all hearts employ
As when the past was new.
“‘Ah! not the emotion of that past,
Its common hope, were vain!
Some new such hope must dawn at last,
Or man must toss in pain.
“‘But now the old is out of date,
The new is not yet born.
And who can be _alone_ elate,
While the world lies forlorn?’
“Then to the wilderness I fled.
There among Alpine snows
And pastoral huts I hid my head,
And sought and found repose.
“It was not yet the appointed hour.
Sad, patient, and resigned,
I watched the crocus fade and flower,
I felt the sun and wind.
“The day I lived in was not mine:
Man gets no second day.
In dreams I saw the future shine,
But ah! I could not stay!
“Action I had not, followers, fame.
I passed obscure, alone.
The after-world forgets my name,
Nor do I wish it known.
“Composed to bear, I lived and died,
And knew my life was vain.
With fate I murmur not, nor chide.
At Sèvres by the Seine
“(If Paris that brief flight allow)
My humble tomb explore!
It bears: _Eternity, be thou
My refuge!_ and no more.
“But thou, whom fellowship of mood
Did make from haunts of strife
Come to my mountain solitude,
And learn my frustrate life;
“O thou, who, ere thy flying span
Was past of cheerful youth,
Didst find the solitary man,
And love his cheerless truth,--
“Despair not thou as I despaired,
Nor be cold gloom thy prison!
Forward the gracious hours have fared,
And see! the sun is risen!
“He breaks the winter of the past;
A green, new earth appears.
Millions, whose life in ice lay fast,
Have thoughts and smiles and tears.
“What though there still need effort, strife?
Though much be still unwon?
Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life;
Death’s frozen hour is done.
“The world’s great order dawns in sheen
After long darkness rude,
Divinelier imaged, clearer seen,
With happier zeal pursued.
“With hope extinct, and brow composed,
I marked the present die;
Its term of life was nearly closed,
Yet it had more than I.
“But thou, though to the world’s new hour
Thou come with aspect marred,
Shorn of the joy, the bloom, the power,
Which best befits its bard;
“Though more than half thy years be past,
And spent thy youthful prime;
Though, round thy firmer manhood cast,
Hang weeds of our sad time
“Whereof thy youth felt all the spell,
And traversed all the shade,--
Though late, though dimmed, though weak, yet tell
Hope to a world new-made!
“Help it to fill that deep desire,
The want which crazed our brain,
Consumed our soul with thirst like fire,
Immedicable pain;
“Which to the wilderness drove out
Our life, to Alpine snow,
And palsied all our word with doubt,
And all our work with woe.
“What still of strength is left, employ,
This end to help attain:
_One common wave of thought and joy_
_Lifting mankind again!_”
--The vision ended. I awoke
As out of sleep, and no
Voice moved: only the torrent broke
The silence, far below.
Soft darkness on the turf did lie;
Solemn, o’er hut and wood,
In the yet star-sown nightly sky,
The peak of Jaman stood.
Still in my soul the voice I heard
Of Obermann! Away
I turned; by some vague impulse stirred,
Along the rocks of Naye,--
Past Sonchaud’s piny flanks I gaze,
And the blanched summit bare
Of Malatrait, to where in haze
The Valais opens fair,
And the domed Velan, with his snows,
Behind the upcrowding hills,
Doth all the heavenly opening close
Which the Rhone’s murmur fills;
And glorious there, without a sound,
Across the glimmering lake,
High in the Valais-depth profound,
I saw the morning break.
NOTES.
NOTE [1], PAGE 2.
_Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen._
The name Europe (Εὐρώπη, _the wide prospect_) probably describes the
appearance of the European coast to the Greeks on the coast of Asia
Minor opposite. The name Asia, again, comes, it has been thought, from
the muddy fens of the rivers of Asia Minor, such as the Cayster or
Mæander, which struck the imagination of the Greeks living near them.
NOTE [2], PAGE 8.
_Mycerinus._
“After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, reigned over Egypt. He
abhorred his father’s courses, and judged his subjects more justly
than any of their kings had done. To him there came an oracle from the
city of Buto, to the effect that he was to live but six years longer,
and to die in the seventh year from that time.”--HERODOTUS.
NOTE [3], PAGE 37.
_Stagirius._
Stagirius was a young monk to whom St. Chrysostom addressed three
books, and of whom those books give an account. They will be found in
the first volume of the Benedictine edition of St. Chrysostom’s works.
NOTE [4], PAGE 51.
_That wayside inn we left to-day._
Those who have been long familiar with the English Lake Country will
find no difficulty in recalling, from the description in the text, the
roadside inn at Wythburn, on the descent from Dunmail Raise towards
Keswick; its sedentary landlord of thirty years ago; and the passage
over the Wythburn Fells to Watendlath.
NOTE [5], PAGE 59.
_Sohrab and Rustum._
The story of Sohrab and Rustum is told in Sir John Malcolm’s “History
of Persia,” as follows:--
“The young Sohrab was the fruit of one of Rustum’s early amours. He
had left his mother, and sought fame under the banners of Afrasiab,
whose armies he commanded; and soon obtained a renown beyond that
of all contemporary heroes but his father. He had carried death and
dismay into the ranks of the Persians, and had terrified the boldest
warriors of that country, before Rustum encountered him, which at last
that hero resolved to do under a feigned name. They met three times.
The first time, they parted by mutual consent, though Sohrab had the
advantage; the second, the youth obtained a victory, but granted
life to his unknown father; the third was fatal to Sohrab, who, when
writhing in the pangs of death, warned his conqueror to shun the
vengeance that is inspired by parental woes, and bade him dread the
rage of the mighty Rustum, who must soon learn that he had slain his
son Sohrab. These words, we are told, were as death to the aged hero;
and when he recovered from a trance, he called in despair for proofs
of what Sohrab had said. The afflicted and dying youth tore open his
mail, and showed his father a seal which his mother had placed on his
arm when she discovered to him the secret of his birth, and bade him
seek his father. The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite
frantic: he cursed himself, attempting to put an end to his existence,
and was only prevented by the efforts of his expiring son. After
Sohrab’s death, he burned his tents and all his goods, and carried
the corpse to Seistan, where it was interred; the army of Turan was,
agreeably to the last request of Sohrab, permitted to cross the Oxus
unmolested. To reconcile us to the improbability of this tale, we are
informed that Rustum could have no idea his son was in existence. The
mother of Sohrab had written to him her child was a daughter, fearing
to lose her darling infant if she revealed the truth; and Rustum, as
before stated, fought under a feigned name, an usage not uncommon in
the chivalrous combats of those days.”
NOTE [6], PAGE 94.
_Balder Dead._
“Balder the Good having been tormented with terrible dreams,
indicating that his life was in great peril, communicated them to
the assembled Æsir, who resolved to conjure all things to avert from
him the threatened danger. Then Frigga exacted an oath from fire and
water, from iron and all other metals, as well as from stones, earths,
diseases, beasts, birds, poisons, and creeping things, that none of
them would do any harm to Balder. When this was done, it became a
favorite pastime of the Æsir, at their meetings, to get Balder to
stand up and serve them as a mark, some hurling darts at him, some
stones, while others hewed at him with their swords and battle-axes;
for, do they what they would, none of them could harm him, and this
was regarded by all as a great honor shown to Balder. But when Loki
beheld the scene, he was sorely vexed that Balder was not hurt.
Assuming, therefore, the shape of a woman, he went to Fensalir,
the mansion of Frigga. That goddess, when she saw the pretended
woman, inquired of her if she knew what the Æsir were doing at their
meetings. She replied, that they were throwing darts and stones at
Balder without being able to hurt him.
“‘Ay,’ said Frigga, ’neither metal nor wood can hurt Balder, for I
have exacted an oath from all of them.’
“‘What!’ exclaimed the woman, ‘have all things sworn to spare Balder?’
“‘All things,’ replied Frigga, ‘except one little shrub that grows on
the eastern side of Valhalla, and is called Mistletoe, and which I
thought too young and feeble to crave an oath from.’
“As soon as Loki heard this, he went away, and, resuming his natural
shape, cut off the mistletoe, and repaired to the place where the gods
were assembled. There he found Hödur standing apart, without partaking
of the sports, on account of his blindness; and going up to him said,
‘Why dost thou not also throw something at Balder?’ “‘Because I
am blind,’ answered Hödur, ‘and see not where Balder is, and have,
moreover, nothing to throw with.’
“‘Come, then,’ said Loki, ‘do like the rest, and show honor to Balder
by throwing this twig at him, and I will direct thy arm toward the
place where he stands.’
“Hödur then took the mistletoe, and, under the guidance of Loki,
darted it at Balder, who, pierced through and through, fell down
lifeless.”--_Edda._
NOTE [7], PAGE 131.
_Tristram and Iseult._
“In the court of his uncle King Marc, the king of Cornwall, who
at this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became
expert in all knightly exercises. The king of Ireland, at Tristram’s
solicitations, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage on
King Marc. The mother of Iseult gave to her daughter’s confidante
a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered on the night of her
nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult, on their voyage to
Cornwall, unfortunately partook. Its influence, during the remainder
of their lives, regulated the affections and destiny of the lovers.
“After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the
nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the
romance is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret
interviews.--Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of
the displeasure of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult
with the White Hands. He married her, more out of gratitude than love.
Afterwards he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur, which became the
theatre of unnumbered exploits.
“Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany, and
to his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was
soon reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation, he dispatched a
confidant to the queen of Cornwall, to try if he could induce her to
accompany him to Brittany,” etc.--DUNLOP’S _History of Fiction_.
NOTE [8], PAGE 167.
_That son of Italy who tried to blow._
Giacopone di Todi.
NOTE [9], PAGE 172.
_Recalls the obscure opposer he outweighed._
Gilbert de la Porrée, at the Council of Rheims in 1148.
NOTE [10], PAGE 173.
_Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried._
The Montanists.
NOTE [11], PAGE 174.
_Monica._
See St. Augustine’s “Confessions,” book ix. chapter 11.
NOTE [12], PAGE 175.
_My Marguerite smiles upon the strand._
See, among “Early Poems,” the poem called “A Memory-Picture,” p. 23.
NOTE [13], PAGE 199.
_The Hunter of the Tanagræan Field._
Orion, the Wild Huntsman of Greek legend, and in this capacity
appearing in both earth and sky.
NOTE [14], PAGE 200.
_O’er the sun-reddened western straits._
Erytheia, the legendary region around the Pillars of Hercules,
probably took its name from the redness of the west under which the
Greeks saw it.
NOTE [15], PAGE 222.
_Of the sun-loving gentian, in the heat._
The _gentiana lutea_.
NOTE [16], PAGE 246.
_Ye Sun-born Virgins! on the road of truth._
See the Fragments of Parmenides:--
......κοῦραι δʹ ὁδὀν ἡγεμόνευον,
ἡλἱαδες κοῦραι, προλιποῦσαι δὠματα νυκτός,
εἰς ϕάος............
NOTE [17], PAGE 291.
_The Scholar-Gypsy._
“There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by
his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join
himself to a company of vagabond gypsies. Among these extravagant
people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got
so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their
mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade,
there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been
of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among
the gypsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove
him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with
were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had
a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by
the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that
himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the
whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give
the world an account of what he had learned.”--GLANVIL’S _Vanity of
Dogmatizing_, 1661.
NOTE [18], PAGE 299.
_Thyrsis._
Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding piece, “The
Scholar-Gypsy.”
NOTE [19], PAGE 305.
_Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing._
Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry, was
said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, who had
been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the power of
the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make strangers
try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to death if
he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, took
upon himself the reaping-contest with Lityerses, overcame him, and
slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was,
like the Linus-song, one of the early plaintive strains of Greek
popular poetry, and used to be sung by corn-reapers. Other traditions
represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph who exacted from him an oath
to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and was struck
blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him
to heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from which he
ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices.
See SERVIUS, _Comment. in Virgil. Bucol._, v. 20 and viii. 68.
NOTE [20], PAGE 312.
_Ah! where is he, who should have come._
The author’s brother, William Delafield Arnold, Director of Public
Instruction in the Punjab, and author of “Oakfield, or Fellowship in
the East,” died at Gibraltar, on his way home from India, April the
9th, 1859.
NOTE [21], PAGE 313.
_So moonlit, saw me once of yore._
See the poem, “A Summer Night,” p. 278.
NOTE [22], PAGE 313.
_My brother! and thine early lot._
See Note 20.
NOTE [23], PAGE 317.
_I saw the meeting of two
Gifted women._
Charlotte Brontë and Harriet Martineau.
NOTE [24], PAGE 320.
_Whose too bold dying song._
See the last lines written by Emily Brontë, in “Poems by Currer,
Ellis, and Acton Bell.”
NOTE [25], PAGE 334.
_Goethe too had been there._
See _Harzreise im Winter_, in Goethe’s _Gedichte_.
NOTE [26], PAGE 342.
The author of _Obermann_, Étienne Pivert de Senancour, has little
celebrity in France, his own country; and out of France he is almost
unknown. But the profound inwardness, the austere sincerity, of his
principal work, _Obermann_, the delicate feeling for nature which it
exhibits, and the melancholy eloquence of many passages of it, have
attracted and charmed some of the most remarkable spirits of this
century, such as George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, and will probably
always find a certain number of spirits whom they touch and interest.
Senancour was born in 1770. He was educated for the priesthood, and
passed some time in the Seminary of St. Sulpice; broke away from the
seminary and from France itself, and passed some years in Switzerland,
where he married; returned to France in middle life, and followed
thenceforward the career of a man of letters, but with hardly any fame
or success. He died an old man in 1846, desiring that on his grave
might be placed these words only: _Éternité, deviens mon asile!_
The influence of Rousseau, and certain affinities with more famous
and fortunate authors of his own day,--Chateaubriand and Madame de
Staël,--are everywhere visible in Senancour. But though, like these
eminent personages, he may be called a sentimental writer, and though
_Obermann_, a collection of letters from Switzerland treating almost
entirely of nature and of the human soul, may be called a work of
sentiment, Senancour has a gravity and severity which distinguish him
from all other writers of the sentimental school. The world is with
him in his solitude far less than it is with them; of all writers,
he is the most perfectly isolated and the least attitudinizing. His
chief work, too, has a value and power of its own, apart from these
merits of its author. The stir of all the main forces by which modern
life is and has been impelled lives in the letters of _Obermann_; the
dissolving agencies of the eighteenth century, the fiery storm of the
French Revolution, the first faint promise and dawn of that new world
which our own time is but now fully bringing to light,--all these are
to be felt, almost to be touched, there. To me, indeed, it will always
seem that the impressiveness of this production can hardly be rated
too high.
Besides _Obermann_, there is one other of Senancour’s works which, for
those spirits who feel his attraction, is very interesting: its title
is _Libres Méditations d’un Solitaire Inconnu_.
NOTE [27], PAGE 342.
_Behind are the abandoned baths._
The Baths of Leuk. This poem was conceived, and partly composed, in
the valley going down from the foot of the Gemmi Pass towards the
Rhone.
NOTE [28], PAGE 348.
_Glion? Ah! twenty years, it cuts._
Probably all who know the Vevey end of the Lake of Geneva will
recollect Glion, the mountain village above the Castle of Chillon.
Glion now has hotels, _pensions_, and villas; but twenty years ago it
was hardly more than the huts of Avant opposite to it,--huts through
which goes that beautiful path over the Col de Jaman, followed by so
many foot-travellers on their way from Vevey to the Simmenthal and
Thun.
NOTE [29], PAGE 349.
_The gentian-flowered pass, its crown._
See Note 15.
NOTE [30], PAGE 349.
_And walls where Byron came._
Montbovon. See Byron’s Journal, in his “Works,” vol. iii. p. 258. The
river Saane becomes the Sarine below Montbovon.
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