Song that is aching,
Ne’er to escape from me,
Sleeping or waking,
Down aspic! the dust of me,
Blown the world over
A century hence
Will envenom a lover.
His red lips grow vocal,
His great word is new,
And the world knows my secret,
Is dreaming of you.
IMITATED FROM J. SOULARY’S “LE FOSSOYEUR”
For every child new-born God brings to birth
A little grave-digger, deft at his trade,
Who ’neath his master’s feet still voids the earth,
There where one day the man’s dark plunge is made.
Do you know yours? Hideous perhaps is he,
You shudder seeing the workman at his task;
Such gracious looks commend who waits on me
I yield whole-hearted, nor for quarter ask.
A child rose-white, sweet-lipped, my steps he presses
On to the pit with coaxings and caresses,
Lovelier assassin none could choose to have.
Rogue, hast thou done? Let’s haste. The hour comes quick,
Give with a kiss the last stroke of the pick,
And gently lay me in my flowery grave.
IMITATED FROM GOETHE’S “GANYMEDE”
As with splendour of morning
Around me thou flamest,
O Spring time, my lover,
With a thousand delights and desires;
To my heart comes thronging
The sacred sense
Of thy glow everlasting,
O infinite beauty!
Would I might seize thee
In these my arms!
Ah! on thy bosom
I lie sore yearning;
Thy flowers, thy grasses,
Press close to my heart;
Fresh breeze of the morn
Thy coolest the burning
Thirst of my breast.
With love the nightingale
Calls to me from the misty valley!
I come, I am coming!
Whither? Ah, whither?
Upward! Upward the urge is!
Lower the clouds come drifting,
They stoop to the longing of love.
For me! for me!
Borne in the lap of you
Upwards!
Embracing, embraced!
Upwards, even to the bosom
Of thee all-loving, my Father!
WITH A COPY OF MY “POEMS”
My slender, wondering Nautilus,
Sunk in the ooze--a thing how frail!--
Because you choose to have it thus
Through wavering waters luminous
Rises once more, sets up the sail;
It trembles to the sun, has fear
Of life, that knew no fear of death:
Ah! may kind Ariel, hovering near,
Speed the toy onward with his breath!
PROLOGUE TO MAURICE GEROTHWOHL’S VERSION OF VIGNY’S “CHATTERTON”
(_March 1909_)
Not yet to life inured, the Muse’s son,
Born to be lord of visions, Chatterton,
A youth, nor yet the master of his dream,
Poor, proud, o’erwrought, perplex’d in the extreme
By poetry, his demon, and by love--
Powers of the deep below, the height above--
Ringed by a world with dreams and love at strife,
Rejects in fiery spleen the gift of life.
Condemn, but pity!
In the South, they say,
Boys in their sportive mood affect a play;
The brands aglow they fashion in a ring,
Then in the ardent cirque a scorpion fling;
Crouched motionless the creature lies, until
Urged by the fire you see him throb and thrill,
Whereon the laughter peals! Anon, he’ll shape
Right on the flames his course to make escape,
And backward draws o’erpowered. Fresh shouts of glee!
Next round the circle curving timorously
He seeks impossible exit; now, once more,
Quailing, and in the centre as before,
He shrinks despairing; lest, he knows his part,
Turns on himself, grown bold, his poisoned dart,
And on the instant dies. O then at height
We hear the cries uproarious of delight!
Doubtless the wretch on mortal crime was bent,
Doubtless the boys were good and innocent.
Play not, O world of men, the savage boy,
Make not the poet, quickener of earth’s joy,
Your scorpion! Hardly once a hundred years
Compact of spirit and fire and dew, appears
He through whose song the spheral harmonies
Vibrate in mortal hearing. Nay, be wise,
For your own joy, and see he lacks not bread,
If ye but wreathe the white brows of the dead,
’Tis ye yourselves are disinherited.
A SONG
When did such moons upheave?
When were such pure dawns born?
Yet fly morn into eve,
Fly eve into morn.
Lily and iris blooms,
Blooms of the orchard close,
Pass--for she comes, she comes,
Your sovereign, the rose.
Lark, that is heart of the height,
Thrush, that is voice of the vale,
Cease, it is nearing, the night
Of the nightingale.
Hasten great noon that glows,
Night, when the swift stars pale,
Hasten noon of the rose,
Night of the nightingale.
THE DROPS OF NECTAR. 1789
_Imitated from_ GOETHE’S “DIE NEKTARTROPFEN”
When Minerva, granting graces
To her darling, her Prometheus,
Brought a brimming bowl of nectar
To the underworld from heaven
To rejoice his race of mortals,
And to quicken in their bosom
Of all gracious arts the impulse,
Fearing Jupiter should see her,
With a rapid foot she hastened,
And the golden bowl was shaken,
And there fell some slender sprinklings
On the verdurous plain below her.
Whereupon the bees grew busy
With the same in eager sucking.
Came the butterfly as eager
Some small drop to gather also.
Even the spider, the unshapely,
Hither crept and sucked with gusto.
Happy are they to have tasted,
They and other delicate creatures,
For they share henceforth with mortals
Art, of all earth’s joys the fairest.
AMOR AS LANDSCAPE-PAINTER
_Imitated from_ GOETHE’S “AMOR ALS LANDSCHAFTSMALER”
On a point of rock I sat one morning,
Gazed with fixèd eyes upon the vapour,
Like a sheet of solid grey outspreading
Did it cover all in plain and mountain.
By my side meanwhile a boy had placed him,
And he spake. “Good friend, how can’st thou calmly
Stare upon the void grey sheet before thee?
Hast thou then for painting and for modelling
All desire, it seemeth, lost for ever?”
On the child I looked, and thought in secret,
“Would the little lad then play the Master?”
“If thou wouldst be ever sad and idle,”
Spake the boy, “no thing of skill can follow.
Look! I’ll paint you straight a little picture,
Teach you how to paint a pretty picture.”
And thereon forth stretched he his forefinger,
Which was rosy even as a rose blossom,
To the ample canvas strained before him
Set to work at sketching with his finger.
There on high a glorious sun he painted,
Which mine eyes with its effulgence dazzled,
And the fringe of clouds he made it golden.
Through the clouds he let press forth the sunbeams,
Then the tree-tops delicate, light, he painted,
Late refreshed and quickened. Over the hillrange
Hill behind hill folded, for a background.
Nor were waters wanting. There below them
He the river limned, so true to Nature,
That it seemed to sparkle in the sunbeams,
That against its banks it seemed to murmur.
And there stood beside the river flowers,
And their colours glowed upon the meadow,
Gold and an enamel green and purple;
As if all were emerald and carbuncle.
Pure and clear above he limned the heaven,
And the azure mountains far and further,
So that I, new-born and all enraptured,
Gazed on now the painter, now the picture.
“I have given thee proof, perhaps,” so spake he,
“That this handicraft I’ve comprehended
But the hardest part is yet to follow.”
Then and with his finger-tip he outlined,
Using utmost care beside the thicket,
At the point where from earth’s gleaming surface
Was the sun cast back in all its radiance--
Outlined there the loveliest of maidens,
Fair of form, now clad in richest raiment,
Brown her hair and ’neath it cheeks the freshest
And the cheeks were of the self-same colour
As the pretty finger that had drawn them.
“O my boy,” I cried, “declare what master
Did receive thee in his school as pupil,
That so swiftly and so true to Nature
Thou with skill beginn’st and well completest?”
But while yet I spake a breeze uprises.
And behold, it sets astir the summits,
Curleth every wave upon the river,
Puffs the veil out of the charming maiden.
And, what me the astonished, more astonished,
Now the maiden’s foot is put in motion,
She advances, and to the place draws nearer,
Where I sit beside the cunning Master.
Now when all things, all things are in motion,
Trees and river, flowers and veil outblowing,
And the slender foot of her the fairest,
Think you I upon my rock stayed seated,
Speechless as a rock and as immobile?
THE WANDERER
_Imitated from_ GOETHE’S “DER WANDERER”
WANDERER
God’s grace be thine, young woman
And his, the boy who sucks
That breast of thine.
Here let me on the craggy scar,
In shade of the great elm,
My knapsack fling from me
And rest me by thy side.
WOMAN
What business urges thee
Now in the heat of day
Along this dusty path?
Bringest thou some city merchandise
Into the country round?
Thou smilest, stranger,
At this my question.
WANDERER
No city merchandise I bring,
Cool now the evening grows,
Show me the rills
Whence thou dost drink,
My good young woman.
WOMAN
Here, up the rocky path,
Go onward. Through the shrubs
The path runs by the cot
Wherein I dwell,
On to the rills
From whence I drink.
WANDERER
Traces of ordering human hands
Betwixt the underwood.
These stones _thou_ hast not so disposed,
Nature--thou rich dispensatress.
WOMAN
Yet further up.
WANDERER
With moss o’erlaid, an architrave!
I recognize thee, plastic spirit,
Thou hast impressed thy seal upon the stone.
WOMAN
Further yet, stranger.
WANDERER
Lo, an inscription whereupon I tread,
But all illegible,
Worn out by wayfarers are ye,
Which should show forth your Master’s piety,
Unto a thousand children’s children.
WOMAN
In wonder, stranger, dost thou gaze
Upon these stones?
Up yonder round my cot
Are many such.
WANDERER
Up yonder?
WOMAN
Leftwards directly
On through the underwood,
Here!
WANDERER
Ye Muses! and ye Graces!
WOMAN
That is my cottage.
WANDERER
The fragments of a temple!
WOMAN
Here onwards on one side
The rivulet flows
From whence I drink.
WANDERER
Glowing, then hoverest
Above thy sepulchre,
Genius! Over thee
Is tumbled in a heap
Thy masterpiece,
O thou undying one!
WOMAN
Wait till I bring the vessel
That thou mayst drink.
WANDERER
Ivy hath clad around
Thy slender form divine.
How do ye upward strive
From out the wreck,
Twin columns!
And thou, the solitary sister there,
How do ye,
With sombre moss upon your sacred heads,
Gaze in majestic mourning down
Upon these scattered fragments
There at your feet,
Your kith and kin!
Where lie the shadows of the bramble bush,
Concealed by wrack and earth,
And the long grass wavers above.
Nature dost then so hold in price
Thy masterpiece’s masterpiece?
Dost thou, regardless, shatter thus
Thy sanctuary?
Dost sow the thistles therein?
WOMAN
How the boy sleeps!
Wouldst thou within the cottage rest,
Stranger? Wouldst here
Rather than ’neath the open heavens bide?
Now it is cool. Here, take the boy.
Let me go draw the water.
Sleep, darling, sleep!
WANDERER
Sweet is thy rest.
How, bathed in heavenly healthiness,
Restful he breathes!
Thou, born above the relics
Of a most sacred past,
Upon thee may its spirit rest.
He whom it environeth
Will in the consciousness of power divine
Each day enjoy.
Seedling so rich expand,
The shining spring’s
Resplendent ornament,
In presence of thy fellows shine,
And when the flower-sheathe fades and falls
May from thy bosom rise
The abounding fruit,
And ripening, front the sun.
WOMAN
God bless him--and ever still he sleeps.
Nought have I with this water clear
Except a piece of bread to offer thee.
WANDERER
I give thee thanks.
How gloriously all blooms around
And groweth green!
WOMAN
My husband soon
Home from the fields
Returns. Stay, stay, O man,
And eat with us thy evening bread.
WANDERER
Here do ye dwell?
WOMAN
There, between yonder walls,
The cot. My father builded it
Of brick, and of the wreckage stones.
Here do we dwell.
He gave me to a husbandman,
And in our arms he died--
Sweetheart--and hast thou slept?
How bright he is--and wants to play.
My rogue!
WANDERER
O Nature! everlastingly conceiving.
Each one thou bearest for the joy of life,
All of thy babes thou hast endowed
Lovingly with a heritage--a Name.
High on the cornice doth the swallow build,
Of what an ornament she hides
All unaware.
The caterpillar round the golden bough
Spins her a winter quarters for her young.
Thus dost thou patch in ’twixt the august
Fragments of bygone time
For needs of thine--for thy own needs
A hut. O men--
Rejoicing over graves.
Farewell, thou happy wife.
WOMAN
Thou wilt not stay?
WANDERER
God keep you safe
And bless your boy.
WOMAN
A happy wayfaring!
WANDERER
Where doth the pathway lead me
Over the mountain there?
WOMAN
To Cuma.
WANDERER
How far is it hence?
WOMAN
’Tis three good miles.
WANDERER
Farewell!
O Nature! guide my way,
The stranger’s travel-track
Which over graves
Of sacred times foregone
I still pursue.
Me to some covert guide,
Sheltered against the north,
And where from noontide’s glare
A poplar grove protects.
And when at eve I turn
Home to the hut,
Made golden with the sun’s last beam,
Grant that such wife may welcome me,
The boy upon her arm.
IMITATED FROM GOETHE’S “ALEXIS AND DORA”
Ah, without stop or stay the ship still momently presses
On through the foaming deep, further and further from shore.
Far-traced the furrow is cut by the keel, and in it the dolphins
Bounding follow as though prey were before them in flight.
All betokens a fortunate voyage; light-hearted the shipman
Gently handles the sail that takes on it labour for all.
Forward as pennon and streamer presses the voyager’s spirit,
One alone by the mast stands reverted and sad.
Mountains already blue he sees departing, he sees them
Sink in the sea, while sinks every joy from his gaze.
Also for thee has vanished the ship that bears thy Alexis,
Robs thee, O Dora, of friend, robs thee of, ah! the betrothed.
Thou, too, gazest in vain after me. Our hearts are still beating
For one another, but ah! on one another no more.
Single moment wherein I have lived, thou weigh’st in the balance
More than all days erewhile coldly squandered by me.
Ah, in that moment alone, the last, arose in my bosom
Life unhoped for in thee, come down as a gift from the Gods.
Now in vain dost thou with thy light make glorious the æther,
Thy all-illumining day--Phœbus, by me is abhorred.
Back on myself I return, and fain would I there in the silence
Live o’er again the time when daily to me she appeared.
Was it possible beauty to see and never to feel it?
Did not the heavenly charm work on thy dullness of soul?
Blame not thyself, poor heart, so the poet proposes a riddle,
Artfully wrought into words oft to the ear of the crowd,
The network of images, lovely and strange, is a joy to the hearer,
Yet still there lacketh the word affirming the sense of the whole.
Is it at last disclosed, then every spirit is gladdened,
And in the verse perceives meaning of twofold delight.
Ah, why so late, O love, dost thou unbind from my forehead
Wrappings that darkened my eyes--why too late dost unbind?
Long time the freighted bark delayed for favouring breezes,
Fair at last rose the wind pressing off-shore to the sea.
Idle seasons of youth and idle dreams of the future
Ye have departed--for me only remaineth the hour;
Yes, it remains the gladness remaining for me; Dora, I hold thee.
Hope to my gaze presents, Dora, thy image alone.
Often on thy way to the temple I saw thee gay-decked and decorous,
Stepped the good mother beside, all ceremonious and grave.
Quick-footed wert thou and eager, bearing thy fruit to the market,
Quitting the well, thy head how daringly balanced the jar;
There, lo! thy throat was shown, thy neck more fair than all others,
Fairer than others were shown the poise and play of thy limbs.
Ofttime I held me in fear for the totter and crash of the pitcher,
Yet upright ever it stood, there where the kerchief was pleached.
Fairest neighbour, yes, my wont it was to behold thee,
As we behold the stars, as we contemplate the moon.
In them rejoicing, while never once in the tranquil bosom,
Even in shadow of thought stirs the desire to possess.
Thus did ye pass, my years. But twenty paces asunder
Our dwellings, thine and mine, nor once on thy threshold I trod.
Now the hideous deep divides us! Ye lie to the heavens,
Billows! your lordly blue to me is the colour of night.
Already was everything in motion. A boy came running
Swift to my father’s house, calling me down to the shore.
“The sail is already hoisted; it flaps in the wind,” so spake he.
“Weighed with a lusty cheer the anchor parts from the sand.
Come, Alexis! O come!” And gravely, in token of blessing,
Laid my good father his hand on the clustering curls of the son.
Careful the mother reached me a bundle newly made ready;
“Come back happy!” they cried. “Come back happy and rich.”
So out of doors, the bundle under my arm, did I fling me,
And at the wall below, there by the garden gate,
Saw thee stand; thou smiledst upon me and spake’st. “Alexis,
Yonder clamouring folk, are these thy comrades aboard?
Distant shores thou visitest now and merchandise precious
Thou dost deal in, and jewels for the wealthy city dames.
Wilt thou not bring me also one little light chain? I would buy it
Thankfully. I have wished so oft to adorn me with this.”
Holding my own I stood and asked, in the way of a merchant,
First of the form, the weight exact, of the order thou gavest.
Modest in truth was the price thou assignedst. While gazing upon thee,
Neck and shoulders I saw worthy the jewels of our queen.
Louder sounded the cry from the ship. Then saidest thou kindly,
“Some of the garden fruit take thou with thee on thy way.
Take the ripest oranges--take white figs. The sea yields
Never a fruit at all. Nor doth every country give fruits.”
Thereon I stepped within; the fruit thou busily broughtest,
There in the gathered robe bearing a burden all gold.
Often I pleaded, “see this is enough,” and ever another
And fairer fruit down dropped, lightly touched, to thy hand.
Then at the last to the bower thou camest. There was a basket,
And the myrtle in bloom bent over thee, over me.
Skilfully didst thou begin to arrange the fruit and in silence.
First the orange, that lies heavy a globe of gold,
Then the tenderer fig, which slightest pressure will injure,
And with myrtle o’erlaid, fair adorned was the gift.
But I lifted it not. I stood, we looked one another
Full in the eyes. When straight the sight of my eyes waxed dim.
Thy bosom I felt on my own! and now my arm encircled
The stately neck, whereon thousandfold kisses I showered.
Sank thy head on my shoulder--by tender arms enfolded
As with a chain was he the man whom thou hast made blest.
The hands of Love I felt, he drew us with might together,
And thrice from a cloudless sky it thundered; and now there flowed
Tears from my eyes, down streaming, weeping wert thou. I wept,
And through sorrow and joy the world seemed to pass from our sense.
Ever more urgent their shoreward cry; but thither to bear me
My feet refused: I cried, “Dora, and art thou not mine?”
“For ever,” thou gently saidst. And thereon it seemed that our tears,
As by some breath divine, gently were blown from our eyes.
Nearer the cry “Alexis!” Then peered the boy, as he sought me,
In through the garden gate. How the basket he eyed.
How he constrained me. How I pressed thee once more by the hand.
How arrived I aboard? I know as one drunken I seemed.
Even so my companions took me to be; they bore with one ailing,
And already in haze of distance the city grew dim.
“For ever,” Dora, thy whisper was. In my ear it echoes
Even with the thunder of Zeus. There stood she by his throne,
She, his daughter, the Goddess of Love, and beside her the Graces.
So by the Gods confirmed this our union abides.
O then haste thee, our bark, with the favouring winds behind thee.
Labour, thou lusty keel, sunder the foaming flood!
Bring me to that strange haven; that so for me may the goldsmith
In his workshop anon fashion the heavenly pledge.
Ay, in truth, the chainlet shall grow to a chain, O Dora.
Nine times loosely wound shall it encircle thy neck.
Further, jewels most manifold will I procure for thee; golden
Bracelets also. My gifts richly shall deck thy hand.
There shall the ruby contend with the emerald; loveliest sapphire
Matched against jacinth shall stand, while with a setting of gold
Every gem may be held in a perfect union of beauty.
O what joy for the lover to grace with jewel and gold the beloved.
If pearls I view, my thought is of thee; there rises before me
With every ring the shape slender and fair of thy hand.
I will barter and buy, and out of them all the fairest
Thou shalt choose. I devote all my lading to thee.
But not jewel and gem alone shall thy lover procure thee.
What a housewife would choose, that will he bring with him too.
Coverlets delicate, woollen and purple, hemmed to make ready
A couch that grateful and soft fondly shall welcome the pair.
Lengths of the finest linen. Thou sittest and sewest and clothest
Me therein and thyself, and haply also a third.
Visions of hope delude my heart. Allay, O Divine Ones,
Flames of resistless desire wildly at work in my breast,
And yet I fain would recall delights that are bitter,
When care to me draws near, hideous, cold and unmoved.
Not the Erinnyes torch nor the baying of hounds infernal
Strikes such terror in him, the culprit in realms of despair,
As that phantom unmoved in me who shows me the fair one
Far away. Open stands even now the garden gate,
And another, not I, draws near--for him fruits are falling,
And for him, too, the fig strengthening honey retains.
Him too doth she draw to the bower. Does he follow? O sightless
Make me, O Gods! destroy the vision of memory in me.
Yes--a maiden is she--she who gives herself straight to one lover,
She to another who woes as speedily turns her around.
Laugh not, O Zeus, this time, at an oath audaciously broken--
Thunder more fiercely! strike! yet hold back thy lightning shaft.
Send on my trace the sagging clouds. In gloom as of night-time
Let thy bright lightning-flash strike this ill-fated mast.
Scatter the planks around and give to the raging waters
This my merchandise. Give me to the dolphins a prey.
Now ye Muses enough! In vain is your effort to image
How in a heart that loves alternate sorrow and joy.
Nor are ye able to heal those wounds which Love has inflicted,
Yet their assuagement comes, Gracious Ones, only from you.
EDITOR’S NOTE.--The four Goethe translations with which this volume
closes are taken from rough jottings, hardly more than
_protoplasm_.
They much need re-handling, which they cannot now receive. Many
lines are, as verse, defective for the ear ... yet some contain
sufficient beauty, as well as fidelity, in translation to justify,
perhaps, their preservation as fragments of unfinished work.
This does not apply to the other translations which were left by E.
D. in fair MS. as completed.
COLSTONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH