Read Ebook: The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume 03 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes by Francke Kuno Editor

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Ebook has 4934 lines and 158348 words, and 99 pages

Ah! midway soon lost evermore, Afar the blithe companions stray; In vain their faithless steps explore, As one by one, they glide away. Fleet Fortune was the first escaper-- The thirst for wisdom linger'd yet; But doubts with many a gloomy vapor The sun-shape of the Truth beset!

The holy crown which Fame was wreathing, Behold! the mean man's temples wore, And, but for one short spring-day breathing, Bloom'd Love--the Beautiful--no more! And ever stiller yet, and ever The barren path more lonely lay, Till scarce from waning Hope could quiver A glance along the gloomy way.

Who, loving, lingered yet to guide me, When all her boon companions fled, Who stands consoling yet beside me, And follows to the House of Dread? Thine FRIENDSHIP--thine the hand so tender, Thine the balm dropping on the wound, Thy task the load more lightly to render-- O! earliest sought and soonest found!

And Thou, so pleased, with her uniting, To charm the soul-storm into peace, Sweet TOIL, in toil itself delighting, That more it labored, less could cease; Tho' but by grains thou aid'st the pile The vast Eternity uprears, At least thou strik'st from Time the while Life's debt--the minutes, days and years.

THE VEILED IMAGE AT SA?S

The young man, thoughtful, turn'd him to his home, And the sharp fever of the Wish to Know Robb'd night of sleep. Around his couch he roll'd, Till midnight hatch'd resolve-- "Unto the shrine!" Stealthily on, the involuntary tread Bears him--he gains the boundary, scales the wall, And midway in the inmost, holiest dome, Strides with adventurous step the daring man.

Now halts he where the lifeless Silence sleeps In the embrace of mournful Solitude;-- Silence unstirr'd--save where the guilty tread Call'd the dull echo from mysterious vaults!

High from the opening of the dome above, Came with wan smile the silver-shining moon. And, awful as some pale presiding god, Dim-gleaming through the hush of that large gloom, In its wan veil the Giant Image stood.

With an unsteady step he onward past, Already touch'd the violating hand The Holy--and recoil'd! a shudder thrill'd His limbs, fire-hot and icy-cold in turns, As if invisible arms would pluck the soul Back from the deed. "O miserable man! What would'st thou?" "Wilt thou dare The All-hallow'd to profane? 'No mortal-born' --'may lift the veil Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not-- The same oracular word--'who lifts the veil Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may, I dare the hazard--I will lift the veil--" Loud rang his shouting voice--"and I will see!" "SEE!" A lengthen'd echo, mocking, shrill'd again! He spoke and rais'd the veil! And ask'st thou what Unto the sacrilegious gaze lay bare? I know not--pale and senseless, stretch'd before The statue of the great Egyptian queen, The priests beheld him at the dawn of day; But what he saw, or what did there befall, His lips reveal'd not. Ever from his heart Was fled the sweet serenity of life, And the deep anguish dug the early grave "Woe--woe to him"--such were his warning words, Answering some curious and impetuous brain, "Woe--for her face shall charm him never more! Woe--woe to him who treads through Guilt to TRUTH!"

THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL LIFE

Forever fair, forever calm and bright, Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light, For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice-- Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb, And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom The rosy days of Gods-- With Man, the choice, Timid and anxious, hesitates between The sense's pleasure and the soul's content; While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen, The beams of both are blent.

Seek'st thou on earth the life of Gods to share, Safe in the Realm of Death?--beware To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eye; Content thyself with gazing on their glow-- Short are the joys Possession can bestow, And in Possession sweet Desire will die. 'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that bound Thy daughter, Ceres, to the Stygian river-- She pluck'd the fruit of the unholy ground, And so--was Hell's forever!

The Weavers of the Web--the Fates--but sway The matter and the things of clay; Safe from each change that Time to Matter gives, Nature's blest playmate, free at will to stray With Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day, The FORM, the ARCHETYPE, serenely lives. Would'st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing? Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and the real, High from this cramp'd and dungeon being, spring Into the Realm of the Ideal!

Not from the strife itself to set thee free, But more to nerve--doth Victory Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime. Whate'er thy wish, the Earth has no repose-- Life still must drag thee onward as it flows, Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time. But when the courage sinks beneath the dull Sense of its narrow limits--on the soul, Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful, Bursts the attain?d goal!

If worth thy while the glory and the strife Which fire the lists of Actual Life-- The ardent rush to fortune or to fame, In the hot field where Strength and Valor are, And rolls the whirling thunder of the car, And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game-- Then dare and strive--the prize can but belong To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails; In life the victory only crowns the strong-- He who is feeble fails.

But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil'd, Chafed while confin'd, foams fierce and wild, Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand, When its waves, glassing in their silver play, Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray, Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL--that Shadow-Land! Here, contest grows but interchange of Love; All curb is but the bondage of the Grace; Gone is each foe,--Peace folds her wings above Her native dwelling-place.

When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light, With the dull matter to unite The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows; Behold him straining every nerve intent-- Behold how, o'er the subject element, The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes! For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well-- The statue only to the chisel's stroke Wakes from its marble cell.

But onward to the Sphere of Beauty--go Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo, Out of the matter which thy pains control The Statue springs!--not as with labor wrung From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung-- Airy and light--the offspring of the soul! The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost Leave not a trace when once the work is done-- The Artist's human frailty merged and lost In Art's great victory won!

But fly the boundary of the Senses--live The Ideal life free Thought can give; And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill Of the soul's impotent despair be gone! And with divinity thou sharest the throne, Let but divinity become thy will! Scorn not the Law--permit its iron band The sense to thrall. Let man no more the will of Jove withstand, And Jove the bolt lets fall!

If, in the woes of Actual Human Life-- If thou could'st see the serpent strife Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone-- Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek, Note every pang, and hearken every shriek Of some despairing lost Laocoon, The human nature would thyself subdue To share the human woe before thine eye-- Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true To Man's great Sympathy.

But in the Ideal Realm, aloof and far, Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are, Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan. Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows-- Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows The brave resolve of the firm soul alone: Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given, Gleaming through Grief's dark veil, the peaceful blue Of the sweet Moral Heaven.

So, in the glorious parable, behold How, bow'd to mortal bonds, of old Life's dreary path divine Alcides trod: The hydra and the lion were his prey, And to restore the friend he loved today, He went undaunted to the black-brow'd God; And all the torments and the labors sore Wroth Juno sent--the meek majestic One, With patient spirit and unquailing, bore, Until the course was run--

Until the God cast down his garb of clay, And rent in hallowing flame away The mortal part from the divine--to soar To the empyreal air! Behold him spring Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wing, And the dull matter that confined before Sinks downward, downward, downward as a dream! Olympian hymns receive the escaping soul, And smiling Hebe, from the ambrosial stream, Fills for a God the bowl!

GENIUS

Do I believe, thou ask'st, the Master's word, The Schoolman's shibboleth that binds the herd? To the soul's haven is there but one chart? Its peace a problem to be learned by art? On system rest the happy and the good? To base the temple must the props be wood? Must I distrust the gentle law, imprest, To guide and warn, by Nature on the breast, Till, squared to rule the instinct of the soul,-- Till the School's signet stamp the eternal scroll, Till in one mold some dogma hath confined The ebb and flow--the light waves--of the mind? Say thou, familiar to these depths of gloom, Thou, safe ascended from the dusty tomb, Thou, who hast trod these weird Egyptian cells-- Say--if Life's comfort with yon mummies dwells!-- Say--and I grope--with saddened steps indeed-- But on, thro' darkness, if to Truth it lead!

No!--then thine Innocence thy Mentor be! Science can teach thee naught--she learns from thee! Each law that lends lame succor to the Weak-- The cripple's crutch--the vigorous need not seek! From thine own self thy rule of action draw; That which thou dost--what charms thee--is thy Law, And founds to every race a code sublime-- What pleases Genius gives a Law to Time! The Word--the Deed--all Ages shall command, Pure if thy lip and holy if thy hand! Thou, thou alone mark'st not within thy heart The inspiring God whose Minister thou art, Know'st not the magic of the mighty ring Which bows the realm of Spirits to their King: But meek, nor conscious of diviner birth, Glide thy still footsteps thro' the conquered Earth!

VOTIVE TABLETS

MOTTO TO THE VOTIVE TABLETS.

What the God taught--what has befriended all Life's ways, I place upon the Votive Wall.

THE GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

The Good's the Flower to Earth already given-- The Beautiful, on Earth sows flowers from Heaven!

VALUE AND WORTH

THE KEY

THE DIVISION OF RANKS

TO THE MYSTIC

Spreads Life's true mystery round us evermore, Seen by no eye, it lies all eyes before.

WISDOM AND PRUDENCE

Wouldst thou the loftiest height of Wisdom gain? On to the rashness, Prudence would disdain; The purblind see but the receding shore, Not that to which the bold wave wafts thee o'er!

THE UNANIMITY

Truth seek we both--Thou, in the life without thee and around; I in the Heart within--by both can Truth alike be found; The healthy eye can through the world the great Creator track-- The healthy heart is but the glass which gives creation back.

THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS

TO ASTRONOMERS

Of the Nebulae and planets do not babble so to me; What! is Nature only mighty inasmuch as you can see? Inasmuch as you can measure her immeasurable ways, As she renders world on world, sun and system to your gaze? Though through space your object be the Sublimest to embrace, Never the Sublime abideth--where you vainly search--in space!

THE BEST GOVERNED STATE

How the best state to know?--It is found out, Like the best women--that least talked about.

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