STRONG HEART-TIES BROKEN.
What human tie, that does not knit thee to me?
I love thee, Max.! What did thy father for thee,
Which I too have not done, to th' height of duty?
Go hence, forsake me, serve thy Emperor;
He will reward thee with a pretty chain
Of gold; with his ram's fleece will he reward thee:
For that the friend, the father of thy youth,
For that the holiest feeling of humanity,
Was nothing worth to thee.
Duty to whom? Who art thou? Max.! bethink thee
What duties mayst thou have? If I am acting
A criminal part toward the Emperor,
It is my crime, not thine.
To thine own self? Art thou thine own commander?
Stand'st thou, like me, a freeman in the world,
That in thy actions thou shouldst plead free agency?
On me thou 'rt planted, I'm thy Emperor;
To obey me, to belong to me, this is
Thy honour, this a law of Nature to thee!
And if the planet, on the which thou livest
And hast thy dwelling, from its orbit starts,
It is not in thy choice, whether or no
Thou 'It follow it. Unfelt it whirls thee onward
Together with his ring, and all his moons.
With little guilt stepp'st thou into this contest;
Thee will the world not censure, it will praise thee,
For that thou held'st thy friend more worth to thee
Than names and influences more removed.
For justice is the virtue of the ruler,
Affection and fidelity the subject's.
Not every one doth it beseem to question
The far-off high Arcturus. Most securely
Wilt thou pursue the nearest duty: let
The pilot fix his eye upon the pole-star.
SCHILLER: 1759-1805: COLERIDGE'S Translation.
IMMORTALITY OF LOVE.
THEY sin who tell us love can die
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity:
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;
Earthly these passions of the Earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth:
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
ROBERT SOUTHEY: 1774-1843
JOY AND SORROW.
Joy is a weak and giddy thing, that laughs
Itself to weariness or sleep, and wakes
To the same barren laughter: 't is a child
Perpetually; and all its past and future
Lie in the compass of an infant's day.
Crush'd from our sorrow, all that 's great in man
Has ever sprung. In the bold Pagan world
Men deified the beautiful, the glad,
The strong, the boastful, and it came to nought:
We have raised Pain and Sorrow into Heaven;
And in our temples, on our altars, Grief
Stands symbol of our faith, and it shall last
As long as man is mortal and unhappy.
The gay at heart may wander to the skies,
And harps may there be found them, and the branch
Of palm be put into their hands on Earth
We know them not: no votarist of our faith,
Till he has dropp'd his tears into the stream,
Tastes of its sweetness.
1 Or old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
2 There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind;
Bnt fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
3 Then stept she down through town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of her face;
4 Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
And, King-like, wears the crown.
5 Her open eyes desire the truth.
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;
6 That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams;
Turning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes !
1 THE sad and solemn night
Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light
Walk the dark atmosphere till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.
2 Day, too, hath many a star
To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they :
Through the blue fields afar,
Unseen, they follow in his flaming way :
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.
3 And thou dost see them rise,
Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,
Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.
4 There, at morn's rosy birth,
Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve, that round the Earth
Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;
There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.
5 Alike, beneath thine eye,
The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High towards the starlit sky
Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the Sun;
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud,
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.
6 On thy unaltering blaze
The half-wreck'd mariner, his compass lost,
And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps ri
7 And therefore bards of old,
Sages and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold
A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT: 1794
10 LITTLE feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road.
2 O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask ;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toil'd among my fellow-men,
Am weary, thinking of your task.
3 O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires;
Mine, that so long has glow'd and burn'd
With passions into ashes turn'd,
Now covers and conceals its fires.
4 O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light
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