12. PEACE.
High in the heavens there stood the sun
Cradled in snowy clouds,
The sea was still,
And musing I lay at the helm of the ship,
Dreamily musing,—and half in waking
And half in slumber, I gazed upon Christ,
The Saviour of man.
In streaming and snowy garment
He wander’d, giant-great,
Over land and sea;
His head reach’d high to the heavens,
His hands he stretch’d out in blessing
Over land and sea;
And as a heart in his bosom
Bore he the sun,
The sun all ruddy and flaming,
And the ruddy and flaming sunny-heart
Shed its beams of mercy
And its beauteous, bliss-giving light,
Lighting and warming
Over land and sea.
Sounds of bells were solemnly drawing
Here and there, like swans were drawing
By rosy bands the gliding ship,
And drew it sportively tow’rd the green shore,
Where men were dwelling, in high and turreted
O’erhanging town.
O blessings of peace! how still the town!
Hush’d was the hollow sound
Of busy and sweltering trade,
And through the clean and echoing streets
Were passing men in white attire,
Palm-branches bearing,
And when two chanced to meet,
They view’d each other with inward intelligence,
And trembling, in love and sweet denial,
Kiss’d on the forehead each other,
And gazed up on high
At the Saviour’s sunny-heart,
Which, glad and atoningly
Beam’d down its ruddy blood,
And three times blest, thus spake they:
“Praisèd be Jesus Christ!”
* * *
Couldst thou this vision have only imagined,
What wouldst thou not give for it,
My dearest friend!
Thou who in head and loins art so weak,
And so strong in thy faith,
And the Trinity worship’st in Unity,
And the dog and the cross and the paw
Of thy lofty patroness daily kissest,
And hast work’d thy way upward by canting
As an Aulic Counsellor, Magistrate,
And at last as a Government Counsellor
In the pious town[25]
Where flourish both sand and religion,
And the patient water of sacred Spree
Washes souls and dilutes the tea—
Couldst thou this vision have only imagined,
My dearest friend!
Thou hadst borne it up high, to the market-place,
Thy countenance pallid and blinking
Had been dissolved in devotion and lowliness,
And her Serene Highness,
Enchanted and trembling with rapture,
Had with thee sunk in prayer on the knee,
And her eyes, beaming brightly,
Had promised, by way of increase of salary,
A hundred Prussian dollars sterling,
And thou, with folded hands, wouldst have stammer’d:
“Praisèd be Jesus Christ!”
PART II. 1826.
1. SEA SALUTATION.
Thalatta! Thalatta!
Hail to thee, O thou Ocean eterne!
Hail to thee ten thousand times
From hearts all exulting,
As formerly hail’d thee
Ten thousand Grecian hearts,
Misfortune-contending, homeward-aspiring,
World-renown’d Grecian hearts.
The billows were heaving,
They heaved and they bluster’d,
The sun shed hastily downwards
His light so sportive and rosy-hued;
The sudden-startled flocks of sea-mews
Flutter’d along, loud screaming,
The horses were stamping, the bucklers were ringing,
And afar there resounded triumphantly:
Thalatta! Thalatta!
Hail to thee, O thou Ocean eterne!
Like voices of home thy waters are rushing,
Like visions of childhood saw I a glimmering
Over thy heaving billowy-realm,
And olden remembrance again tells me stories
Of all the darling, beautiful playthings,
Of all the glittering Christmas presents,
Of all the ruddy coral branches,
The gold fish, pearls and colour’d shells
Which thou mysteriously dost keep
Down yonder in bright crystal house.
O how have I languish’d in drear foreign lands!
Like to a wither’d flower
In the tin case of a botanist,
Lay in my bosom my heart;
Methought whole winters long I sat
An invalid, in darksome sick-room,
And now I suddenly leave it,
And with dazzling rays am I greeted
By emerald springtime, the sunny-awaken’d,
And the snowy blossoming trees are all rustling,
And the youthful flowers upon me gaze
With eyes all chequer’d and fragrant;
There’s a perfume and humming and breathing and laughing,
And the birds in the azure heavens are singing—
Thalatta! Thalatta!
Thou valiant retreating heart!
How oft, how bitter-oft, wast thou
Hard press’d by the Northern barbarian women
From large victorious eyes
Shot they their burning arrows;
With words both crooked and polish’d
They threatened to cleave my breast,
With cuniform billets-doux harass’d they
My poor distracted brain—
In vain I held my shield to resist them,
The arrows whizz’d and the blows crash’d heavily,
And by the Northern barbarian women
Back to the sea was I driven,
And freely breathing I hailèd the sea,
The darling life-saving sea,
Thalatta! Thalatta!
2. THUNDERSTORM.
Heavily lies on the ocean the storm,
And through the darksome wall of clouds
Quivers the forkèd lightning flash,
Suddenly gleaming and suddenly vanishing,
Like a thought from the head of Cronion.
Over the desert, far-heaving water
Afar the thunders are rolling,
The snowy billowy horses are springing,
Which Boreas’ self did engender
Out of the beautiful mares of Erichton,
And the seafowl are mournfully fluttering,
Like shadowy corpses by Styx,
By Charon repulsed from his desolate bark.
Poor, but merry little ship,
Yonder dancing the strangest dance!
Æolus sends it his briskest attendants,
Who wildly strike up for the frolicsome dance;
The one is piping, another is blowing,
The third is beating the hollow double-bass—
And the staggering sailor stands at the rudder,
And on the compass is steadily looking,
That trembling soul of the vessel,
And raises his hands in entreaty to heaven;
“O rescue me, Castor, thou hero gigantic,
And thou, knight of the ring, Polydeuces!”
3. THE SHIPWRECKED ONE.
Hope and love! All crumbled to atoms,
And I myself, like to a corpse
Thrown up by the growling sea,
Lie on the strand,
The dreary, naked strand.
Before me, the watery waste is heaving
Behind me lie but sorrow and misery,
And over me high are passing the clouds,
The formless grey-hued daughters of air,
Who out of the sea, in misty buckets,
Draw up the water,
And wearily drag it and drag it,
Then spill it again in the sea,
A mournful and tedious business,
And useless as e’en my own life.
The billows murmur, the sea-mews are screaming,
Olden remembrances over me drift,
Dreams long forgotten and images perish’d,
Painfully sweet come to light.
In the North a woman is living,
A beauteous woman, royally fair.
Her slender figure, like a tall cypress,
By an alluring white robe is embraced;
Her dark and flowing tresses,
Like to a blissful night, are streaming
Down from her lofty, braid-crownèd head,
And dreamily-sweetly form ringlets
Over her sweet pale face;
And out of her sweet pale face,
Large and o’erpowering, beams an eye
Like a black sun in radiance.
O thou black sun, how often,
Enchantingly often, I drank from thee
Wild flames of inspiration,
And stood and reel’d, all drunk with fire,—
Then hover’d a mild and dovelike smile
Round the high-contracted haughty lips,
And the high-contracted haughty lips
Breath’d forth words as sweet as moonlight,
And tender as the rose’s fragrance—
And then my spirit ascended,
And flew, like an eagle, straight up into heaven!
Peace, ye billows and sea-mews!
All is now over, happiness, hope,
Hope, ay, and love! I lie on the shore,
A lonely and shipwreckèd man,
And press my countenance glowing
Deep in the humid sand.
4. SUNSET.
The beauteous sun
Hath calmly descended down to the sea;
The heaving waters already are dyed
By dusky night;
Nought but the evening’s red
With golden light still spreadeth o’er them,
And the rushing force of the flood
’Gainst the shore presseth the snowy billows
Which merrily, hastily skip,
Like wool-cover’d flocks of lambkins
Whom the singing sheep-boy at even
Homeward doth drive.
“How fair is the sun!”—
So spake, after long silence, my friend,
Who with me wander’d along the strand,
And half in sport and half in sad earnest
Assured he me that the sun was only
A lovely woman,[26] whom the old sea-god
Out of convenience married;
All the day long she joyously wander’d
In the high heavens, deck’d out with purple,
And glitt’ring with diamonds,
And all-beloved and all-admired
By every mortal creature,
And every mortal creature rejoicing
With her sweet glances’ light and warmth;
But in the evening, impell’d all-disconsolate.
Once more returneth she home
To the moist house and desert arms
Of her grey-headed spouse.
“Believe me”—here added my friend,
With laughter and sighing and laughter again:
“They’re living below in the tenderest union!
“Either they’re sleeping or quarrelling fiercely,
“So that up here e’en the ocean is roaring,
“And the fisherman hears in the rush of the waves
“How the old man’s abusing his wife:
“‘Thou round wench of the universe!
“Beaming coquettish one!
“‘All the day long thou art glowing for others,
“‘At night for me thou art frosty and tired.’
“After this curtain lecture
“As a matter of course the proud sun
“Bursts into tears, lamenting her misery,
“And cries so sadly and long, that the sea-god
“Suddenly springs from his bed all distracted,
“And hastily swims to the surface of ocean,
“To recover his breath and his senses.
“I saw him myself, in the night just past,
“Rising out of the sea as high as his bosom;
“A jacket of yellow flannel he wore,
“And a lily-white nightcap,
“And a face all wither’d and dry.”
5. THE SONG OF THE OCEANIDES.
Shadows of evening o’er ocean are falling,
And lonely, with none but his lonely soul with him,
Sits there a man on the dreary strand,
And looks, with death-chilly look, up on high
Tow’rd the spacious, death-chilly vault of heaven,
And looks on the spacious billowy main,
And over the spacious billowy main
Like airy sailors, his signs are floating,
Returning again despondingly,
For they have found fast closèd the heart
Wherein they fain would anchor—
And he groans so loud, that the snowy sea-mews,
Startled away from their sandy nests,
Flutter around him in flocks,
And he speaks unto them these laughing words:
“Ye black-leggèd birds,
“With snowy pinions o’er the sea fluttering,
“With crooked beaks the sea-water sucking up,
“And train-oily seal’s flesh devouring,
“Your life is bitter as is your food!
“But I, the happy one, taste nought but sweetness!
“I taste the rose’s sweet exhalation,
“The moonlight-nourished bride of the nightingale;
“I taste, too, the sweetness of all things:
“Loving and being loved!
“She loves me! she loves me! the beauteous maiden!
“Now stands she at home in her house’s high balcony,
“And looks in the twilight abroad, o’er the highway,
“And darkens, and for me doth yearn—I assure you!
“In vain she looketh around and she sigheth,
“And sighing descends she down to the garden,
“And wanders in fragrance and moonlight,
“And speaks to the flowers and telleth them
“How I, the beloved one, so precious am,
“So worthy of love—I assure you!
“And then in bed, in slumber, in dream,
“My darling form around her sports blissfully,
“And then at morning at breakfast
“Upon her glistening bread and butter
“Sees she my countenance smiling,
“And she eats it for love—I assure you!”
Thus is he boasting and boasting,
And betweentimes the sea-mews are screaming,
Like old ironical chuckling;
The mists of twilight rise up on high;
Out of the violet clouds, all-gloomily,
Peepeth the grass-yellow moon;
High are roaring the billows of ocean,
And from the depths of the high-roaring sea,
Mournful as whispering gales of wind,
Soundeth the song of the Oceanides,
The beauteous compassionate sea-nymphs,
And loudest of all the voice so enthralling
Of Peleus’ spouse, the silvery-footed one,
And they’re sighing and singing:
“O fool, thou fool! thou hectoring fool!
“Thou sorrow-tormented one!
“Cruelly murder’d are all thy bright hopes,
“Thy bosom’s frolicsome children,
“And ah! thy heart, thy Niobe-heart
“Through grief turn’d to stone!
“Within thy head ’tis now night,
“And through it are flashing the lightnings of frenzy
“And thou boastest of sorrow!
“O fool, thou fool! thou hectoring fool!
“Headstrong art thou as thy forefather,
“The lofty Titan, who heavenly fire
“Stole from the gods and gave unto mortals,
“And, vulture-tormented, chain’d to the rock,
“Defied e’en Olympus, defied, groaning loudly,
“So that in ocean’s far depths did we hear it,
“And to him came with a comforting song.
“O fool, thou fool! thou hectoring fool!
“But thou art more powerless even than he,
“And thou would’st do well to honour the deities,
“And patiently bear the burden of sorrow,
“And patiently bear with it, long, ay, full long,
“Till Atlas himself his patience hath lost,
“And the heavy world from his shoulders throws off
“Into eternal night.”
Thus sounded the song of the Oceanides,
The beauteous compassionate water-nymphs,
Till still louder billows at last overpower’d it—
Then went the moon in the rear of the clouds,
And night ’gan to yawn,
And long I sat in the darkness, with weeping.
6. THE GODS OF GREECE.
Full-blossoming moon! In thy fair light
Like liquid gold, the ocean gleams:
Like daylight’s clearness, yet charm’d into twilight,
Over the strand’s wide plain all is lying;
In the starless clear azure heavens
Hover the snowy clouds,
Like colossal figures of deities
Of glittering marble.
No, ’tis not so, no clouds can they be!
’Tis they themselves, the Gods of old Hellas,
Who once so joyously ruled o’er the world,
But now, tormented and perish’d,
Like monster spectres are moving along
Over the midnight heaven.
Wond’ring and strangely blinded, observed I
The airy pantheon,
The solemnly mute and fearfully moving
Figures gigantic.
He yonder’s Cronion, the monarch of heaven;
Snow-white are the locks of his head,
Locks so famous for shaking Olympus;
He holds in his hand his extinguishèd bolt,
And in his face lie misfortune and grief,
And yet without change his olden pride.
Those times indeed were better, O Zeus,
When thou didst take pleasure divinely
In youths and in nymphs and in hecatombs!
But even the Gods can reign not for ever,
The younger press hard on their elders,
As thou didst once on thy grey-headed father
And all thy Titan uncles hard press,
Jupiter Parricida!
Thee, too, I recognise, haughty Here!
Spite of all thy jealous anxiety,
Hath another thy sceptre obtain’d,
And thou art no longer the queen of the heavens,
And fixed is now thy beaming eye,
And powerless lie thy lily-white arms,
And never more thy vengeance can reach
The God-impregnated virgin,
And the wonder-working son of the deity.
Thee, too, I recognise, Pallas Athene!
With shield and wisdom couldest thou not
Avert the destruction of deities?
Thee, too, I recognise, thee, Aphrodite!
Erst the golden one! now the silver one!
True thou’rt still deck’d with the charms of thy girdle,
Yet I secretly tremble at thought of thy beauty,
And would I enjoy thy bountiful charms,
Like heroes before me, of fear I should die;
To me thou appearest the goddess of corpses,
Venus Libitina!
No longer with love is tow’rd thee looking,
Yonder, the terrible Ares;
And sadly is looking Phœbus Apollo,
The stripling. His lyre is silent
That sounded so joyous at feasts of the Gods.
Still sadder appeareth Hephaestus,
And truly, the lame one! no longer
Fills he the office of Hebe,
And busily pours, in the Gods’ congregation,
The nectar delicious—And long is extinguish’d
The inextinguishable laughter of deities.
O ye Gods, I never could love you,
For ever distasteful I’ve found the Grecians,
And e’en the Romans I greatly hate.
Yet holy compassion and shuddering pity
Stream through my heart,
When I now behold you on high,
Godheads deserted,
Dead and night-wandering shadows,
Misty and weak, scared by the very wind—
And when I bethink me how airy and cowardly
The godheads are, who overcame you,
The new, now-ruling, mournful godheads.
The mischievous ones in the sheepskin of meekness,
Then over me steals a glorious resentment,
And fain would I break the new-born temples,
And fight on your side, ye ancient deities,
For you, and your good ambrosial rights,
And before your lofty altars,
The once-more-restored, the sacrifice steaming,
Fain would I kneel down and pray,
And, praying, raise tow’rd you my arms.—
For evermore, ye ancient deities,
Have ye been wont, in the combats of mortals,
To join yourselves to the side of the victor,
And therefore is man more high-minded than ye,
And in combats of deities deem I it right
To take the part of the vanquish’d deities.
* * *
Thus did I speak, and visibly redden’d
Yon pale cloudy figures on high,
And on me they gazed like dying ones,
Sorrow-illumined, and suddenly vanish’d.
The moon, too, hid herself
Behind the clouds that darkly came over her;
High up roarèd the sea,
And then triumphantly stood in the heavens
The stars all-eternal.
7. QUESTIONS.
By the sea, by the desert night-cover’d sea
Standeth a youth,
His breast full of sadness, his head full of doubtings,
And with gloomy lips he asks of the billows:
“O answer me life’s hidden riddle,
“The riddle primeval and painful,
“Over which many a head has been poring,
“Heads in hieroglyphical nightcaps,
“Heads in turbans and swarthy bonnets,
“Heads in perukes, and a thousand other
“Poor and perspiring heads of us mortals—
“Tell me what signifies man?
“From whence doth he come? And where doth he go?
“Who dwelleth amongst the golden stars yonder?”
The billows are murm’ring their murmur eternal,
The wind is blowing, the clouds are flying,
The stars are twinkling, all listless and cold,
And a fool is awaiting an answer.
8. THE PHŒNIX.
There comes a bird who hath flown from the westward,
He flies tow’rd the east,
Tow’rd the eastern garden-home,
Where the spices so fragrant are growing,
And palms are waving and wells are cooling—
And, flying, the wondrous bird thus singeth
She loves him, she loves him!
His image she bears in her little bosom,
And bears it sweetly and secretly hidden,
Nor knows it herself!
But in her vision, before her he stands,
She prays, and she weeps, and she kisses his hands,
And calls on his name,
And calling awakes she and lieth all-startled,
And rubbeth her beauteous eyes in amazement—
She loves him! she loves him!
9. ECHO.
’Gainst the mast reclining, and high on the lofty deck
Stood I and heard I the song of the bird.
Like black-green steeds, with silvery manes,
The white and curling billows were springing;
Like flocks of swans were sailing past us,
With glittering sails, the men of Heligoland,
The nomads bold of the Baltic.
Over my head, in the azure eterne,
Snowy clouds were fluttering on,
While sparkled the sun everlasting,
The rose of the heavens, the fiery-blooming one,
Who joyfully mirror’d himself in the ocean;
And heaven and ocean and with them my heart
In echo resounded:
She loves him! She loves him!
10. SEA-SICKNESS.
The dark-grey clouds of the afternoon
Deeper are sinking fast over the sea,
Which darkly seemeth to rise to meet them,
And between them the ship drives on.
Sea-sick sit I unmoved by the mast,
And make observations respecting myself,
Primeval, ash-grey observations,
Which Father Lot of old did make
When he had drunk too much of the grape,
And afterwards found himself amiss.
At times I bethink me of olden stories:
How cross-mark’d pilgrims of olden days
In stormy journeys the comforting image
Religiously kiss’d of the Holy Virgin;
How knights, when sick in such sea-misery,
The darling glove of their worshipp’d mistress
Press’d to their lips and then were comforted—
But I am sitting, and chew with vexation
An ancient herring, the comforter salty
After hard drinking or indigestion!
All this time the ship is fighting
With the furious, heaving flood;
Now like a rearing battle-steed stands it
On its hinder part, so that the rudder cracks;
Now it plunges headforward down again
In the howling abyss of the waters;
Again, as though carelessly love-faint,
Thinks it to lay itself down
On the black breast of the billow gigantic,
Who mightily onward roars,
And sudden, a desolate ocean-waterfall,
In snowy curlings plunges down headlong,
And covers me over with foam.
All this swaying and hov’ring and tossing
Is quite unendurable!
In vain doth my eye keep watch and seek for
The German coast. But, alas, nought but water!
Evermore water, fast-moving water!
As the winter-wanderer at evening
Longs for a comforting warm cup of tea,
So now doth long my heart for thee,
My German Fatherland!
For ever may thy sweet soil be cover’d
With whims and hussars and horrible verses,
And lukewarm slender treatises;
For ever may thy stately zebras
Feed upon roses instead of on thistles;
For ever may thy noble baboons
In idle adornment trick themselves out,
And think themselves better than all the other
Lowminded heavy and lumbering cattle;
For ever may thy assemblage of snails
Look on themselves as immortal,
Because they creep so slowly along,
And may they daily collect men’s opinions
Whether the cheesemite belongs to the cheese?
And hold for a long time grave consultations
How the Egyptian sheep to improve,
So that their wool may be better in quality,
And the shepherd may shear them like all other sheep,
Without a distinction—
For evermore may folly and wrong
Cover thee, Germany, utterly!
Still am I yearning for thee,
For thou art terra firma at least!
11. IN HARBOUR.
Happy the man who arrives safe in harbour,
And behind him hath left the ocean and tempests,
And now so warmly and quietly sits,
In the townhall-cellar of Bremen!
See how the world is truly and lovingly
In the bumper fully depicted,
And how the heaving microcosm
Sunnily flows to the thirsty heart!
All I discern in the glass,
Olden and new traditions of nations,
Turks and Greeks, and Hegel and Gans,[27]
Citron forests and watch-parades,
Berlin and Schilda and Tunis and Hamburg,
But most of all the form of my loved one,
That angel-head on the Rhenish wine’s gold ground.
O, how fair, how fair art thou, loved one!
Thou art a very rose,
Not like the rose of fair Schiras,
The nightingale’s bride, of whom Hafis once sang;
Not like the rose of Sharon,
The sacred and red one, the prophet-honour’d one;
But thou’rt like the rose in the cellar at Bremen![28]
That is the rose of all roses,
The older she grows, the fairer she blossoms,
And her heavenly fragrance hath gladden’d my bosom,
Hath served to inspire me, served to enchant me.
And did the head of the cellar of Bremen
Not hold me fast, yes fast by my hair,
I surely had tumbled!
The worthy man! we sat together,
And drank like brethren,
We spoke of lofty mysterious things,
We sigh’d and sank in the arms of each other,
And he did convert me to love’s religion,
I drank to the health of my bitterest enemies,
And every wretched poet I pardoned
As I myself for pardon would hope;
I wept with devotion, and lastly
The doors of the place were unto me open’d
Where the twelve apostles, the sacred tuns,
Silently preach, though understood plainly
By every nation.
True men indeed!
In wooden coats, from without all-invisible,
Inwardly are they more radiant and fairer
Than all the haughty priests of the temple,
And Herod’s satellites cringing and courtiers,
All glitt’ring in gold and clothèd in purple;
Ever my wont is to say
Not amongst the mere common people,
No, in the best and politest society,
Constantly lived the monarch of heaven.
Hallelujah! How sweetly wave round me
The palm-trees of Bethel!
How fragrant the myrrh is of Hebron!
How Jordan is roaring, and reeling with rapture,
While my immortal soul also is reeling,
And I reel with it, and whilst thus reeling,
I’m brought up the stairs and into the daylight
By the worthy head of the cellar of Bremen.
Thou worthy head of the cellar of Bremen!
See where sit on the roofs of the houses
The angels, all well-drunken and singing;
The glowing sun high up in the heavens
Is nought but the red and drunken nose
Which the World-Spirit sticks out,
And round the World-Spirit’s red nose
Whirleth the whole of the drunken world.