6. RETROSPECT.
The pearl for the first, and the case for the second,—
O William Wisetzki, thy days were soon reckon’d,
But the Kitten, the Kitten was saved.[82]
The beam that he clung to, that stretch’d o’er the current
Beneath him broke down, and he sank in the torrent,
But the Kitten, the Kitten was saved.
We follow’d the corpse of this darling of ours,
They buried him under a grave of May flowers,
But the Kitten, the Kitten was saved.
O prudent wert thou, thus early in striving
To ’scape from life’s storms, and in harbour arriving,—
But the Kitten, the Kitten was saved.
Happy thou, that thus early thy danger was over;
Before thou wert ill, thou thy health didst recover,—
But the Kitten, the Kitten was saved.
For many a year have I thought, child so cherish’d,
With envy and grief how thou early hast perish’d,—
But the Kitten, the Kitten was saved.
7. IMPERFECTION.
Nothing is perfect in this world of ours,
The thorn grows with the rose, that queen of flowers;
Methinks the angels, who for our protection
Dwell in the skies, are stain’d with imperfection.
The tulip has no scent. The saying is:
Honour once stole a sucking-pig, old quiz;
Had not Lucretia stabb’d herself, she may be
Would have in time brought forth a thumping baby.
The haughty peacock has but ugly feet;
A woman may be witty and discreet,
And yet, like Voltaire’s Henriade, may weary,
Or be, like Klopstock’s famed Messias, dreary.
The best of cows no Spanish knows, I ween,
Massmann no Latin. Much too smooth are e’en
The marble buttocks of Canova’s Venus;
Too flat is Massmann’s nose (but this between us).
In pretty songs are hidden wretched rhymes,
As bees’ stings in the honey lurk at times;
Of vulnerable heel the son of Thetis,
And Alexandre Dumas is quite a Metis.
The fairest star that in the heavens has birth,
When it has caught a cold, straight falls to earth;
Prime cider of the barrel bears the traces,
And many a spot the sun’s bright face defaces.
And thou, much honour’d Madam, even thou
Faultless art not, nor free from failings now.
“What, then, is wanting?” askest thou and starest,—
A bosom, and a soul within it, fairest!
8. PIOUS WARNING.
When thou dost quit this mortal abode,
Immortal spirit, beware thee
Lest dangers seek to ensnare thee;
Through death and night conducteth the road.
The soldiers of God at the golden door
Of the city of light are collected;
Here actions and deeds are respected,
Mere name and station avail no more.
The pilgrim leaves at the portal behind
His shoes so heavy and dusty;
O enter with confidence trusty,
Soft slippers, sweet music, and rest thou’lt find.
9. THE COOLED-DOWN ONE.
When we are dead, we long must lie
Within the tomb; distress’d am I,
Yes, sad am I that resurrection
Delays so long to give perfection.
Once more, before the light of life
Is quench’d, before this weary strife
Is o’er, fain would I, ere I perish,
Have woman’s love, to bless and cherish.
Some fair one I would now invite
With eyes as soft as moonbeams’ light;
No more I relish the advances
Of wild brunettes with burning glances.
Young men, exulting in their youth,
Prefer tumultuous love in truth.
With them excitement’s all the fashion,
And soul-enthralling mutual passion.
No longer young, bereft of power,
As I, alas! am at this hour,
I fain once more would love in quiet,
And happy be,—without a riot.
10. SOLOMON.
The drums, trumps, cornets at length sink to slumber;
By Solomon’s couch, as he lieth sleeping,
Full-girded angels the watch are keeping,
On either side six thousand in number.
The monarch protect they from cares while dreaming,
And as he frowns in his slumbers nightly,
From out of their sheaths straight draw they lightly
Twelve thousand swords, all fiercely gleaming.
But presently back in their sheaths are falling
The angels’ swords. The brow of the sleeper
Grows smooth, his slumber is softer and deeper,
And soon his lips are gently calling:
“O Sulamith, thou whom so dearly I cherish!
“O’er countries and kingdoms I rule, great and glorious,
“Of Israel and Judah the monarch victorious,
“But if thou’lt not love me, I wither and perish.”
11. LOST WISHES.
Similar in disposition,
Like a brother link’d to brother,
We unconsciously were ever
Growing fonder of each other.
Each one knew the other’s meaning,
Just as if we were omniscient;
Words, in fact, we found superfluous,
And a look was quite sufficient.
How I long’d to have thee near me,
Revelling in peace and plenty,
As my staunch and valiant comrade
In a dolce far niente!
Always to remain beside thee
Was the aim of each endeavour;
Everything that gave thee pleasure,
To accomplish sought I ever.
I enjoy’d what thou didst relish,
Neither would I touch the dishes
Thou didst hate, and even smoking
I commenced, to meet thy wishes.
Many a funny Polish story
That thy merriment excited,
In a strange and Jewish accent
To repeat I then delighted.
Yes, then long’d I to approach thee,
Leave my foreign habitation,
And beside thy fortune’s fireplace
Take for evermore my station.
Golden wishes! mere soap bubbles!
Like my life they all have vanish’d;
On the ground I now am lying,
Crush’d for ever, hopeless, banish’d.
Fare ye well, ye golden wishes
Where my darling hopes once centred!
Ah! the blow was far too deadly
That my inmost heart has enter’d.
12. THE ANNIVERSARY.
Not one mass will e’er be chanted,
Not one Hebrew prayer be mutter’d,
When the day I died returneth,—
Nothing will be sung or utter’d.
Yet upon that day, it may be,
If the weather has not chill’d her,
On a visit to Montmartre
With Pauline will go Matilda.
With a wreath of immortelles she’ll
Deck my grave in foreign fashion,
Sighing say “pauvre homme!” and sadly
Drop a tear of fond compassion.
I shall then too high be dwelling,
And, alas! no chair have ready
For my darling’s use to offer,
As she walks with foot unsteady.
Sweet, stout little one, return not
Home on foot, I must implore thee;
At the barrier gate is standing
A fiacre all ready for thee.
13. MEETING AGAIN.
One summer eve, in the woodbine bower
We sat once more at the window lonely;
The moon arose with life-giving power,
But we appear’d two spectres only.
Twelve years had pass’d since the last occasion
When we on this spot had sat together;
Each tender glow, each loving persuasion
Had meanwhile been quench’d in life’s rough weather.
I silently sat. The woman, however,
Just like her sex, amongst love’s ashes
Must needs be raking, but vain her endeavour
To kindle again its long-quench’d flashes.
And she recounted how she had contended
With evil thoughts, the story disclosing
How hardly she once her virtue defended,—
I stupidly listened to all her prosing.
When homeward I rode, the trees beside me
Like spirits beneath the moon’s rays flitted;
Sad voices call’d, but onward I hied me,
Yes, I and the dead, who my side ne’er quitted.
14. MRS. CARE.
When fortune on me shed her ray,
The gnats around me danced all day,
Plenty of friends then cherish’d me,
And all, in fashion brotherly,
My viands with me tasted,
And my last penny wasted.
Fortune has fled, and void is my purse,
My friends have left for better for worse,
Extinguish’d is each sunny ray,
Around me the gnats no longer play;
My friends and the gnats together
Have gone with the sunny weather.
Beside my bed in the winter night
Old Care as my nurse sits bolt upright;
She wears a habit that’s white enough,
A bonnet black, and takes her snuff.
The box is harshly creaking,
As the woman a pinch is seeking.
I often dream that the happy time
Of bliss has return’d, and May’s young prime,
And friendship, and all the gnats as well,—
When creaks the snuffbox,—and, sad to tell,
The bubble is straightway breaking,
While the nurse her snuff is taking.
15. TO THE ANGELS.
This is dread Thanatos indeed!
He comes upon his pale-white steed.
I hear its tread, I hear its trot,
The dusky horseman spares me not;
He tears me from Matilda’s fond embraces,—
This thought of woe all other thoughts effaces.
She was at once my child, my wife,
And when I quit this mortal life
An orphan’d widow will she be!
I leave alone on earth’s wide sea
The wife, the child, who, trusting to my guiding
Slept on my bosom, careless and confiding.
Ye angels in yon heavens so fair
Receive my sobs, receive my prayer!
When I am buried, from above
Protect the woman that I love!
Be shield and guardian to your own reflection,
Grant my poor child Matilda your protection!
By all the tears e’er shed by you
Over men’s woes in pity true,—
By that dread word that priests alone
Know, and ne’er breathe without a groan,
By all your beauty, gentleness, perfection,
Ye angels, grant Matilda your protection!
16. IN OCTOBER 1849.
The weather now is calm and mild,
And hush’d once more the tempest’s voice is,
And Germany, that o’ergrown child,
Once more in its old Christmas trees rejoices.
Domestic joys we now pursue,
All things beyond are false and hollow,
And to the house’s gable too,
Where once he built his nest, comes concord’s swallow.
Forest and stream rest peacefully,
With the soft moonlight o’er them playing;
But, hark, a crack! A shot may’t be?
It is perchance some friend whom they are slaying.
Perchance with weapons in his hand,
Some madcap they have overtaken;
(All do not flight well understand
Like Horace, who so nimbly saved his bacon).
Crack, Crack! A fête, may I presume,
Or fireworks in our Goethe’s honour?
Or Sontag rising from the tomb
Greeted, by rockets showering down upon her?
And Francis Liszt appears again!
He lives, he lies not dead and gory
On some Hungarian battle-plain,
Russian and Croat have not quench’d his glory.
Freedom’s last bulwark was o’erthrown,
And Hungary to death is bleeding—
Francis, our Knight, escaped alone,
His sword a quiet life at home is leading.
Francis still lives; when old and gray
Of the Hungarian war devoutly
He’ll tell his grandsons: “Thus I lay,
“And thus my trusty blade I wielded stoutly!”
Hearing the name of Hungary,
My German waistcoat grows too narrow;
Beneath it foams a raging sea,
The trumpet’s clang seems thrilling through my marrow.
Once more across my memory throng
The hero-legend’s strains enthralling,
The wild and iron martial song,
The Nibelunge’s overthrow appalling.
’Tis still the same heroic lot,
’Tis still the same old noble stories;
The names are changed, the natures not,—
’Tis still the same praiseworthy hero-glories.
And the same issue ’tis once more;
However proudly flaunts the banner,
The hero, as in days of yore,
Yields to brute strength, but in a glorious manner.
This time the oxen and the bear
In firm alliance are united;
Thou fall’st; but, Magyar, ne’er despair,
Still more have all our German hopes been blighted.
While very decent beasts are they
Who have in fight become thy masters,
We have, alas! become the prey
Of wolves, swine, dogs,—so great are our disasters.
They howl, grunt, bark,—the victor’s smell
Is such, I fain would do without it;—
But, Poet, hush!—it were as well,
Seeing thou’rt ill, to say no more about it.
17. EVIL DREAMS.
In vision once more young and happy, paced I
Near the old country house that used to stand
Hard by the mountain; down the pathway raced I,
Yes, raced with dear Ottilia, hand in hand.
How graceful was her figure! She enchanted
With the sweet magic of her sea-green eyes;
On her small feet how firmly was she planted,
A form where elegance with vigour vies!
Her voice’s tone, how true and how confiding!
Her spirit’s inmost depth one seems to see;
Wisdom her every word is ever guiding,
Her mouth’s as like a rosebud as can be.
It is not pangs of love that now steal o’er me,
I wander not, my reason’s in command;
Yet strangely am I soften’d, as before me
She stands, with trembling warmth I kiss her hand.
When I a lily from the stem had broken,
I gave it her, and then these words address’d:
“Ottilia, be my wife by this dear token,
“That I may be as good as thee, and blest.”
The answer that she gave, it reach’d me never,
For presently I woke,—and now lie here
In my sick chamber, weak and ill as ever—
As I have hopeless lain for many a year.
18. IT GOES OUT.
The curtain falls, as ends the play,
And all the audience go away;
And did the piece give satisfaction?
Methinks they found it of attraction.
A much-respected public then
Its poet thankfully commended;
But now the house is hush’d again,
And lights and merriment are ended.
But hark to that dull heavy clang
Hard by the empty stage’s middle!
It was perchance the bursting twang
Of the worn string of some old fiddle.
With rustling noise across the pit
Some nasty rats like shadows flit,
And rancid oil all places smell of,
And the last lamp, with groans and sighs
Despairing, then goes out and dies.—
My soul was this poor light I tell of.
19. THE WILL.
Now that life is nearly spent,
Here’s my will and testament,
Giving every foe a present,
As a Christian finds it pleasant:
Let these gentry full of merit
Have my sickness as their guerdon,
All that makes my life a burden,—
All my wretched pangs inherit.
I bequeath you all the colic
Which my belly tweaks in frolic,—
Strangury and these perfidious
Prussian piles so sharp and hideous.
Unto you my cramps be given,
Pains in joints, and salivation,
Pains in back, and inflammation,—
Every one the gift of heaven.
Let this codicil then follow:—
Lord! that wretched herd demolish,
And their very name abolish,
As they in their vileness wallow.
20. ENFANT PERDU.
Forlorn posts leading, thirty long years fought I
Stoutly and well on freedom’s battle plain;
Hopeless of triumph, never hoped or thought I
Safe and uninjured home to see again.
I watch’d both day and night, slept not a tittle,
As when I camp’d amongst my friends of yore;
(And if I felt inclined to doze a little,
I soon was waken’d by my neighbour’s snore.)
In those long nights ennui would oft assail me,
And fear as well,—(’tis fools who never fear;)
To scare them, I delighted to regale me
With whistling songs all full of gibe and jeer.
Yes, watchfully I stood, my weapon grasping,—
If a suspicious looking fool drew nigh,
I took a careful aim, and laid him gasping
With a hot bullet in his paunch or thigh.
But by-and-by, if I may so express it,
This clumsy fool, whom I so much deride,
Proves the best shot; and now, I must confess it,
My blood pours forth, my wounds are gaping wide.
A post is vacant! All my wounds are gaping—
One falls, the others follow in his wake;
Unvanquish’d fall I,—from my hands escaping
My arms break not, my heart alone doth break.
BOOK III.—HEBREW MELODIES
O let the days of thy life pass not
Without tasting life’s blisses;
And if thou’rt shelter’d from the shot,
Let it fly, for it misses.
If fortune should ever be passing thy way,
To grasp her, forth sally;
Don’t build on the summit thy cottage, I pray,
But down in the valley.
PRINCESS SABBATH.
In Arabia’s books of stories
Read we of enchanted princes,
Who from time to time recover’d
Their once handsome pristine features;
Or the whilome hairy monster
To a king’s son is converted,
Dress’d in gay and glittering garments,
And the flute divinely playing.
Yet the magic time expires,
And once more and of a sudden
We behold his royal highness
Changed into a shaggy monster.
Of a prince of such-like fortune
Sings my song. His name is Israel,
And a witch’s art has changed him
To the figure of a dog.
As a dog, with doggish notions,
All the week his time he muddles
Through life’s filthiness and sweepings,
To the scavengers’ derision.
But upon each Friday evening,
Just at twilight, the enchantment
Ceases suddenly,—the dog
Once more is a human being.
As a man, with human feelings,
With his head and breast raised proudly
Dress’d in festival attire,
His paternal halls he enters.
“Hail, all hail, ye halls belovèd
“Of my gracious regal father!
“Tents of Jacob, your all-holy
“Entrance posts my mouth thus kisses!”
Through the house mysteriously
Goes a whispering and buzzing,
And the unseen master of it
Shudd’ring breathes amid the silence,—
Silence, save the seneschal
(Vulgo Synagogue-Attendant)
Here and there with vigour springing,
As the lamps he seeks to kindle.
Golden lights so comfort-giving,
How they glitter, how they glimmer!
Proudly also flare the tapers
On the rails of the Almemor.
At the shrine wherein the Thora
Is preserved, and which is cover’d
With the costly silken cov’ring
That with precious jewels sparkles,—
There beside his post, already
Stands prepared the parish minstrel,
Dandy little man, who shoulders
His black cloak coquettishly.
His white hand to show the better,
At his neck he works, his finger
Pressing strangely to his temple,
And his thumb against his throat.
To himself then softly trills he,
Till at length his voice he raises
Joyfully, and loudly sings he
“Lecho Daudi Likras Kalle!
“Lecho Daudi Likras Kalle—
“Loved one, come! the bride already
“Waiteth for thee, to uncover
“To thy face her blushing features!”
This most charming marriage ditty
Was composed by the illustrious
Far and wide known Minnesinger
Don Jehuda ben Halevy.
In the song was celebrated
The espousals of Prince Israel
With the lovely Princess Sabbath,
Whom they call the silent princess.
Pearl and flower of perfect beauty
Is the Princess. Fairer never
Was the famous queen of Sheba,
Solomon’s old bosom-friend,
Ethiopian vain blue-stocking,
Who with her esprit would dazzle,
And with all her clever riddles
Was, I fear, extremely tedious.
But our Princess Sabbath, who was
Peace itself personified,
Held in utter detestation
All debates and wit-encounters.
Equally abhorr’d she noisy
And declamatory passion,—
All that pathos which with flowing
And dishevell’d hair storms wildly.
Modestly the silent princess
In her hood conceals her tresses;
Soft as the gazelle’s her looks are,
Slender as an Addas blooms she.
She allows her lover all things
Save this one,—tobacco-smoking:
“Loved one! smoking is forbidden,
“For to-day the Sabbath is.
“But at noon, in compensation,
“Thou a steaming dish shalt taste of,
“Which is perfectly delicious—
“Thou shall eat to-day some Schalet!”
“Schalet, beauteous spark immortal,
“Daughter of Elysium!”[83]
Thus would Schiller’s song have sung it,
Had he ever tasted Schalet.
Schalet is the food of heaven,
Which the Lord Himself taught Moses
How to cook, when on that visit
To the summit of Mount Sinai,
Where the Lord Almighty also
Every good religious doctrine
And the holy ten commandments
Publish’d in a storm of lightning.
Schalet is the pure ambrosia
That the food of heaven composes—
Is the bread of Paradise;
And compared with food so glorious,
The ambrosia of the spurious
Heathen gods whom Greece once worshipp’d
And were naught but muffled devils,
Was but wretched devil’s dung.
When the prince this food hath tasted,
Gleams his eye as if transfigured,
And his waistcoat he unbuttons,
And he speaks with smiles of rapture:
“Hear I not the Jordan murmuring?
“Is it not the gushing fountains
“In the palmy vale of Beth-El,
“Where the camels have their station?
“Hear I not the sheep-bells ringing?
“Is it not the well-fed wethers
“Whom the herdsman drives at evening
“Down from Gilead’s lofty mountain?”
Yet the beauteous day fades quickly;
As with long and shadowy legs
Hastens on the fell enchantment’s
Evil hour, the prince sighs sadly,
Feeling as though with his bosom
Icy witches’ fingers grappled;
He’s pervaded by the fear of
Canine metamorphosis.
To the prince then hands the princess
Her own golden box of spikenard;
Long he smells, once more desiring
To find comfort in sweet odours.
Next the parting drink the princess
Gives the prince—He hastily
Drinks, and in the goblet only
Some few drops are left untasted.
With them sprinkles he the table,
Then he takes a little waxlight,
And he dips it in the moisture
Till it crackles and goes out.