CHAPTER VIII.
In the afternoon Klingsohr led to his room his new son, in whose happiness his mother and grandfather took the tenderest interest, honoring Matilda as his protecting spirit, and made him acquainted with his books. Afterward they spoke of poetry.
"I know not," said Klingsohr, "why the representation of nature as a poet is commonly considered poetry. She is not so at all times. Dull desire, stupid apathy and sluggishness, are in her, as in men, exposing qualities which wage a restless strife with poesy. This mighty battle would be a fine subject for a poem. Many lands and ages seem, like the majority of men, to stand entirely under the dominion of this enemy to poesy; in others, on the contrary, poesy is at home and everywhere visible. The periods of this battle are very worthy of the historian's notice, and its representation is a pleasant and profitable employment. It is usually the season of the poet's birth. Nothing is more disagreeable to its adversary than that she, herself being opposed to poesy, becomes a poetic personage, and often in the heat of the engagement changes weapons with poesy, and is violently struck by her own venomous darts; while, on the other hand, the wounds of poesy, which she receives from her own weapons, heal readily, and only serve to render her yet more charming and powerful."
"On the whole," said Henry, "war seems to me poetical. People fancy that they must fight for a possession no matter how miserable, and do not observe that the spirit of romance excites them to annihilate all useless baseness. They carry arms for the cause of poesy, and both hosts follow an invisible standard."
"In war," replied Klingsohr, "the primeval fluid is stirred up. New continents are to arise, new races to spring forth from the great dissolution. The true war is the war of religion; its direct end is destruction; and men's madness appears in its full dimensions. Many wars, particularly those which originate in national hate, belong to this class, and are real poems. Here true heroes are at home, who, being the noblest antitypes of poesy, are but earthly powers involuntarily penetrated by poesy. A poet, who at the same time were a hero, would be indeed a heavenly messenger; but our poetry is not equal to the work of representing him."
"How am I to understand that, dear father," said Henry. "Can any object be too lofty for poesy?"
"Certainly. We cannot on the whole speak for poesy itself, but only for her earthly means and instruments. If indeed there is for every single poet a proper district within which he must remain, in order not to lose all breath and vantage, then there is also for the whole sum of human powers a determinate boundary line to the capacity for representation; beyond which representation cannot retain the necessary strength or form, but loses itself in an empty, delusive nonentity. Particularly as a pupil, one cannot guard enough against these extravagances; since a lively fancy loves too well to fly to the extreme bounds, and arrogantly endeavors to seize upon and express the supersensual and exuberant. Riper experience first teaches us to shun this disproportion of objects, and to leave the investigation of what is simplest and loftiest to worldly wisdom. The older poet rises no higher than is needful to arrange, his vast stock in a comprehensible order, and he is careful to omit the manifoldness, which afforded him the requisite material, and also the necessary points of agreement. I might almost say that in every line chaos should shine through the well-clipped foliage of order. A graceful style merely renders the richness of the thought more comprehensible and agreeable; regular symmetry, on the contrary, has all the dryness of numbers. The best poesy lies very near us, and an ordinary matter is not seldom the object of its most tender love. With the poet, poetry is confined to limited instruments, and just so far becomes an art. Language especially has its fixed sphere. The compass of one's native tongue is yet narrower. By practice and reflection the poet learns to understand his own language. He knows exactly what he can accomplish by its aid, and will make no fruitless attempt to strain it beyond its powers. Seldom will he collect all its powers upon a single point; for otherwise he becomes wearisome, and even destroys the rich effect of a well applied exhibition of its strength. No poet, but a quack, aims at wonderful efforts."[See [Note III].]
"Poets on the whole cannot learn too much from musicians and painters. In these arts it is very striking, how necessary it is to take sparing advantage of the auxiliary means of the art, and how much depends upon proper relations. Those artists, on the contrary, can certainty accept from us the poetic independence, and the inner spirit of each composition and invention; particularly of every genuine work. The execution, not the material, is the object of the art. They should be more poetical, we more musical and graphic; yet both according to the manner and method of our art. You yourself will soon see in what songs you can best succeed; they will certainly be those, the subjects of which are easiest and nearest at hand. Therefore it can be said that poetry rests entirely upon experience. I know that in my younger days an object could hardly seem too distant and too unknown, for such I delighted most to sing. What was the result? An empty, meagre flash of words, without a spark of true poetry. Thence the tale[3] is the most difficult of tasks, and a young poet will seldom perform it correctly."
"I should like to hear one of yours," said Henry. "The few I have heard, though insignificant, have delighted me exceedingly."
"I will satisfy your wish this evening. I remember one which I composed when quite young, which is sufficiently evident still; yet it will entertain you the more instructively, for it will recall much that I have told you."
"Language," said Henry, "is indeed a little world in signs and sounds. As man rules over it, so would he rule the great world, and in it express himself freely. And in this very joy of expressing in the world what is without it, and of doing that which in reality was the primal object of our existence, lies the origin of poetry."
"It is very unfortunate," said Klingsohr, "that poetry has a particular name, and that poets constitute a particular class. It is not, however, strange. It arises from the natural action of the human sprit. Does not every man strive and compose at every moment?"
Just then Matilda entered the room. Klingsohr continued. "Consider love, for instance. In nothing is the necessity of poetry for the continuance of humanity so clear as in that. Love is silent; poesy alone can speak for it. Or rather love itself is nothing but the highest poetry of nature. Yet I will not tell you of things, with which you are better acquainted than I."
"Thou art indeed the father of love;" cried Henry, as he threw his arms around Matilda, and they both kissed his hand.
Klingsohr embraced them and went out.
"Dear Matilda," said Henry after a long kiss, "it seems to me like a dream, that thou art mine; yet it seems still more wonderful, that thou hast not been so always."
"It seems to me," said Matilda, "that I knew thee long, long ago."
"Canst thou then love me?"
"I know not what love is; but this can I tell thee, that it is as if I now first began to live, and that I am so devoted to thee that I would this instant die for thee."
"My Matilda, now for the first time do I feel what it is to be immortal."
"Dear Henry, how infinitely good thou art. What a glorious spirit speaks from thee. I am a poor, insignificant girl."
"How thou dost make me blush! Indeed I am what I am only through thee. Without thee I were nothing. What were a spirit without a heaven; and thou art the heaven that upbears and supports me."
"How divinely happy should I be, wert thou as faithful as my father. My mother died shortly after my birth; yet my father weeps for her every day."
"I deserve it not, yet may I be happier than he!"
"I would joyfully live long by thy side, dear Henry. Certainly through thee I should become much better."
"O! Matilda, even death shall not separate us."
"No, Henry, where I am, wilt thou be."
"Yes, where thou art, Matilda, will I forever be."
"I comprehend not the meaning of eternity; yet I fancy that what I feel, when I think of thee, must constitute eternity."
"Yes, Matilda, we are eternal, because we love each other."
"Thou canst not believe, dearest, how fervently, when we came home early this morning, I knelt before the image of the holy mother, what unspeakable things I prayed to her. I thought that I should melt away in tears. It seemed as if she smiled upon me. I now for the first time know what gratitude is."
"O beloved, Heaven has given me thee to adore. I worship thee. Thou art the holy one that carriest my wishes to God, through whom He reveals himself to me, through whom He makes known to me the fulness of His love. What is religion but an infinite harmony, an eternal unison of loving hearts? Where two are gathered together, He is indeed among them. Thou wilt be my breath eternally. My bosom will never cease to draw thee to itself. Thou art divine majesty, eternal life in the loveliest of forms."
"Alas, Henry, thou knowest the fate of the roses. Wilt thou also press the pale cheek, the withered lips, with tenderness to thy own? Will not the traces of age be also the traces of bygone love?"
"O that thou couldst see through my eyes into my spirit! But thou lovest me, and canst also believe me. I cannot comprehend what is said of the withering of charms. They are unfading! That which draws me so inseparably to thee, that has awakened in me such everlasting desire, is not of this world. Couldst thou but see how thou appearest to me, what a wonderful form penetrates thy shape, and everywhere is raying towards me, thou wouldst not fear age. Thy earthly shape is but a shadow of this form. The earthly faculties strive and swell that they may incarnate it; but nature is yet unripe; the form is only an eternal archetype, a fragment of the unknown holy world."
"I understand thee, dear Henry, for I see something similar when I look upon thee."
"Yes, Matilda, the higher world is nearer to us than we usually believe. Here already we live in it, and we see it closely interwoven with our earthly nature."
"Thou wilt yet reveal much that is glorious to me, beloved?"
"O! Matilda, from thee alone cometh the gift of divination. Everything that I have is indeed thine. Thy love will lead me into the sanctuaries of life, and the most sacred recesses of the mind; thou wilt fill me with enthusiasm, wilt excite me to the highest contemplation. Who knows that our love will not change to wings of flame bearing us upward, and carrying us to our heavenly home, ere old age and death reach us? Is it not a miracle already that thou art mine, that I hold thee in my arms, that thou lovest me, and that thou wilt be mine forever?"
"To me also everything seems possible, and I plainly feel a gentle flame kindling within me. Who knows that it does not transfigure us, and gradually dissolve all earthly ties? Only tell me, Henry, whether thou hast that boundless confidence in me, that I have in thee. Yet I never have felt towards any one as I do towards thee; not even to my father, whom I love so dearly."
"Dear Matilda, it really torments me, that I cannot tell thee everything at once, that I cannot at once give my whole heart to thee. For the first time in my life am I perfectly frank. No thought, no feeling can I longer conceal from thee,--thou must know everything. My whole being shall mingle itself with thine. A most boundless resignation to thee can alone satisfy my love. In that indeed it consists. It is truly a most mysterious flowing together of our most secret and personal existence."
"Henry, two beings can never thus have loved each other."
"I cannot believe it possible, for till now no Matilda has lived."
"And no Henry!"
"Swear to me once more that thou art mine. Love is an endless repetition."
"Yes, Henry, by the invisible presence of my good mother, I swear to be thine forever."
"I swear to be thine forever, Matilda, as surely as love, God's presence, is with us."
A long embrace and countless kisses sealed the eternal alliance of the blessed pair.