THE OLD OAK.
Here have I stood, the pride of the park,
In winter with snow on my frozen bark;
In spring ’mong the flowers that smiling she spread,
And among my own leaves when summer was fled.
Three hundred years my top I have rais’d,
Three hundred years I have sadly gaz’d
O’er Nature’s wide extended scene;
O’er rushing rivers and meadows green,
For though I was always willing to rove,
I never could yet my firm foot move.
They fell’d my brother, who stood by my side,
And flung out his arms so wide, so wide;
How envy I him, for how blest is he,
As the keel of a vessel he sails so free
Around the whole of the monstrous earth;
But I am still in the place of my birth.
I once was too haughty by far to complain,
But am become feeble through age and pain;
And therefore I often give vent to my woes,
When through my branches the wild wind blows.
A night like this, so calm and clear,
I have not seen for many a year;
The milk-white doe and her tender fawn
Are skipping about on the moonlight lawn;
And there, on the verge of my time-worn root,
Two lovers are seated, and both are mute:
Her arm encircles his youthful neck,
For none are present their love to check.
This night would almost my sad heart cheer,
Had I one hope or one single fear.
LINES
TO SIX-FOOT THREE.
A lad, who twenty tongues can talk
And sixty miles a day can walk;
Drink at a draught a pint of rum,
And then be neither sick nor dumb
Can tune a song, and make a verse,
And deeds of Northern kings rehearse
Who never will forsake his friend,
While he his bony fist can bend;
And, though averse to brawl and strife
Will fight a Dutchman with a knife.
O that is just the lad for me,
And such is honest six-foot three.
A braver being ne’er had birth
Since God first kneaded man from earth:
O, I have cause to know him well,
As Ferroe’s blacken’d rocks can tell.
Who was it did, at Suderöe,
The deed no other dar’d to do?
Who was it, when the Boff [31] had burst,
And whelm’d me in its womb accurst—
Who was it dash’d amid the wave,
With frantic zeal, my life to save?
Who was it flung the rope to me?
O, who, but honest six-foot three!
Who was it taught my willing tongue,
The songs that Braga [32] fram’d and sung?
Who was it op’d to me the store
Of dark unearthly Runic lore,
And taught me to beguile my time
With Denmark’s aged and witching rhyme:
To rest in thought in Elvir shades,
And hear the song of fairy maids;
Or climb the top of Dovrefeld,
Where magic knights their muster held?
Who was it did all this for me?
O, who, but honest six-foot three!
Wherever fate shall bid me roam,
Far, far from social joy and home;
’Mid burning Afric’s desert sands,
Or wild Kamschatka’s frozen lands;
Bit by the poison-loaded breeze,
Or blasts which clog with ice the seas;
In lowly cot or lordly hall,
In beggar’s rags or robes of pall,
’Mong robber-bands or honest men,
In crowded town or forest den,
I never will unmindful be
Of what I owe to six-foot three.
That form which moves with giant-grace;
That wild, though not unhandsome, face;
That voice which sometimes in its tone
Is softer than the wood-dove’s moan,
At others, louder than the storm
Which beats the side of old Cairn Gorm; [33]
That hand, as white as falling snow,
Which yet can fell the stoutest foe;
And, last of all, that noble heart,
Which ne’er from honour’s path would start,
Shall never be forgot by me—
So farewell, honest six-foot three!
NATURE’S TEMPERAMENTS.
FROM THE DANISH OF OEHLENSLÆGER.
SADNESS.
Lo, a pallid fleecy vapour
Far along the East is spread;
Every star has quench’d its taper,
Lately glimmering over head.
On the leaves, that bend so lowly,
Drops of crystal water gleam;
Yawning wide, the peasant slowly
Drives afield his sluggish team.
Dreary looks the forest, lacking
Song of birds that slumber mute;
No rough swain is yet attacking,
With his bill, the beech’s root.
Night’s terrific ghostly hour
Backward through time’s circle flies;
No shrill clock from moss-grown tower
Bids the dead men wake and rise.
Wearied out with midnight riot
Mystic Nature slumbers now;
Mouldering bodies rest in quiet,
’Neath their tomb-lids damp and low;
Sad and chill the wind is sighing
Through the reeds that skirt the pool,
All around looks dead or dying,
Wrapt in sorrow, clad in dool.
GLEE.
Roseate colours on heaven’s high arch
Are beginning to mix with the blue and the gray,
Sol now commences his wonderful march,
And the forests’ wing’d denizens sing from the spray.
Gaily the rose
Is seen to unclose
Each of her leaves to the brightening ray.
Waves on the lake
Rise, sparkle, and break:
O Venus, O Venus, thy shrine is prepar’d,
Far down in the valley o’erhung by the grove;
Where, all the day, Philomel warbles, unscar’d,
Her silver-ton’d ditty of pleasure and love.
Innocence smiling out-carrols the lark,
And the bosom of guilt becomes tranquil again;
Nightmares and visions, the fiends of the dark,
Have abandon’d the blood and have flown from the brain.
Higher the sun
Up heaven has run,
Beaming so fierce that we feel him with pain;
Man, herb, and flower,
Droop under his power.
O Venus, O Venus, thy shrine is prepar’d,
Far down in the valley o’erhung by the grove
Where, all the day, Philomel warbles, unscar’d,
Her silver-ton’d ditty of pleasure and love.
MADNESS.
What darkens, what darkens?—’t is heaven’s high roof:
What lightens?—’t is Heckla’s flame, shooting aloof:
The proud, the majestic, the rugged old Thor,
The mightiest giant the North ever saw,
Transform’d to a mountain, stands there in the field,
With ice for his corslet, and rock for his shield;
With thunder for voice, and with fire for tongue,
He stands there, so frightful, with vapour o’erhung.
On that other side of the boisterous sea
Black Vulcan, as haughty as ever was he,
Stands, chang’d to a mountain, call’d Etna by name,
Which belches continually oceans of flame.
Much blood have they spilt, and much harm have they done,
For both, when the ancient religions were gone,
Combin’d their wild strength to destroy the new race,
Who were boldly beginning their shrines to deface.
O, Jesus of Nazareth, draw forth the blade
Of vengeance, and speed to thy worshippers’ aid;
Beat down the old gods, cut asunder their mail—
Amen!—brother Christians, why look ye so pale.
THE VIOLET-GATHERER.
FROM THE DANISH OF OEHLENSLÆGER.
Pale the moon her light was shedding
O’er the landscape far and wide;
Calmly bright, all ills undreading,
Emma wander’d by my side.
Night’s sad birds their harsh notes utter’d,
Perching low among the trees;
Emma’s milk-white kirtle flutter’d
Graceful in the rising breeze:
Then, in sweetness more than mortal,
Sang a voice a plaintive air,
As we pass’d the church’s portal,
Lo, a ghostly form stood there!
“Emma, come, thy mother’s calling;
Lone I lie in night and gloom,
Whilst the sun and moon-beams, falling,
Glance upon my marble tomb.”
Emma star’d upon the figure,—
Wish’d to speak, but vainly tried,
Press’d my hand with loving vigour,
Trembled—faulter’d—gasp’d—and died!
Home I bore my luckless maiden,
Home I bore her in despair;
Chilly blasts, with night-dew laden,
Rustled through her streaming hair.
Plunging then amid the forest,
Soon I found the stately tree,
Under which, when heat was sorest,
She was wont to sit with me.
Down my cheek ran tears in fever,
While with axe its stem I cut;
Soon it fell, and I with lever
Roll’d it straight to Emma’s hut.
Kiss’d her oft, and love empassion’d
Sung a song in wildest tones;
While the oaken boards I fashion’d,
Doom’d to hide her lovely bones.
Thereupon I sought the bower,
Where she kept her single hive;
Morning shone on tree and flower,
All around me look’d alive.
Stung by bees in thousand places,
Out I took the yellow comb;
Emma, deck’d in all her graces,
Past my vision seem’d to roam.
Soon of wax I form’d a taper,
O’er my love it cast its ray,
’Till the night came, clad in vapour,
When in grave I laid her clay.
Deep below me sank the coffin,
While my tears fell fast as rain;
Deep it sank, and I, full often,
Thought to heave it up again.
Soon as e’er the stars, so merry,
Heaven’s arch next night illum’d,
Sad I sought the cemetery,
Where my true love lay entomb’d.
Then, in sweetness more than mortal,
Sang a voice a plaintive lay;
Underneath the church’s portal
Emma stood in death array.
“Louis! come! thy love is calling;
Lone I lie in night and gloom,
Whilst the sun and moon beams, falling,
Glance upon my lowly tomb.”
“Emma! dear!” I cried in gladness,
“Take me too beneath the sod;
Leave me not to pine in sadness,
Here on earth’s detested clod.”
“Death should only strike the hoary,
Yet, my Louis, thou shalt die,
When the stars again in glory,
Shine upon the midnight sky.”
Tears bedeck’d her long eyelashes,
While she kiss’d my features wan;
Then, like flame that dies o’er ashes,
All at once the maid was gone.
Therefore, pluck I painted violets,
Which shall strew my lifeless clay,
When, to night, the stars have call’d me
Unto joys that last for aye.
ODE TO A MOUNTAIN-TORRENT.
FROM THE GERMAN OF STOLBERG.
How lovely art thou in thy tresses of foam,
And yet the warm blood in my bosom grows chill,
When yelling thou rollest thee down from thy home,
’Mid the boom of the echoing forest and hill.
The pine-trees are shaken—they yield to thy shocks,
And spread their vast ruin wide over the ground,
The rocks fly before thee—thou seizest the rocks,
And whirl’st them like pebbles contemptuously round.
The sun-beams have cloth’d thee in glorious dyes,
They streak with the tints of the heavenly bow
Those hovering columns of vapour that rise
Forth from the bubbling cauldron below.
But why art thou seeking the ocean’s dark brine?
If grandeur makes happiness, sure it is found,
When forth from the depths of the rock-girdled mine
Thou boundest, and all gives response to thy sound.
Beware thee, O torrent, of yonder dark sea,
For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny’s rod,
Here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free,—
Loud as a thunder-peal, strong as a god.
True, it is pleasant, at eve or at noon,
To gaze on the sea and its far-winding bays,
When ting’d with the light of the wandering moon,
Or red with the gold of the midsummer rays.
But, torrent, what is it? what is it?—behold
That lustre as nought but a bait and a snare,
What is the summer sun’s purple and gold
To him who breathes not in pure freedom the air.
Abandon, abandon, thy headlong career—
But downward thou rushest—my words are in vain,
Bethink thee that oft-changing winds domineer
On the billowy breast of the time-serving main.
Then haste not, O torrent, to yonder dark sea,
For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny’s rod;
Here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free,—
Loud as a thunder-peal, strong as a god.