Your songs sound, some as were a war-horn braying,
Some softly purl like streams on reedy strand.
Half nature-sprite and half as man you stand,
The two not yet one law of life obeying.
But as you seem and as yourself you are
(The faun's love that the viking's longing tinges),
We welcome you, no lock is left nor bar,—
You bring along the door and both the hinges.
Just this it is that we are needing now:
The spring, the spring! These stifling fumes we bear
Of royal incense and of monkish snuff,
Of corpses in romantic cloak and ruff,
Are bad for morals and for lungs: Fresh air!
Rather a draught of Songs Venetian, cheerful,
With southern wantonness and color-wonders,—
Rather "Two Shots" (although they make us fearful)
Against our shallow breeding and its blunders.
Spring's herald, hail! come from the forest's choir,
From ocean's roar, from armèd hosts and grim!
Though sometimes carelessly you struck the lyre,—
Where rich growth is, one can the rank shoots trim.
The small trolls jeer the gestures of a giant,
I love you so,—unique and self-reliant.
+
A MEETING
(See Note 71)
… O'er uplands fresh swift sped my sleigh …
A light snow fell; along the way
Stood firs and birches slender.
The former pondered deep, alone,
The latter laughed, their white boughs shone;—
All brings a picture tender.
So light and free is now the air;
Of all its burdens stripped it bare
The snow with playful sally.
I glimpse behind its veil so thin
A landscape gay, and high within
A snow-peak o'er the valley.
But from the border white and brown,
Where'er I look, there's peeping down
A face … but whose, whose is it?
I bore my gaze 'neath cap and brim
And see the snowflakes swarm and swim;—
Will some one here me visit?
A star fell on my glove … right here …
And here again … its unlike peer; …
They will with riddles pose me.
And smiles that in the air abound
From eyes so good … I look around …
'T is memory besnows me.