“In the following sonnet,” comments the translator, “the royal poet does not clearly intimate whether he has renounced the political or the personal rivals of the fair Lolita:—
“‘If, for my sake, thou hast renounced all ties,
I, too, for thee have broken with them all;
Life of my life, I am thine—I am thy thrall—
I hold no compact with thine enemies.
Their blandishments are powerless on me,
No arts will serve to seduce me from thee;
The power of love raises me above them.
With thee my earthly pilgrimage will end.
As is the union between the body and the soul,
So, until death, with thine my being is blended.
In thee I have found what I ne’er yet found in any—
The sight of thee gave new life to my being.
All feeling for any other has died away,
For my eyes read in thine—love!’”
The final example of the King’s lyrical genius might be inscribed to “Lolita in Dejection.” It is dated the evening of 6th July 1847.
“A glance of the sun of former days,
A ray of light in gloomy night!
Have sounded long-forgotten strings,
And life once more as erst was bright.
“Thus felt I on that night of gladness,
When all was joy through thee alone;
Thy spirit chased from mine its sadness,
No joy was greater than mine own.
“Then was I happy for feeling more deeply
What I possessed and what I lost;
It seemed that thy joy then went for ever,
And that it could never more return.
“Thou hast lost thy cheerfulness,
Persecution has robbed thee of it;
It has deprived thee of thy health,
The happiness of thy life is already departed.
“But the firmer only, and more firmly
Thou hast tied me to thee;
Thou canst never draw me from thee—
Thou sufferest because thou lovest me.”
The King of Bavaria was not a poet; but, as a critic said of Emile Auger, in some remote corner of his being, something was singing.
XXII
THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE