Thou art old and I still older,
And our spring has ceased to bloom;
Thou art cold, and I still colder,
At th’ approach of winter’s gloom.
At the end, how all is sadden’d!
After love’s sweet cares are past,
Cares draw nigh, by love ungladden’d,
After life comes death at last.
8. FREDERICA.
1.
O leave Berlin, with its thick-lying sand,
Weak tea, and men who seem so much to know
That they both God, themselves, and all below
With Hegel’s reason only understand.
O come to India, to the sunny land
Where flowers ambrosial their sweet fragrance throw
Where pilgrim troops on tow’rd the Ganges go
With reverence, in white robes, a festal band.
There, where the palm-trees wave, the billows smile,
And on the sacred bank the lotos-tree
Soars up to Indra’s castle blue,—yes there,
There will I kneel to thee in trusting style,
And press against thy foot, and say to thee:
“Madam, thou art the fairest of the fair!”
2.
The Ganges roars; amid the foliage see
The sharp eyes of the antelope, who springs
Disdainfully along; their colour’d wings
The peacocks as they move, show haughtily.