When in sorrow, they dare not show it,
However mournful their mood,
For the swan, like the soul of the poet,
By the dull world is ill understood.
And in their death-hour they waken
The air, and break into song;
And, unless my ears are mistaken,
They sing now, while sailing along.
4.
The cloudlets are lazily sailing
O’er the blue Atlantic sea;
And mid the twilight there hovers
A shadowy figure o’er me.
Full deep in my soul it gazes,
With old-time-recalling eye,
Like a glimpse of joys long buried,
And happiness long gone by.
Familiar the vision appeareth,
Methinks I know it full well;
’Tis the much-loved shadow of Mary,
Who on earth no longer doth dwell.
She beckons in friendly silence,
And clasps me with gentle despair;
But I seize hold of my glasses,
To have a better stare!
SONNETS.
1. TO AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL.
The worst of worms: the dagger thoughts of doubt—
The worst of poisons: to mistrust one’s power—
These struggled my life’s marrow to devour;
I was a shoot, whose props were rooted out.
Thou pitiedst the poor shoot in that sad hour,
And bad’st it climb thy kindly words about;
To thee, great Master, owe I thanks devout,
Should the weak shoot e’er blossom into flower.
O still watch o’er it, as it grows apace,
That as a tree the garden it may grace
Of that fair fay, whose favourite child thou wert.
My nurse used of that garden to assert
That a strange ringing, wondrous sweet, there dwells,
Each flower can speak, each tree with music swells.