19. LIFE’S SALUTATIONS. (From an Album.)
This earth resembles a highway vast,
We men are the trav’llers along it;
On foot and on horseback we hurry on fast,
And as runners or couriers throng it.
In passing each other, we nod and we greet
With our handkerchiefs waved from the coaches;
We fain would embrace, but our horses are fleet,
And speed on, despite all reproaches.
Dear Prince Alexander, as onward we go,
We scarcely have met at a station,
When the signal to start the postilions blow,
Compelling our sad separation.
20. QUITE TRUE.
When the spring returns with the sun’s sweet light,
The flowers then bud and blossom apace;
When the moon begins her radiant race,
Then the stars swim after her track so bright.
When the minstrel sees two beautiful eyes,
Then songs from his inmost bosom arise;—
But songs and stars and flowerets gay,
And eyes and moonbeams and sun’s bright ray,
However delightful they are,
Don’t make up the world, friend, by far.
4. SONNETS.
TO A. W. VON SCHLEGEL.
In dainty hoop, with flowers all-richly dight,
With beauty-patches on her painted face,
With pointed shoes all hung about with lace,
With tow’ring curls, and, wasp-like, fasten’d tight,—
Thus was the spurious muse equipp’d that night
When first she offer’d thee her fond embrace;
But thou eludedst her and leftst the place,
Led by a mystic impulse from her sight:
A castle in the desert thou didst find,
Where, like a lovely marble image shrin’d,
Lay a fair maid, in magic slumber sunk;
But soon the spell was loosed,—when kiss’d by thee,
With smiles the lawful muse of Germany
Awoke, and sank within thine arms, love-drunk.