“With hope extinct, and brow composed,
I marked the present die;
Its term of life was nearly closed,
Yet it had more than I.
“But thou, though to the world’s new hour
Thou come with aspect marred,
Shorn of the joy, the bloom, the power,
Which best befits its bard;
“Though more than half thy years be past,
And spent thy youthful prime;
Though, round thy firmer manhood cast,
Hang weeds of our sad time
“Whereof thy youth felt all the spell,
And traversed all the shade,—
Though late, though dimmed, though weak, yet tell
Hope to a world new-made!
“Help it to fill that deep desire,
The want which crazed our brain,
Consumed our soul with thirst like fire,
Immedicable pain;
“Which to the wilderness drove out
Our life, to Alpine snow,
And palsied all our word with doubt,
And all our work with woe.
“What still of strength is left, employ,
This end to help attain:
One common wave of thought and joy
Lifting mankind again!”
—The vision ended. I awoke
As out of sleep, and no
Voice moved: only the torrent broke
The silence, far below.
Soft darkness on the turf did lie;
Solemn, o’er hut and wood,
In the yet star-sown nightly sky,
The peak of Jaman stood.
Still in my soul the voice I heard
Of Obermann! Away
I turned; by some vague impulse stirred,
Along the rocks of Naye,—