As if the stateliest chambers
For noble guests were spread,
And out from the prime of that glorious time
A youth a maiden led.
And, standing in the chapel,
The good old priest did say,
“Will ye wed with one another?”
And we smiled and we answer’d “Yea!”
We sung, and our hearts they bounded
To the thrilling lays we sung,
And every note was doubled
By the echo’s catching tongue.
And when, as eve descended,
We left the silence still,
And the setting sun look’d upward
On that great castled hill;
Then far and wide, like lord and bride,
In the radiant light we shone—
It sank; and again the ruins
Stood desolate and lone!
We shall now select, from the songs that are scattered throughout the tale of Wilhelm Meister, one of the most genial and sweet. It is an in-door picture of evening, and of those odorous flowers of life which expand their petals only at the approach of Hesperus.
Philine’s Song.
Sing not thus in notes of sadness
Of the loneliness of night;
No! ’tis made for social gladness,
Converse sweet, and love’s delight.
As to rugged man his wife is,
As his fairest half decreed,
So dear night the half of life is,
And the fairest half indeed.