THE LADY OF CASTLE WINDECK.
FROM THE GERMAN OF CHAMISSO.
Rein in thy snorting charger!
That stag but cheats thy sight;
He is luring thee on to Windeck,
With his seeming fear and flight.
Now, where the mouldering turrets
Of the outer gate arise,
The knight gazed over the ruins
Where the stag was lost to his eyes.
The sun shone hot above him;
The castle was still as death;
He wiped the sweat from his forehead,
With a deep and weary breath.
"Who now will bring me a beaker
Of the rich old wine that here,
In the choked-up vaults of Windeck,
Has lain for many a year?"
The careless words had scarcely
Time from his lips to fall,
When the lady of Castle Windeck,
Came round the ivy-wall.
He saw the glorious maiden
In her snow-white drapery stand,
The bunch of keys at her girdle,
The beaker high in her hand.
He quaffed that rich old vintage;
With an eager lip he quaffed;
But he took into his bosom
A fire with the grateful draught.
Her eyes' unfathomed brightness!
The flowing gold of her hair!
He folded his hands in homage,
And murmured a lover's prayer.
She gave him a look of pity,
A gentle look of pain;
And, quickly as he had seen her,
She passed from his sight again.
And ever, from that moment,
He haunted the ruins there,
A sleepless, restless wanderer,
A watcher with despair.
Ghost-like and pale he wandered,
With a dreamy, haggard eye;
He seemed not one of the living,
And yet he could not die.
'Tis said that the lady met him,
When many years had past,
And kissing his lips, released him
From the burden of life at last.
LATER POEMS.
TO THE APENNINES.
Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines!
In the soft light of these serenest skies;
From the broad highland region, black with pines,
Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise,
Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold
In rosy flushes on the virgin gold.
There, rooted to the aërial shelves that wear
The glory of a brighter world, might spring
Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air,
And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wing
To view the fair earth in its summer sleep,
Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep.
Below you lie men's sepulchres, the old
Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday;
The herd's white bones lie mixed with human mould,
Yet up the radiant steeps that I survey
Death never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain,
Was yielded to the elements again.
Ages of war have filled these plains with fear;
How oft the hind has started at the clash
Of spears, and yell of meeting armies here,
Or seen the lightning of the battle flash
From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound,
Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground!
Ah me! what armèd nations—Asian horde,
And Libyan host, the Scythian and the Gaul
Have swept your base and through your passes poured,
Like ocean-tides uprising at the call
Of tyrant winds—against your rocky side
The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died!
How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes,
Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain;
And commonwealths against their rivals rose,
Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain!
While, in the noiseless air and light that flowed
Round your fair brows, eternal Peace abode.
Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar-flames
Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng,
Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names;
While, as the unheeding ages passed along,
Ye, from your station in the middle skies,
Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise.
In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks
Her image; there the winds no barrier know,
Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks;
While even the immaterial Mind, below,
And Thought, her wingèd offspring, chained by power,
Pine silently for the redeeming hour.