THE TWO RETURNED TOURISTS
From the yoke of the world and the snares of the traitor! the grave is the true liberator!
Griefs chase one another
Around the earth's dome ;
In the arms of our mother
Alone is our home.
Woo pleasure, ye triflers! The thoughtful are wiser ;
The grave, the grave is their one tranquillizer!
Is the good man unfriended
On life's ocean-path,
Where storms have expended
Their turbulent wrath?
Are his labors requited by slander and rancor?
grave, the grave is his sure bower-anchor!
To gaze on the faces
Of lost ones anew
To lock in embraces
The loved and the true
Were a rapture to make even Paradise brighter;
The grave, the grave is the great reüniter!
Crown the corpse, then, with laurels, –
The conqueror's wreath!
Make joyous with chorals
The chamber of death;
And welcome the victor with cymbal and psaltergrave, the grave is the only exalter!
XIV. THE TWO RETURNED TOURISTS.
Two travelers through the gateway went
To the glorious Alpine world's ascent:
The one, he followed Fashion's behest,
The other felt the glow in his breast.
And when the two came home again,
Their kin all clustered round the men:
'Twas a buzz of questions on every side.
"And what have you seen?
The one with yawning made reply:
"What have we seen? Not much have I!
Trees, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams,
Blue sky and clouds, and sunny gleams."
The other, smiling, said the same;
But with face transfigured and eye of flame:
"Trees, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams!
Blue sky and cloud, and sunny gleams!"
FROM THE GERMAN, BY C. T. BROOKS.
XV. - RIENZI TO THE ROMAN CONSPIRATORS IN 1347
ROMANS! look round you- on this sacred place
There once stood shrines, and gods, and godlike men. What see you now? what solitary trace
Is left of all that made Rome's glory then?
The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft
Even of its name— and nothing now remains
But the deep memory of that glory, left
To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!
But shall this be? Our sun and sky the same,
Treading the very soil our fathers trod, —
What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,
What visitation hath there come from God,
To blast our strength, and rot us into slaves,
Here, on our great forefathers' glorious graves?
It can not be! Rise up, ye mighty dead, -
If we, the living, are too weak to crush
These tyrant priests, that o'er your empire tread,
Till all but Romans at Rome's tameness blush!
Happy, Palmyra, in thy desert domes,
Where only date-trees sigh, and serpents hiss!
And thou, whose pillars are but silent homes
For the stork's brood, superb Per-sep'olis!
Thrice happy both, that your extinguished race
Have left no embers-no half-living trace —
No slaves, to crawl around the once proud spot,
Till past renown in present shame 's forgot;
While Rome, the queen of all, whose very wrecks,
If lone and lifeless through a desert hurled,
Would wear more true magnificence than decks
The assembled thrones of all the existing world-
Rome, Rome alone is haunted, stained, and cursed,
Through every spot her princely Tiber laves,
By living human things-the deadliest, worst,
This earth engenders- tyrants and their slaves!
And we-O, shame! we, who have pondered o'er
The patriot's lesson, and the poet's lay;
Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore,
Tracking our country's glories all the way-
Even we have tamely, basely kissed the ground,
Before that tyrant power, that ghost of her,
The world's imperial mistress-sitting, crowned
And ghastly, on her mouldering sepulcher!
But this is past!-too long have lordly priests
And priestly lords led us, with all our pride
Withering about us, like devoted beasts,
Dragged to the shrine, with faded garlands tied.
"Tis o'er- the dawn of our deliverance breaks!
Up from his sleep of centuries awakes
The Genius of the old republic, free
As first he stood, in chainless majesty,
And sends his voice through ages yet to come,
Proclaiming Rome, Rome, Rome, Eternal Rome!
"I have read, friend Sancho, that a certain Spanish knight, whose name was Diego Perez de Vargas, having broken his sword in the heat of an engagement, pulled up by the roots a wild olive-tree, -or at least tore down a massy branch, and did such wonderful execution, crushing and grinding so many Moors with it that day, that he won himself and his posterity tho surname of The Pounder, or Bruiser." Don Quixote.
THE Christians have beleaguered the famous walls of Xe'res;
Among them are Don Alvar and Don Diego Perez,
And many other gentlemen, who, day succeeding day,
Give challenge to the Saracen and all his chivalry.*
When rages the hot battle before the gates of Xeres,
By trace of gore ye may explore the dauntless path of Perez.
No knight like Don Diego, no sword like his is found,
In all the host, to hew the boast of Paynims to the ground.
It fell one day, when furiously they battled on the plain,
Diego shivered both his lance and trusty blade in twain;
This word being derived from the French, the ch should have the sound of sh. Pronounced shivalry.
The Moors that saw it shouted, for esquire none was near,
To serve Diego at his need with falchion, mace, or spear.
Loud, loud he blew his bugle, sore troubled was his eye,
But, by God's grace, before his face there stood a tree full nigh;
An olive-tree with branches strong, close by the wall of Xeres,
"Yon goodly bough will serve, I trow," quoth Don Diego Perez.
A gnarled branch he soon did wrench down from that olive strong,
Which o'er his head-piece brandishing, he spurs among the throng;
Ah ha! full many a pagan must in his saddle reel!
What leech may cure, what beadsman shrive, if once that weight ye feel?
But when Don Alvar saw him thus bruising down the foe, Quoth he, "I've seen some flail-armed men belabor barley so; Sure, mortal mould did ne'er enfold such mastery of power; Let's call Diego Perez THE POUNDER from this hour!"
XVII. - BALBOA'S DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC.
FROM San Domingo's crowded wharf Fernandez' vessel bore,
To seek in unknown lands afar the Indian's golden ore;
And, hid among the freighted casks, where none might see or know,
Was one of Spain's immortal men, three hundred years ago..
But when the fading town and land had dropped below the sea,
He met the captain face to face, and not a fear had he!
"What villain thou?" Fernandez cried; "and wherefore serve
us so?"
"To be thy follower," he replied, three hundred years ago.
He wore a manly form and face, a courage firm and bold,
His words fell on his comrades' hearts like precious drops of gold:
They saw not his ambitious soul; he spoke it not for, lo!
He stood among the common ranks, three hundred years ago.
But when Fernandez' vessel lay at golden Darien,
A murmur, born of discontent, grew loud among the men;
And with the word there came the act; and with the sudden blow,
They raised Balbo'a from the ranks, three hundred years ago.
And while he took command beneath the banner of his lord,
A mighty purpose grasped his soul, as he had grasped his sword:
He saw the mountain's far blue height whence golden waters flow;
Then with his men he scaled the crags, three hundred years ago.
He led them up through tangled brakes, the rivulet's sliding bed, And through the storm of poisoned darts, from many an ambush shed;
He gained the turret crag, alone, and wept to see below
An ocean, boundless and unknown, three hundred years ago.
And while he raised upon the height the banner of his lord,
The mighty purpose grasped him still, as still he grasped his sword;
Then down he rushed with all his men, as headlong rivers flow,
And plunged breast-deep into the sea, three hundred years ago.
And while he held above his head the conquering flag of Spain,
He waved his gleaming sword, and smote the waters of the main:
For Rome! for Leon! for Castile! thrice gave the cleaving blow;
And thus Bal-bo'a claimed the sea, three hundred years ago.
XVIII-THE DAYS OF YOUTH.
GIVE me, O give me back the days
When I-I, too, was young,
And felt, as they now feel, each coming hour,
New consciousness of power.
O! happy, happy time, above all praise!
Then thoughts on thoughts and crowding fancies sprung,
And found a language in unbidden lays;
Unintermitted streams from fountains ever flowing!
Then, as I wandered free,
In every field, for me
Its thousand flowers were blowing!
A veil through which I did not see,
A thin veil o'er the world was thrown,
In every bud a mystery!
Magic in every thing unknown!
The field, the grove, the air, was haunted,
And all that age has disenchanted!
Yes! give me give me back the days of youth,
Poor, yet how rich! - my glad inheritance
The inextinguishable love of truth,
While life's realities were all romance!
Give me, O! give youth's passions unconfined,
The rush of joy that felt almost like pain,
Its hate, its love, its own tumultuous mind;
Give me my youth again!
GOETHE (translated by Anster).
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