Part 4 (2/2)

O, wherefore art thou flown so soon, Thou first fair year--Love's honeymoon!

All, dream too exquisite for life!

Home's G.o.ddess--in the name of wife!

Reared by each grace--yet but to be Man's household Anadyomene!

With mind from which the sunbeams fall, Rejoice while pervading all; Frank in the temper pleased to please-- Soft in the feeling waked with ease.

So broke, as native of the skies, The heart-enthraller on my eyes; So saw I, like a morn of May, The playmate given to glad my way; With eyes that more than lips bespoke, Eyes whence--sweet words--”I love thee!” broke!

So--Ah, what transports then were mine!

I led the bride before the shrine!

And saw the future years revealed, Gla.s.sed on my hope--one blooming field!

More wide, and widening more, were given The angel-gates disclosing heaven; Round us the lovely, mirthful troop Of children came--yet still to me The loveliest--merriest of the group The happy mother seemed to be!

Mine, by the bonds that bind us more Than all the oaths the priest before; Mine, by the concord of content, When heart with heart is music-blent; When, as sweet sounds in unison, Two lives harmonious melt in one!

When--sudden (O the villain!)--came Upon the scene a mind profound!-- A bel esprit, who whispered ”Fame,”

And shook my card-house to the ground.

What have I now instead of all The Eden lost of hearth and hall?

What comforts for the heaven bereft?

What of the younger angel's left?

A sort of intellectual mule, Man's stubborn mind in woman's shape, Too hard to love, too frail to rule-- A sage engrafted on an ape!

To what she calls the realm of mind, She leaves that throne, her s.e.x, to crawl, The cestus and the charm resigned-- A public gaping-show to all!

She blots from beauty's golden book A name 'mid nature's choicest few, To gain the glory of a nook In Doctor Dunderhead's Review.

WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALb.u.m.

Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed, Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays; Yet 'tis not as depicted in thy breast-- Not as within thy soul's fair gla.s.s, its rays Are mirrored. The respectful fealty That my heart's n.o.bleness hath won for thee, The miracles thou workest everywhere, The charms thy being to this life first lent,-- To it, mere charms to reckon thou'rt content, To us, they seem humanity so fair.

The witchery sweet of ne'er-polluted youth, The talisman of innocence and truth-- Him I would see, who these to scorn can dare!

Thou revellest joyously in telling o'er The blooming flowers that round thy path are strown,-- The glad, whom thou hast made so evermore,-- The souls that thou hast conquered for thine own.

In thy deceit so blissful be thou glad!

Ne'er let a waking disenchantment sad Hurl thee despairing from thy dream's proud flight!

Like the fair flowerets that thy beds perfume, Observe them, but ne'er touch them as they bloom,-- Plant them, but only for the distant sight.

Created only to enchant the eye, In faded beauty at thy feet they'll lie, The nearer thee, the nearer their long night!

FOOTNOTES:

[9] This concluding and fine strophe is omitted in the later editions of Schiller's ”Poems.”

[10] Hercules who recovered from the Shades Alcestis, after she had given her own life to save her husband, Admetus. Alcestis, in the hands of Euripides (that woman-hater as he is called!) becomes the loveliest female creation in the Greek drama.

[11] i. e. Castor and Pollux are transferred to the stars, Hercules to Olympus, for their deeds on earth.

[12] Carlyle's Miscellanies, vol. iii, p. 47.

[13] Literally ”Nierensteiner,”--a wine not much known in England, and scarcely--according to our experience--worth the regrets of its respectable owner.

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