Strong was he, with a spirit free From mists, and sane, and clear; Clearer, how much! than ours--yet we Have a worse course to steer.
For though his manhood bore the blast Of a tremendous time, Yet in a tranquil world was pa.s.s"d His tenderer youthful prime.
But we, brought forth and rear"d in hours Of change, alarm, surprise-- What shelter to grow ripe is ours?
What leisure to grow wise?
Like children bathing on the sh.o.r.e, Buried a wave beneath, The second wave succeeds, before We have had time to breathe.
Too fast we live, too much are tried, Too hara.s.s"d, to attain Wordsworth"s sweet calm, or Goethe"s wide And luminous view to gain.
And then we turn, thou sadder sage, To thee! we feel thy spell!
--The hopeless tangle of our age, Thou too hast scann"d it well!
Immoveable thou sittest, still As death, composed to bear!
Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill, And icy thy despair.
Yes, as the son of Thetis said, I hear thee saying now: _Greater by far than thou art dead;_ _Strive not! die also thou!_
Ah! two desires toss about The poet"s feverish blood.
One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.
_The glow_, he cries, _the thrill of life,_ _Where, where do these abound_?-- Not in the world, not in the strife Of men, shall they be found.
He who hath watch"d, not shared, the strife, Knows how the day hath gone.
He only lives with the world"s life, Who hath renounced his own.
To thee we come, then! Clouds are roll"d Where thou, O seer! art set; Thy realm of thought is drear and cold-- The world is colder yet!
And thou hast pleasures, too, to share With those who come to thee-- Balms floating on thy mountain-air, And healing sights to see.
How often, where the slopes are green On Jaman, hast thou sate By some high chalet-door, and seen The summer-day grow late; And darkness steal o"er the wet gra.s.s With the pale crocus starr"d, And reach that glimmering sheet of gla.s.s Beneath the piny sward,
Lake Leman"s waters, far below!
And watch"d the rosy light Fade from the distant peaks of snow; And on the air of night
Heard accents of the eternal tongue Through the pine branches play-- Listen"d, and felt thyself grow young!
Listen"d and wept----Away!
Away the dreams that but deceive And thou, sad guide, adieu!
I go, fate drives me; but I leave Half of my life with you.
We, in some unknown Power"s employ, Move on a rigorous line; Can neither, when we will, enjoy, Nor, when we will, resign.
I in the world must live; but thou, Thou melancholy shade!
Wilt not, if thou canst see me now, Condemn me, nor upbraid.
For thou art gone away from earth, And place with those dost claim, The Children of the Second Birth, Whom the world could not tame; And with that small, transfigured band, Whom many a different way Conducted to their common land, Thou learn"st to think as they.
Christian and pagan, king and slave, Soldier and anchorite, Distinctions we esteem so grave, Are nothing in their sight.
They do not ask, who pined unseen, Who was on action hurl"d, Whose one bond is, that all have been Unspotted by the world.
There without anger thou wilt see Him who obeys thy spell No more, so he but rest, like thee, Unsoil"d!--and so, farewell.
Farewell!--Whether thou now liest near That much-loved inland sea, The ripples of whose blue waves cheer Vevey and Meillerie:
And in that gracious region bland, Where with clear-rustling wave The scented pines of Switzerland Stand dark round thy green grave,
Between the dusty vineyard-walls Issuing on that green place The early peasant still recalls The pensive stranger"s face, And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date Ere he plods on again;-- Or whether, by maligner fate, Among the swarms of men,
Where between granite terraces The blue Seine rolls her wave, The Capital of Pleasure sees The hardly heard-of grave;--
Farewell! Under the sky we part, In the stern Alpine dell.
O unstrung will! O broken heart!
A last, a last farewell!
OBERMANN ONCE MORE
(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING)
_Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d"un monde?_
OBERMANN.
Glion?----Ah, twenty years, it cuts[27]
All meaning from a name!
White houses prank where once were huts.
Glion, but not the same!
And yet I know not! All unchanged The turf, the pines, the sky!
The hills in their old order ranged; The lake, with Chillon by!
And, "neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff And stony mounts the way, The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if I left them yesterday!
Across the valley, on that slope, The huts of Avant shine!
Its pines, under their branches, ope Ways for the pasturing kine.
Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare, Sweet heaps of fresh-cut gra.s.s, Invite to rest the traveller there Before he climb the pa.s.s--
The gentian-flower"d pa.s.s, its crown With yellow spires aflame;[28]
Whence drops the path to Alliere down, And walls where Byron came,[29]
By their green river, who doth change His birth-name just below; Orchard, and croft, and full-stored grange Nursed by his pastoral flow.