Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 24

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 pa.s.sed 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 aerial 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 armed nations--Asian horde, And Libyan host, the Scythian and the Gaul Have swept your base and through your pa.s.ses poured, Like ocean-tides uprising at the call Of tyrant winds--against your rocky side The b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.ds, a dream-begotten throng, Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names; While, as the unheeding ages pa.s.sed 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 winged offspring, chained by power, Pine silently for the redeeming hour.

EARTH.

A midnight black with clouds is in the sky; I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, Tinges the flowering summits of the gra.s.s.

No sound of life is heard, no village hum, Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, Nor rush of wind, while, on the breast of Earth, I lie and listen to her mighty voice: A voice of many tones--sent up from streams That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air, From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day, And hollows of the great invisible hills, And sands that edge the ocean, stretching far Into the night--a melancholy sound!

O Earth! dost thou too sorrow for the past Like man thy offspring? Do I hear thee mourn Thy childhood's unreturning hours, thy springs Gone with their genial airs and melodies, The gentle generations of thy flowers, And thy majestic groves of olden time, Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou wail For that fair age of which the poets tell, Ere yet the winds grew keen with frost, or fire Fell with the rains or spouted from the hills, To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night Was guiltless and salubrious as the day?

Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die-- For living things that trod thy paths awhile, The love of thee and heaven--and now they sleep Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herds Trample and graze? I too must grieve with thee, O'er loved ones lost. Their graves are far away Upon thy mountains; yet, while I recline Alone, in darkness, on thy naked soil, The mighty nourisher and burial-place Of man, I feel that I embrace their dust.

Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves Of the heart-broken utter forth their plaint.

The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, And him who died neglected in his age; The sepulchres of those who for mankind Labored, and earned the recompense of scorn; Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones Of those who, in the strife for liberty, Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, Their names to infamy, all find a voice.

The nook in which the captive, overtoiled, Lay down to rest at last, and that which holds Childhood's sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel hands, Send up a plaintive sound. From battle-fields, Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hosts Against each other, rises up a noise, As if the armed mult.i.tudes of dead Stirred in their heavy slumber. Mournful tones Come from the green abysses of the sea-- A story of the crimes the guilty sought To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves, Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook, And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanes Of cities, now that living sounds are hushed, Murmur of guilty force and treachery.

Here, where I rest, the vales of Italy Are round me, populous from early time, And field of the tremendous warfare waged 'Twixt good and evil. Who, alas! shall dare Interpret to man's ear the mingled voice That comes from her old dungeons yawning now To the black air, her amphitheatres, Where the dew gathers on the mouldering stones, And fanes of banished G.o.ds, and open tombs, And roofless palaces, and streets and hearths Of cities dug from their volcanic graves?

I hear a sound of many languages, The utterance of nations now no more, Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven Chase one another from the sky. The blood Of freemen shed by freemen, till strange lords Came in their hour of weakness, and made fast The yoke that yet is worn, cries out to heaven.

What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth, From all its painful memories of guilt?

The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, Or the slow change of time?--that so, at last, The horrid tale of perjury and strife, Murder and spoil, which men call history, May seem a fable, like the inventions told By poets of the G.o.ds of Greece. O thou, Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, Among the sources of thy glorious streams, My native Land of Groves! a newer page In the great record of the world is thine; Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly Hope, And Envy, watch the issue, while the lines, By which thou shalt be judged, are written down.

THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH.

This is the church which Pisa, great and free, Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear To shiver in the deep and voluble tones Rolled from the organ! Underneath my feet There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault.

The image of an armed knight is graven Upon it, clad in perfect panoply-- Cuishes, and greaves, and cuira.s.s, with barred helm, Grauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield.

Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim By feet of worshippers, are traced his name, And birth, and death, and words of eulogy.

Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb, This effigy, the strange disused form Of this inscription, eloquently show His history. Let me clothe in fitting words The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph:

"He whose forgotten dust for centuries Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom Adventure, and endurance, and emprise, Exalted the mind's faculties and strung The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, And quick to draw the sword in private feud, He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed The saints as fervently on bended knees As ever shaven cen.o.bite. He loved As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne The maid that pleased him from her bower by night To his hill castle, as the eagle bears His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks On his pursuers. He aspired to see His native Pisa queen and arbitress Of cities; earnestly for her he raised His voice in council, and affronted death In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck, And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen.

He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke, But would have joined the exiles that withdrew Forever, when the Florentine broke in The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts For trophies--but he died before that day.

"He lived, the impersonation of an age That never shall return. His soul of fire Was kindled by the breath of the rude time He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds, Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier, Turning his eyes from the reproachful past, And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, And love, and music, his inglorious life."