The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 8

She kissed his brow, she kissed his mouth, She clasped him close, and pressed Her poor lips to the b.l.o.o.d.y wounds That gaped upon his breast.

His shoulder stark she kisses too, When, searching, she discovers Three little scars her teeth had made When they were happy lovers.

The monks had been and gotten boughs, And of these boughs they made A simple bier, whereon the corse Of the fallen king was laid.

To Waltham Abbey to his tomb The king was thus removed; And Edith of the Swan's Neck walked By the body that she loved.

She chanted litanies for his soul With a childish, weird lament That shuddered through the night. The monks Prayed softly as they went.

THE ASRA[47] (1855)

Every evening in the twilight, To and fro beside the fountain Where the waters whitely murmured, Walked the Sultan's lovely daughter.

And a youth, a slave, was standing Every evening by the fountain Where the waters whitely murmured; And his cheek grew pale and paler.

Till one eve the lovely princess Paused and asked him on a sudden: "I would know thy name and country; I would know thy home and kindred."

And the slave replied, "Mohammed Is my name; my home is Yemen; And my people are the Asras; When they love, they love and die."

THE Pa.s.sION FLOWER[48] (1856)

I dreamt that once upon a summer night Beneath the pallid moonlight's eerie glimmer I saw where, wrought in marble dimly bright, A ruin of the Renaissance did shimmer.

Yet here and there, in simple Doric form, A pillar like some solitary giant Rose from the ma.s.s, and, fearless of the storm, Reared toward the firmament its head defiant.

O'er all that place a heap of wreckage lay, Triglyphs and pediments and carven portals, With centaur, sphinx, chimera, satyrs gay-- Figures of fabled monsters and of mortals.

A marble-wrought sarcophagus reposed Unharmed 'mid fragments of these fabled creatures; Its lidless depth a dead man's form inclosed, The pain-wrung face now calm with softened features.

A group of straining caryatides With steadfast neck the casket's weight supported, Along both sides whereof there ran a frieze Of chiseled figures, wondrous ill-a.s.sorted.

First one might see where, decked in bright array, A train of lewd Olympians proudly glided, Then Adam and Dame Eve, not far away, With fig-leaf ap.r.o.ns modestly provided.

Next came the people of the Trojan war-- Paris, Achilles, Helen, aged Nestor; Moses and Aaron, too, with many more-- As Judith, Holofernes, Haman, Esther.

Such forms as Cupid's one could likewise see, Phoebus Apollo, Vulcan, Lady Venus, Pluto and Proserpine and Mercury, G.o.d Bacchus and Priapus and Silenus.

Among the rest of these stood Balaam's a.s.s-- A speaking likeness (if you will, a braying)-- And Abraham's sacrifice, and there, alas!

Lot's daughters, too, their drunken sire betraying.

Near by them danced the wanton Salome, To whom John's head was carried in a charger; Then followed Satan, writhing horribly, And Peter with his keys--none e'er seemed larger

Changing once more, the sculptor's cunning skill Showed l.u.s.tful Jove misusing his high power, When as a swan he won fair Leda's will, And conquered Danae in a golden shower.

Here was Diana, leading to the chase Her kilted nymphs, her hounds with eyeb.a.l.l.s burning; And here was Hercules in woman's dress, His warlike hand the peaceful distaff turning.

Not far from them frowned Sinai, bleak and wild, Along whose slope lay Israel's nomad nation; Next, one might see our Savior as a child Amid the elders holding disputation.

Thus were these opposites absurdly blent-- The Grecian joy of living with the G.o.dly Judean cast of thought!--while round them bent The ivy's tendrils, intertwining oddly.

But--wonderful to say!--while dreamily I gazed thereon with glance returning often, Sudden methought that I myself was he, The dead man in the splendid marble coffin.

Above the coffin by my head there grew A flower for a symbol sweet and tragic, Violet and sulphur-yellow was its hue, It seemed to throb with love's mysterious magic.

Tradition says, when Christ was crucified On Calvary, that in that very hour These petals with the Savior's blood were dyed, And therefore is it named the pa.s.sion-flower.

The hue of blood, they say, its blossom wears, And all the instruments of human malice Used at the crucifixion still it bears In miniature within its tiny chalice.

Whatever to the Pa.s.sion's rite belongs, Each tool of torture here is represented The crown of thorns, cup, nails and hammer, thongs, The cross on which our Master was tormented.

'Twas such a flower at my tomb did stand, Above my lifeless form in sorrow bending, And, like a mourning woman, kissed my hand, My brow and eyes, with silent grief contending.

And then--O witchery of dreams most strange!-- By some occult and sudden transformation This flower to a woman's shape did change-- 'Twas she I loved with soul-deep adoration!

'Twas thou in truth, my dearest, only thou; I knew thee by thy kisses warm and tender.

No flower-lips thus softly touched my brow, Such burning tears no flower's cup might render!

Mine eyes were shut, and yet my soul could see Thy steadfast countenance divinely beaming, As, calm with rapture, thou didst gaze on me, Thy features in the spectral moonlight gleaming.

We did not speak, and yet my heart could tell The hidden thoughts that thrilled within thy bosom.

No chaste reserve in spoken words may dwell-- With silence Love puts forth its purest blossom.

A voiceless dialogue! one scarce might deem, While mute we thus communed in tender fashion, How time slipped by like some seraphic dream Of night, all woven of joy and fear-sweet pa.s.sion.

Ah, never ask of us what then we said; Ask what the glow-worm glimmers to the gra.s.ses, Or what the wavelet murmurs in its bed, Or what the west wind whispers as it pa.s.ses.

Ask what rich lights from carbuncles outstream, What perfumed thoughts o'er rose and violet hover-- But never ask what, in the moonlight's beam, The sacred flower breathed to her dead lover.

I cannot tell how long a time I lay, Dreaming the ecstasy of joys Elysian, Within my marble shrine. It fled away-- The rapture of that calm untroubled vision.

Death, with thy grave-deep stillness, thou art best, Delight's full cup thy hand alone can proffer; The war of pa.s.sions, pleasure without rest-- Such boons are all that vulgar life can offer.

Alas! a sudden clamor put to flight My bliss, and all my comfort rudely banished; 'Twas such a screaming, ramping, raging fight That mid the uproar straight my flower vanished.

Then on all sides began a savage war Of argument, with scolding and with jangling.

Some voices surely I had heard before-- Why, 'twas my bas-reliefs had fall'n a-wrangling!

Do old delusions haunt these marbles here, And urge them on to frantic disputations?

The terror-striking shout of Pan rings clear, While Moses hurls his stern denunciations.

Alack! the wordy strife will have no end, Beauty and Truth will ever be at variance, A schism still the ranks of man will rend Into two camps, the h.e.l.lenes and Barbarians.

Both parties thus reviled and cursed away, And none who heard could tell the why or whether, Till Balaam's a.s.s at last began to bray And soon outbawled both G.o.ds and saints together.

With strident-sobbing hee-haw, hee-haw there-- His unremitting discords without number-- That beast so nearly brought me to despair That I cried out--and wakened from my slumber.