Poems, supressed poems | Page 5

every sense on
fire,
That which once could every nerve inspire,
Scarce a half-smile now hath power to wrest!

That Orion might receive my fame,
On the time-flood's heaving
waves my name
Rocked in glory in the mighty tide;
So that Kronos' dreaded scythe
was shivered,
When against my monument is quivered,
Towering toward the firmament in pride.
Smil'st thou?--No? to me naught's perished now!
Star and laurel I'll to
fools allow,
To the dead their marble cell;--
Love hath granted all as my reward,

High o'er man 'twere easy to have soared,
So I love him well!
THE SIMPLE PEASANT. [62]
MATTHEW.
Gossip, you'll like to hear, no doubt!
A learned work
has just come out--
Messias is the name 'twill bear;
The man has
travelled through the air,
And on the sun-beplastered roads
Has lost
shoe-leather by whole loads,--
Has seen the heavens lie open wide,

And hell has traversed with whole hide.
The thought has just
occurred to me
That one so skilled as he must be
May tell us how
our flax and wheat arise.
What say you?--Shall I try to ascertain?
LUKE.
You fool, to think that any one so wise
About mere flax
and corn would rack his brain.
ACTAEON.
Thy wife is destined to deceive thee!
She'll seek another's arms and
leave thee,
And horns upon thy head will shortly sprout!
How
dreadful that when bathing thou shouldst see me
(No ether-bath can
wash the stigma out),
And then, in perfect innocence, shouldst flee
me!

MAN'S DIGNITY.
I am a man!--Let every one
Who is a man, too, spring
With joy
beneath God's shining sun,
And leap on high, and sing!
To God's own image fair on earth
Its stamp I've power to show;

Down to the front, where heaven has birth
With boldness I dare go.
'Tis well that I both dare and can!
When I a maiden see,
A voice
exclaims: thou art a man!
I kiss her tenderly.
And redder then the maiden grows,
Her bodice seems too tight--

That I'm a man the maiden knows,
Her bodice therefore's tight.
Will she, perchance, for pity cry,
If unawares she's caught?
She
finds that I'm a man--then, why
By her is pity sought?
I am a man; and if alone
She sees me drawing near,
I make the
emperor's daughter run,
Though ragged I appear.
This golden watchword wins the smile
Of many a princess fair;

They call--ye'd best look out the while,
Ye gold-laced fellows there!
That I'm a man is fully shown
Whene'er my lyre I sweep;
It
thunders out a glorious tone--
It otherwise would creep.
The spirit that my veins now hold,
My manhood calls its brother!

And both command, like lions bold,
And fondly greet each other.
From out this same creative flood
From which we men have birth,

Both godlike strength and genius bud,
And everything of worth.
My talisman all tyrants hates,
And strikes them to the ground;
Or
guides us gladly through life's gates
To where the dead are found.
E'en Pompey, at Pharsalia's fight,
My talisman o'erthrew;
On

German sand it hurled with might
Rome's sensual children, too.
Didst see the Roman, proud and stern,
Sitting on Afric's shore?
His
eyes like Hecla seem to burn,
And fiery flames outpour.
Then comes a frank and merry knave,
And spreads it through the land:

"Tell them that thou on Carthage's grave
Hast seen great Marius
stand!"
Thus speaks the son of Rome with pride,
Still mighty in his fall;
He
is a man, and naught beside,--
Before him tremble all.
His grandsons afterwards began
Their portions to o'erthrow,
And
thought it well that every man
Should learn with grace to crow.
For shame, for shame,--once more for shame!
The wretched
ones?--they've even
Squandered the tokens of their fame,
The
choicest gifts of heaven.
God's counterfeit has sinfully
Disgraced his form divine,
And in his
vile humanity
Has wallowed like the swine.
The face of earth each vainly treads,
Like gourds, that boys in sport

Have hollowed out to human heads,
With skulls, whose brains
are--naught.
Like wine that by a chemist's art
Is through retorts refined,
Their
spirits to the deuce depart,
The phlegma's left behind.
From every woman's face they fly,
Its very aspect dread,--
And if
they dared--and could not--why,
'Twere better they were dead.
They shun all worthies when they can,
Grief at their joy they prove--

The man who cannot make a man,
A man can never love!
The world I proudly wander o'er,
And plume myself and sing
I am a

man!--Whoe'er is more?
Then leap on high, and spring!
THE MESSIAD.
Religion 'twas produced this poem's fire;
Perverted also?--prithee,
don't inquire!
THOUGHTS ON THE 1ST OCTOBER, 1781.
What mean the joyous sounds from yonder vine-clad height? What the
exulting Evoe? [63]
Why glows the cheek? Whom is't that I, with
pinions light, Swinging the lofty Thyrsus see?
Is it the genius whom the gladsome throng obeys?
Do I his numerous
train descry?
In plenty's teeming horn the gifts of heaven he sways,
And reels from very ecstacy!--
See how the golden grape in glorious beauty shines,
Kissed by the
earliest morning-beams!
The shadow of yon bower, how lovingly it
signs,
As it with countless blessings teams!
Ha! glad October, thou art welcome unto me!--
October's first-born,
welcome thou!
Thanks of a purer kind, than all who worship thee,

More heartfelt thanks I'm bringing now!
For thou