Poems, third period | Page 8

balsam,
And on life bestows new zest.
But their slanting rays all feebly
On our zone the sunbeams shoot;

They can only tinge the foliage,
But they ripen ne'er the fruit.
Yet the north insists on living,
And what lives will merry be;
So,
although the grape is wanting,
We invent wine cleverly.
Pale the drink we now are offering
On the household altar here;
But
what living Nature maketh,
Sparkling is and ever clear.
Let us from the brimming goblet,
Drain the troubled flood with mirth;

Art is but a gift of heaven,
Borrowed from the glow of earth.
Even strength's dominions boundless
'Neath her rule obedient lie;

From the old the new she fashions
With creative energy.
She the elements' close union
Severs with her sovereign nod;
With
the flame upon the altar,
Emulates the great sun-god.
For the distant, happy islands
Now the vessel sallies forth,
And the
southern fruits, all-golden,
Pours upon the eager north.

As a type, then,--as an image,
Be to us this fiery juice,
Of the
wonders that frail mortals
Can with steadfast will produce!
THE COMPLAINT OF CERES. [29]
Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth
regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst
their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an
all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds
are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;

The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come
back to thee--
Thy child, sad mother, comes no more!"
Alas! how long an age it seems
Since all the earth I wandered over,

And vainly, Titan, tasked thy beams
The loved--the lost one--to
discover!
Though all may seek--yet none can call
Her tender
presence back to me
The sun, with eyes detecting all,
Is blind one
vanished form to see.
Hast thou, O Zeus! hast thou away
From
these sad arms my daughter torn?
Has Pluto, from the realms of day,

Enamored--to dark rivers borne?
Who to the dismal phantom-strand
The herald of my grief will
venture?
The boat forever leaves the land,
But only shadows there
may enter.--
Veiled from each holier eye repose
The realms where
midnight wraps the dead,
And, while the Stygian river flows,
No
living footstep there may tread!
A thousand pathways wind the drear

Descent;--none upward lead to-day;--
No witness to the mother's
ear
The daughter's sorrows can betray.
Mothers of happy human clay
Can share at least their children's doom;

And when the loved ones pass away,
Can track--can join them--in
the tomb!

The race alone of heavenly birth
Are banished from the
darksome portals;
The Fates have mercy on the earth,
And death is
only kind to mortals! [30]
Oh, plunge me in the night of nights,


From heaven's ambrosial halls exiled!
Oh, let the goddess lose the
rights
That shut the mother from the child!
Where sits the dark king's joyless bride,
Where midst the dead her
home is made;
Oh that my noiseless steps might glide,
Amidst the
shades, myself a shade!
I see her eyes, that search through tears,
In
vain the golden light to greet;
That yearn for yonder distant spheres,

That pine the mother's face to meet!
Till some bright moment shall
renew
The severed hearts' familiar ties;
And softened pity steal in
dew,
From Pluto's slow-relenting eyes!
Ah, vain the wish, the sorrows are!
Calm in the changeless paths
above
Rolls on the day-god's golden car--
Fast are the fixed decrees
of Jove!
Far from the ever-gloomy plain,
He turns his blissful looks
away.
Alas! night never gives again
What once it seizes as its prey!

Till over Lethe's sullen swell,
Aurora's rosy hues shall glow;
And
arching through the midmost hell
Shine forth the lovely Iris-bow!
And is there naught of her; no token--
No pledge from that beloved
hand?
To tell how love remains unbroken,
How far soever be the
land?
Has love no link, no lightest thread,
The mother to the child
to bind?
Between the living and the dead,
Can hope no holy
compact find?
No! every bond is not yet riven;
We are not yet
divided wholly;
To us the eternal powers have given
A symbol
language, sweet and holy.
When Spring's fair children pass away,
When, in the north wind's icy
air,
The leaf and flower alike decay,
And leave the rivelled
branches bare,
Then from Vertumnus' lavish horn

I take life's seeds
to strew below--
And bid the gold that germs the corn
An offering
to the Styx to go!
Sad in the earth the seeds I lay--
Laid at thy heart,
my child--to be
The mournful tokens which convey
My sorrow and
my love to thee!

But, when the hours, in measured dance,
The happy smile of spring
restore,
Rife in the sun-god's golden glance
The buried dead revive
once more!
The germs that perished to thine eyes,
Within the cold
breast of the earth,
Spring up to bloom in gentler skies,
The brighter
for the second birth!
The stem its blossom rears above--
Its roots in
night's dark womb repose--
The plant but by the equal love
Of light
and darkness fostered--grows!
If half with death the germs may sleep,
Yet half with life they share
the beams;
My heralds from the dreary deep,
Soft voices from the
solemn streams,--
Like her, so them, awhile entombs,
Stern Orcus,
in his dismal reign,
Yet spring sends forth their tender blooms
With
such sweet messages again,
To tell,--how far from light above,

Where only mournful shadows meet,
Memory is still alive to