Poems, third period | Page 6

hope is destroyed.?I have tasted the fulness of bliss below?I have lived, I have loved,--Thy child, oh take now,?Thou Holy One, into Thy keeping!"
"In vain is thy sorrow,?In vain thy tears fall,?For the dead from their slumbers?They ne'er can recall;?Yet if aught can pour comfort and balm in thy heart,?Now that love its sweet pleasures no more can impart,?Speak thy wish, and thou granted shalt find it!"
"Though in vain is my sorrow,?Though in vain my tears fall,--?Though the dead from their slumbers?They ne'er can recall,?Yet no balm is so sweet to the desolate heart,?When love its soft pleasures no more can impart,?As the torments that love leaves behind it!"
TO MY FRIENDS.
Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been?Than the present, none can contravene;?That a race once lived of nobler worth;?And if ancient chronicles were dumb,?Countless stones in witness forth would come?From the deepest entrails of the earth.?But this highly-favored race has gone,?Gone forever to the realms of night.?We, we live! The moments are our own,?And the living judge the right.
Brighter zones, my friends, no doubt excel?This, the land wherein we're doomed to dwell,?As the hardy travellers proclaim;?But if Nature has denied us much,?Art is yet responsive to our touch,?And our hearts can kindle at her flame.?If the laurel will not flourish here--?If the myrtle is cold winter's prey,?Yet the vine, to crown us, year by year,?Still puts forth its foliage gay.
Of a busier life 'tis well to speak,?Where four worlds their wealth to barter seek,?On the world's great market, Thames' broad stream;?Ships in thousands go there and depart--?There are seen the costliest works of art,?And the earth-god, Mammon, reigns supreme?But the sun his image only graves?On the silent streamlet's level plain,?Not upon the torrent's muddy waves,?Swollen by the heavy rain.
Far more blessed than we, in northern states?Dwells the beggar at the angel-gates,?For he sees the peerless city--Rome!?Beauty's glorious charms around him lie,?And, a second heaven, up toward the sky?Mounts St. Peter's proud and wondrous dome.?But, with all the charms that splendor grants,?Rome is but the tomb of ages past;?Life but smiles upon the blooming plants?That the seasons round her cast.
Greater actions elsewhere may be rife?Than with us, in our contracted life--?But beneath the sun there's naught that's new;?Yet we see the great of every age?Pass before us on the world's wide stage?Thoughtfully and calmly in review?All. in life repeats itself forever,?Young for ay is phantasy alone;?What has happened nowhere,--happened never,--?That has never older grown!
PUNCH SONG.
Four elements, joined in?Harmonious strife,?Shadow the world forth,?And typify life.
Into the goblet?The lemon's juice pour;?Acid is ever?Life's innermost core.
Now, with the sugar's?All-softening juice,?The strength of the acid?So burning reduce.
The bright sparkling water?Now pour in the bowl;?Water all-gently?Encircles the whole.
Let drops of the spirit?To join them now flow;?Life to the living?Naught else can bestow.
Drain it off quickly?Before it exhales;?Save when 'tis glowing,?The draught naught avails.
NADOWESSIAN DEATH-LAMENT.
See, he sitteth on his mat?Sitteth there upright,?With the grace with which he sat?While he saw the light.
Where is now the sturdy gripe,--?Where the breath sedate,?That so lately whiffed the pipe?Toward the Spirit great?
Where the bright and falcon eye,?That the reindeer's tread?On the waving grass could spy,?Thick with dewdrops spread?
Where the limbs that used to dart?Swifter through the snow?Than the twenty-membered hart,?Than the mountain roe?
Where the arm that sturdily?Bent the deadly bow??See, its life hath fleeted by,--?See, it hangeth low!
Happy he!--He now has gone?Where no snow is found:?Where with maize the fields are sown,?Self-sprung from the ground;
Where with birds each bush is filled,?Where with game the wood;?Where the fish, with joy unstilled,?Wanton in the flood.
With the spirits blest he feeds,--?Leaves us here in gloom;?We can only praise his deeds,?And his corpse entomb.
Farewell-gifts, then, hither bring,?Sound the death-note sad!?Bury with him everything?That can make him glad!
'Neath his head the hatchet hide?That he boldly swung;?And the bear's fat haunch beside,?For the road is long;
And the knife, well sharpened,?That, with slashes three,?Scalp and skin from foeman's head?Tore off skilfully.
And to paint his body, place?Dyes within his hand;?Let him shine with ruddy grace?In the Spirit-land!
THE FEAST OF VICTORY.
Priam's castle-walls had sunk,?Troy in dust and ashes lay,?And each Greek, with triumph drunk,?Richly laden with his prey,?Sat upon his ship's high prow,?On the Hellespontic strand,?Starting on his journey now,?Bound for Greece, his own fair land.?Raise the glad exulting shout!?Toward the land that gave them birth?Turn they now the ships about,?As they seek their native earth.
And in rows, all mournfully,?Sat the Trojan women there,--?Beat their breasts in agony,?Pallid, with dishevelled hair.?In the feast of joy so glad?Mingled they the song of woe,?Weeping o'er their fortunes sad,?In their country's overthrow.?"Land beloved, oh, fare thee well!?By our foreign masters led,?Far from home we're doomed to dwell,--?Ah, how happy are the dead!"
Soon the blood by Calchas spilt?On the altar heavenward smokes;?Pallas, by whom towns are built?And destroyed, the priest invokes;?Neptune, too, who all the earth?With his billowy girdle laves,--?Zeus, who gives to terror