THE LADY OF CASTLE WINDECK
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.
THE LADY OF CASTLE WINDECK
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 passed 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 passed, And kissing his lips, released him From the burden of life at last.
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 passes poured, Like ocean-tides uprising at the call
Of tyrant winds-against your rocky side
The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died. 30
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 gods, a dream-begotten throng, Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names; While, as the unheeding ages passed 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.
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 grass. No sound of life is heard, no village hum, Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, Nor rush of wing, 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 sprouted 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 who 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 Laboured, 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 corpses given to dogs,
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