Poetry

my waking eye
Once more the roofs of Berne appear;
The rocky banks, the terrace high,
The stream⁠—and do I linger here?

The clouds are on the Oberland,
The Jungfrau snows look faint and far;
But bright are those green fields at hand,
And through those fields comes down the Aar,

And from the blue twin lakes it comes,
Flows by the town, the churchyard fair,
And ’neath the garden-walk it hums,
The house⁠—and is my Marguerite there?

Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush
Of startled pleasure floods thy brow,
Quick through the oleanders brush,
And clap thy hands, and cry: ’Tis thou!

Or hast thou long since wander’d back,
Daughter of France! to France, thy home;
And flitted down the flowery track
Where feet like thine too lightly come?

Doth riotous laughter now replace
Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare,
Thy cheek’s soft hue, and fluttering lace
The kerchief that enwound thy hair?

Or is it over?⁠—art thou dead?⁠—
Dead?⁠—and no warning shiver ran
Across my heart, to say thy thread
Of life was cut, and closed thy span!

Could from earth’s ways that figure slight
Be lost, and I not feel ’twas so?
Of that fresh voice the gay delight
Fail from earth’s air, and I not know?

Or shall I find thee still, but changed,
But not the Marguerite of thy prime?
With all thy being re-arranged,
Pass’d through the crucible of time;

With spirit vanish’d, beauty waned,
And hardly yet a glance, a tone,
A gesture⁠—anything⁠—retain’d
Of all that was my Marguerite’s own?

I will not know!⁠—for wherefore try
To things by mortal course that live
A shadowy durability
For which they were not meant, to give?

Like driftwood spars which meet and pass
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,
So on the sea of life, alas!
Man meets man, meets, and quits again.

I knew it when my life was young;
I feel it still, now youth is o’er!
The mists are on the mountains hung,
And Marguerite I shall see no more.

Stanzas in Memory of the Author of Obermann14

November, 1849

In front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;
The autumn storm-winds drive the rack
Close o’er it, in the air.

Behind are the abandon’d baths15
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are on the valley-paths;
The mists are on the Rhone⁠—

The white mists rolling like a sea.
I hear the torrents roar.
—Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!
I feel thee near once more.

I turn thy leaves: I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;
That air of languor, cold, and death,
Which brooded o’er thy soul.

Fly hence, poor Wretch, whoe’er thou art,
Condemn’d to cast about,
All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,
For comfort from without:

A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spirit turns
Here, on its bed of pain.

Yes, though the virgin mountain air
Fresh through these pages blows,
Though to these leaves the glaciers spare
The soul of their white snows,

Though here a mountain-murmur swells
Of many a dark-bough’d pine,
Though, as you read, you hear the bells
Of the high-pasturing kine⁠—

Yet, through the hum of torrent lone,
And brooding mountain bee,
There sobs I know not what ground tone
Of human agony.

Is it for this, because the sound
Is fraught too deep with pain,
That, Obermann! the world around
So little loves thy strain?

Some secrets may the poet tell,
For the world loves new ways.
To tell too deep ones is not well;
It knows not what he says.

Yet of the spirits who have reign’d
In this our troubled day,
I know but two, who have attain’d,
Save thee, to see their way.

By England’s lakes, in grey old age,
His quiet home one keeps;
And one, the strong much-toiling Sage,
In German Weimar sleeps.

But Wordsworth’s eyes avert their ken
From half of human fate;
And Goethe’s course few sons of men
May think to emulate.

For he pursued a lonely road,
His eyes on Nature’s plan;
Neither made man too much a God,
Nor God too much a man.

Strong was he, with a spirit free
From mists, and sane, and clear;
Clearer, how much! than ours: yet we
Have a worse course to steer.

For though his manhood bore the blast
Of Europe’s stormiest time,
Yet in a tranquil world was pass’d
His tenderer youthful prime.

But we, brought forth and rear’d in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise⁠—
What shelter to grow ripe is ours?
What leisure to grow wise?

Like children bathing on the shore,
Buried a wave beneath,
The second wave succeeds, before
We have had time to breathe.

Too fast we live, too much are tried,
Too harass’d, to attain
Wordsworth’s sweet calm, or Goethe’s wide
And luminous view to gain.

And then we turn, thou sadder Sage!
To thee: we feel thy spell.
The hopeless tangle of our age⁠—
Thou too hast scann’d it well.

Immoveable thou sittest; still
As death; compos’d to bear.
Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill⁠—
And icy thy despair.

Yes, as the son of Thetis said,16
I hear thee saying now⁠—
Greater by far than thou art dead:
Strive not: die also thou.⁠—

Ah! two desires toss about
The poet’s feverish blood.
One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.

The glow, he cries, the thrill of life⁠—
Where, where do these abound?⁠—
Not in the world, not in the strife
Of men, shall they be found.

He who hath watch’d, not shar’d, the strife,
Knows how the day hath gone;
He only lives with the world’s life
Who hath renounc’d his own.

To thee we come, then. Clouds are roll’d
Where thou, O Seer, art set;
Thy realm of thought is drear and cold⁠—
The world is colder yet!

And thou hast pleasures too to share
With those who come to thee:
Balms floating on thy mountain air,
And healing sights to see.

How often, where the slopes are green
On Jaman, hast thou sate
By some high chalet door, and seen
The summer day grow late,

And darkness steal o’er the wet grass
With the pale crocus starr’d,
And reach that glimmering sheet of glass
Beneath the piny sward,

Lake Leman’s waters, far below:
And watch’d the rosy light
Fade from the distant peaks of snow:
And on the air of night

Heard accents of the eternal tongue
Through the pine branches play:
Listen’d, and felt thyself grow young;
Listen’d, and wept⁠—Away!

Away the dreams that but deceive!
And thou, sad Guide, adieu!
I go; Fate drives me: but I leave
Half of my life with you.

We, in some unknown Power’s employ,
Move on a rigorous line:
Can neither, when we will, enjoy;
Nor,