Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear-
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly-
But who, like him, will put it by?

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
O Rotha, with thy living wave!
Sing him thy best! for few or none
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.

APOLLO MUSAGETES.

[Zuerst als Gesang des Callicles im Drama "Empedocles on Etna", 1852; als selbständiges Gedicht unter obigem Titel in den "Selected Poems", 1878.]

NOT here, O Apollo!

Are haunts meet for thee.

But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,

Where the moon-silver'd inlets

Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!

On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.

In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets.
Asleep on the hills.

-What forms are these coming So white through the gloom? What garments out-glistening The gold-flower'd broom?

What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime?—

'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.
-The leader is fairest,
But all are divine.

They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up again!
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?—

They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus,

Their endless abode.

-Whose praise do they mention?

Of what is it told?—

What will be for ever;
What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of immortals,
The action of men.

The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.

*

TOO LATE.

[Empedocles etc. 1852; jetzt Nr. 2 der Serie "Faded Leaves".]

EACH on his own strict line we move,

And some find death ere they find love;
So far apart their lives are thrown

From the twin soul which halves their own.

*

*

SEPARATION.

[Poems, Second Series 1855; jetzt Nr. 3 der Serie "Faded Leaves".]

STOP!-not to me, at this bitter departing,

Speak of the sure consolations of time!

Fresh be the wound, still-renew'd be its smarting,
So but thy image endure in its prime.

But, if the stedfast commandment of Nature

Wills that remembrance should always decayIf the loved form and the deep-cherish'd feature

Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away

Me let no half-effaced memories cumber!
Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee!
Deep be the darkness and still be the slumber—
Dead be the past and its phantoms to me!

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays towards me, Scanning my face and the changes wrought there: Who, let me say, is this stranger regards me,

With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?

ON THE RHINE.

[Empedocles etc. 1852; jetzt Nr. 4 der Serie "Faded Leaves".]

VAIN is the effort to forget.

Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moonlit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go-
But ah not yet, not yet!

Vain is the agony of grief.
'Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt-thou lov'st me not!
But is despair relief?

Awhile let me with thought have done.
And as this brimm'd unwrinkled Rhine,
And that far purple mountain-line,
Lie sweetly in the look divine
Of the slow-sinking sun;

So let me lie, and, calm as they,
Let beam upon my inward view
Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue-
Eyes too expressive to be blue,
Too lovely to be grey.

Ah, Quiet, all things feel thy balm!
Those blue hills too, this river's flow,
Were restless once, but long ago.
Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow;
Their joy is in their calm.

LONGING.

[Empedocles etc. 1852; jetzt Nr. 5 der Serie "Faded Leaves".]

COME to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth;
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say: My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

ISOLATION.

TO MARGUERITE.

[Zuerst in der dritten Ausgabe (1857) der Poems, First Series, u. d. Tit. "To Marguerite". Jetzt Nr. 4 des Zyklus "Switzerland".]

We were apart; yet, day by day,

I bade my heart more constant be.