Wilt thou cover thine hair with gold, and with silver thy feet? Hast thou taken the purple to fold thee, and made thy mouth sweet? Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate; Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate. For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain; And the veil of thine head shall be grief; and the crown shall be pain. A LAMENTATION. [Poems and Ballads, First Series 1866.] I. WHO hath known the ways of time There is no such man among men. Who shall give sorrow enough, Or who the abundance of tears? And a sword gone thorough mine ears, Who shall ensure me thereof, Lest I die, being full of my fears? Who hath known the ways and the wrath, And blossom of evil will, The divine device of a god? Who shall behold it or hath? The twice-tongued prophets are mute, No foot has travelled or trod, No hand has meted, his path. And relax not the rein, or the rod. Ye were mighty in heart from of old, Sore after summer is rain, As a flower, as an hour in a day, It was known from of old and said; One law for a living man, And another law for the dead. For these are fearful and sad, Vain, and things without breath; While he lives let a man be glad, II. Who hath known the pain, the old pain of earth, Or all the travail of the sea, The many ways and waves, the birth Jiriczek, Englische Dichter. 27 Fruitless, the labour nothing worth? Who hath known, who knoweth, O gods? not we. There is none shall say he hath seen, There is none he hath known. I have seen the desire of mine eyes, The season of kisses and sighs I have known the ways of the sea, Strange winds have spoken with me, I have seen from their bridled lips I have grazed in the race the goals, As a greave is cleft with an arrow I have cleft through the sea-straits narrow When air was smitten in sunder I have watched on high The ways of the stars and the thunder In the night of the sky; Where the dark brings forth light as a flower, As from lips that dissever; One abideth the space of an hour, One endureth for ever. Lo, what hath he seen or known Of the way and the wave Unbeholden, unsailed-on, unsown, Or ever the stars were made, or skies, Mother of gods without form or name. But night is one, and her shape the same. But dumb the goddesses underground Wait, and we hear not on earth if their feet Rise, and the night wax loud with their wings; Dumb, without word or shadow of sound; And sift in scales and winnow as wheat Men's souls, and sorrow of manifold things. III. Nor less of grief than ours But with the incessant hours As these men sleep, have slept And holier eyes have wept With heavenly hair far-swept Could not one day withhold, Held not his urn the cold Ashes of Heracles? For all things born one gate Opens, no gate of gold; Opens; and no man sees Beyond the gods and fate. MANY LOVES OF MANY A MOOD.. [Chor (Str. I und Antistr. 1) aus Erechtheus, 1876.] MANY loves of many a mood and many a kind Sweet is each in season, good the gift it brings, None of all is lovelier, loftier love is none, Less is bride's for bridegroom, mother's less for son, Child, than this that crowns and binds up all in one: Love of thy sweet light, thy fostering breast and hand, Mother Earth, and city chosen, and natural land; Hills that bring the strong streams forth, heights of heavenlier air, Fields aflower with winds and suns, woods with shadowing hair. |