Poems

EDGAR ALLAN POE

(Read at the Centenary Celebration, University of Virginia, 19th Jan. 1909)

Seeker for Eldorado, magic land,Whose gold is beauty fine-spun, amber-clear,O’er what Moon-mountains, down what Valley of fearBy what love waters fringed with pallid sand,Did thy foot falter? Say what airs have fannedThy fervid brow, blown from no terrene sphere,What rustling wings, what echoes thrilled thine earFrom mighty tombs whose brazen ports expand?Seeker, who never quite attained, yet caught,Moulded and fashioned, as by strictest lawThe rainbow’d moon-mist and the flying gleamTo mortal loveliness, for pity and awe,To us what carven dreams thy hand has broughtDreams with the serried logic of a dream.

DEUS ABSCONDITUS

Since Thou dost clothe Thyself to-day in cloud,Lord God in heaven, and no voice low or loudProclaims Thee,—see, I turn me to the Earth,Its wisdom and its sorrow and its mirth,Thy Earth perchance, but sure my very own,And precious to me grows the clod, the stone,A voiceless moor’s brooding monotony,A keen star quivering through the sunset dye,Young wrinkled beech leaves, saturate with light,The arching wave’s suspended malachite;I turn to men, Thy sons perchance, but sureMy brethren, and no face shall be too poorTo yield me some unquestionable gainOf wonder, laughter, loathing, pity, pain,Some dog-like craving caught in human eyes,Some new-waked spirit’s April ecstasies;These will not fail nor foil me; while I liveThere will be actual truck in take and give,But Thou hast foiled me; therefore undistraught,I cease from seeking what will not be sought,Or sought, will not be found through joy or fear,If still Thou claimst me, seek me. I am here.

SUBLIMINAL

Door, little door,Shadowed door in the innermost room of my heart,I lean and listen, withdrawn from the stir and apart,For a word of the wordless love.And still you hide,Yourself of me, who are more than myself, within,And I wait if perchance a whisper I may winFrom my soul on the other side.What do I catchAfloat on the air, for something is said or done?Are there two who speak—my soul and the nameless One?Little door, could I lift the latch.Sigh for some wantMeasureless sigh of desire, or a speechless prayer?Rustle of robe of a priest at sacrifice thereBenediction or far-heard chaunt?Could we but meet,Myself and my hidden self in a still amaze!But the tramp of men comes up, and the roll of drays,And a woman’s cry from the street!

LOUISA SHORE

(Author of “Hannibal, a Drama”)

Who dared to pluck the sleeve of Hannibal,And hale him from the shades? Who bade the man,Indomitable of brain, return to planA vast revenge and vowed? Wild clarions call;Dusk faces flame; the turreted brute-wallMoves, tramples, overwhelms; van clashes van;Roman, Numidian, Carthaginian;And griefs are here, unbowed, imperial.Who caught the world’s fierce tides? An English girl.Shy dreamer ’neath fledged elm and apple-bloom,With Livy or Polybius on her knee,Whose dreams were light as dew and pure as pearl,—Yet poignant-witted; thew’d for thought; girl-groomSped to her Lord across the Midland Sea.

FLOWERS FROM THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

Thanks spoken under rainy skies,And tossed by March winds of the North,And faint ere they can find your eyes,Pale thanks are mine and poor in worth,Matched with your gift of dews and light,Quick heart-beats of the Southern spring,Provençal flowers, pearl-pure, blood-bright,Which heard the Mid-sea murmuring.Listen! a lark in Irish air,A silver spray of ecstasy!O wind of March blow wide and bearThis song of home as thanks for me.Nay, but yourself find thanks more meet;Blossoms like these which drank the skyStrew in some shadowy alcove-seat,And lay your violin where they lie;Leave them; but with the first star rise,And bring the bow, and poise at restThe enchanted wood. Ah, shrill sweet cries!A prisoned heart is in its breast.

TO HESTER

(At the Piano)

So ends your fingers’ fine intrigue!The netted guile! Nor yonder sat heIn pump and frill who made the gigue,Your Neapolitan Scarlatti.The twilight yields you to me; strange!My dainty sprite, a most rare vision!Well, is it not a wise exchange,Live maid for ghost of dead musician?Yet gently let the shadows troopTo darkness; lightly lie the dust onDamon and Chloe, hose and hoop,My bevy of the days Augustan.What led my fancy down the track,Through century-silent, shadowy mazes?Perhaps that foolish bric-à-bracYour pseudo-classic shelf that graces.Or haply something I divined,While on your face I stayed a dweller,Of that fair ancestress—unsigned—It pleases you to name a Kneller;And still your fingers ran the keys,Through quaint encounter, pretty wrangleLight laughter, interspace of ease,Fine turn, and softly-severed tangle,Gigue, minuet, rondo, ritornelle—Quaint jars with rose-leaf memories scented,Stored with glad sound, when life went well,Ere melancholy was invented,When pleasure ran, a rippling tide,And Phillida with Phyllis carolled,Ere Werther yet for Lotte sighed,Or English maids adored Childe Harold;Ere music shook the central heart,Or soared to spheral heights inhuman,Ere Titans stormed the heaven of art,Let by the hammer-welder, Schumann.Ah, well, we sigh beneath the load,We sing our pain, our pride, our passion,And Weltschmerz is the modern mode,But sweet seventeen is still a fashion.Let be a while the Infinite,Those chords with tremulous fervour laden,Where Chopin’s fire and dew unite—I choose instead one mortal maiden.Let sorrow rave, and sadness fret,And all our century’s ailments pester,I am not quite despairful yet—There, at the keyboard, sits a Hester.

UNUTTERED

Song that is pent in me,Song that is aching,Ne’er to escape from me,Sleeping or waking,Down aspic! the dust of me,Blown the world overA century henceWill envenom a lover.His red lips grow vocal,His great word is new,And the world knows my secret,Is dreaming of you.

IMITATED FROM J. SOULARY’S “LE FOSSOYEUR”

For every child new-born God brings to birthA little grave-digger, deft at his trade,Who ’neath his master’s feet still voids the earth,There where one day the man’s dark plunge is made.Do you know yours? Hideous perhaps is he,You shudder seeing the workman at his task;Such gracious looks commend who waits on meI yield whole-hearted, nor for quarter ask.A child rose-white, sweet-lipped, my steps he pressesOn to the pit with coaxings and caresses,Lovelier assassin none could choose to have.Rogue, hast thou done? Let’s haste. The hour comes quick,Give with a kiss the last stroke of the pick,And gently lay me in my flowery grave.

IMITATED FROM GOETHE’S “GANYMEDE”

As with splendour of morningAround me thou flamest,O Spring time, my lover,With a thousand delights and desires;To my heart comes throngingThe sacred senseOf thy glow everlasting,O infinite beauty!Would I might seize theeIn these my arms!Ah! on thy bosomI lie sore yearning;Thy flowers, thy grasses,Press close to my heart;Fresh breeze of the mornThy coolest the burningThirst of my breast.With love the nightingaleCalls to me from the misty valley!I come, I am coming!Whither? Ah, whither?Upward! Upward the urge is!Lower the clouds come drifting,They stoop to the longing of love.For me! for me!Borne in the lap of youUpwards!Embracing, embraced!Upwards, even to the bosomOf thee all-loving, my Father!

WITH A COPY OF MY “POEMS”

My slender, wondering Nautilus,Sunk in the ooze—a thing how frail!—Because you choose to have it thusThrough wavering waters luminousRises once more, sets up the sail;It trembles to the sun, has fearOf life, that knew no fear of death:Ah! may kind Ariel, hovering near,Speed the toy onward with his breath!

PROLOGUE TO MAURICE GEROTHWOHL’S VERSION OF VIGNY’S “CHATTERTON”

(March 1909)

Not yet to life inured, the Muse’s son,Born to be lord of visions, Chatterton,A youth, nor yet the master of his dream,Poor, proud, o’erwrought, perplex’d in the extremeBy poetry, his demon, and by love—Powers of the deep below, the height above—Ringed by a world with dreams and love at strife,Rejects in fiery spleen the gift of life.Condemn, but pity!In the South, they say,Boys in their sportive mood affect a play;The brands aglow they fashion in a ring,Then in the ardent cirque a scorpion fling;Crouched motionless the creature lies, untilUrged by the fire you see him throb and thrill,Whereon the laughter peals! Anon, he’ll shapeRight on the flames his course to make escape,And backward draws o’erpowered. Fresh shouts of glee!Next round the circle curving timorouslyHe seeks impossible exit; now, once more,Quailing, and in the centre as before,He shrinks despairing; lest, he knows his part,Turns on himself, grown bold, his poisoned dart,And on the instant dies. O then at heightWe hear the cries uproarious of delight!Doubtless the wretch on mortal crime was bent,Doubtless the boys were good and innocent.Play not, O world of men, the savage boy,Make not the poet, quickener of earth’s joy,Your scorpion! Hardly once a hundred yearsCompact of spirit and fire and dew, appearsHe through whose song the spheral harmoniesVibrate in mortal hearing. Nay, be wise,For your own joy, and see he lacks not bread,If ye but wreathe the white brows of the dead,’Tis ye yourselves are disinherited.

A SONG

When did such moons upheave?When were such pure dawns born?Yet fly morn into eve,Fly eve into morn.Lily and iris blooms,Blooms of the orchard close,Pass—for she comes, she comes,Your sovereign, the rose.Lark, that is heart of the height,Thrush, that is voice of the vale,Cease, it is nearing, the nightOf the nightingale.Hasten great noon that glows,Night, when the swift stars pale,Hasten noon of the rose,Night of the nightingale.

THE DROPS OF NECTAR. 1789

Imitated from Goethe’s “Die Nektartropfen”

When Minerva, granting gracesTo her darling, her Prometheus,Brought a brimming bowl of nectarTo the underworld from heavenTo rejoice his race of mortals,And to quicken in their bosomOf all gracious arts the impulse,Fearing Jupiter should see her,With a rapid foot she hastened,And the golden bowl was shaken,And there fell some slender sprinklingsOn the verdurous plain below her.Whereupon the bees grew busyWith the same in eager sucking.Came the butterfly as eagerSome small drop to gather also.Even the spider, the unshapely,Hither crept and sucked with gusto.Happy are they to have tasted,They and other delicate creatures,For they share henceforth with mortalsArt, of all earth’s joys the fairest.

AMOR AS LANDSCAPE-PAINTER

Imitated from Goethe’s “Amor als Landschaftsmaler”

On a point of rock I sat one morning,Gazed with fixèd eyes upon the vapour,Like a sheet of solid grey outspreadingDid it cover all in plain and mountain.By my side meanwhile a boy had placed him,And he spake. “Good friend, how can’st thou calmlyStare upon the void grey sheet before thee?Hast thou then for painting and for modellingAll desire, it seemeth, lost for ever?”On the child I looked, and thought in secret,“Would the little lad then play the Master?”“If thou wouldst be ever sad and idle,”Spake the boy, “no thing of skill can follow.Look! I’ll paint you straight a little picture,Teach you how to paint a pretty picture.”And thereon forth stretched he his forefinger,Which was rosy even as a rose blossom,To the ample canvas strained before himSet to work at sketching with his finger.There on high a glorious sun he painted,Which mine eyes with its effulgence dazzled,And the fringe of clouds he made it golden.Through the clouds he let press forth the sunbeams,Then the tree-tops delicate, light, he painted,Late refreshed and quickened. Over the hillrangeHill behind hill folded, for a background.Nor were waters wanting. There below themHe the river limned, so true to Nature,That it seemed to sparkle in the sunbeams,That against its banks it seemed to murmur.And there stood beside the river flowers,And their colours glowed upon the meadow,Gold and an enamel green and purple;As if all were emerald and carbuncle.Pure and clear above he limned the heaven,And the azure mountains far and further,So that I, new-born and all enraptured,Gazed on now the painter, now the picture.“I have given thee proof, perhaps,” so spake he,“That this handicraft I’ve comprehendedBut the hardest part is yet to follow.”Then and with his finger-tip he outlined,Using utmost care beside the thicket,At the point where from earth’s gleaming surfaceWas the sun cast back in all its radiance—Outlined there the loveliest of maidens,Fair of form, now clad in richest raiment,Brown her hair and ’neath it cheeks the freshestAnd the cheeks were of the self-same colourAs the pretty finger that had drawn them.“O my boy,” I cried, “declare what masterDid receive thee in his school as pupil,That so swiftly and so true to NatureThou with skill beginn’st and well completest?”But while yet I spake a breeze uprises.And behold, it sets astir the summits,Curleth every wave upon the river,Puffs the veil out of the charming maiden.And, what me the astonished, more astonished,Now the maiden’s foot is put in motion,She advances, and to the place draws nearer,Where I sit beside the cunning Master.Now when all things, all things are in motion,Trees and river, flowers and veil outblowing,And the slender foot of her the fairest,Think you I upon my rock stayed seated,Speechless as a rock and as immobile?

THE WANDERER

Imitated from Goethe’s “Der Wanderer”

WandererGod’s grace be thine, young womanAnd his, the boy who sucksThat breast of thine.Here let me on the craggy scar,In shade of the great elm,My knapsack fling from meAnd rest me by thy side.WomanWhat business urges theeNow in the heat of dayAlong this dusty path?Bringest thou some city merchandiseInto the country round?Thou smilest, stranger,At this my question.WandererNo city merchandise I bring,Cool now the evening grows,Show me the rillsWhence thou dost drink,My good young woman.WomanHere, up the rocky path,Go onward. Through the shrubsThe path runs by the cotWherein I dwell,On to the rillsFrom whence I drink.WandererTraces of ordering human handsBetwixt the underwood.These stones thou hast not so disposed,Nature—thou rich dispensatress.WomanYet further up.WandererWith moss o’erlaid, an architrave!I recognize thee, plastic spirit,Thou hast impressed thy seal upon the stone.WomanFurther yet, stranger.WandererLo, an inscription whereupon I tread,But all illegible,Worn out by wayfarers are ye,Which should show forth your Master’s piety,Unto a thousand children’s children.WomanIn wonder, stranger, dost thou gazeUpon these stones?Up yonder round my cotAre many such.WandererUp yonder?WomanLeftwards directlyOn through the underwood,Here!WandererYe Muses! and ye Graces!WomanThat is my cottage.WandererThe fragments of a temple!WomanHere onwards on one sideThe rivulet flowsFrom whence I drink.WandererGlowing, then hoverestAbove thy sepulchre,Genius! Over theeIs tumbled in a heapThy masterpiece,O thou undying one!WomanWait till I bring the vesselThat thou mayst drink.WandererIvy hath clad aroundThy slender form divine.How do ye upward striveFrom out the wreck,Twin columns!And thou, the solitary sister there,How do ye,With sombre moss upon your sacred heads,Gaze in majestic mourning downUpon these scattered fragmentsThere at your feet,Your kith and kin!Where lie the shadows of the bramble bush,Concealed by wrack and earth,And the long grass wavers above.Nature dost then so hold in priceThy masterpiece’s masterpiece?Dost thou, regardless, shatter thusThy sanctuary?Dost sow the thistles therein?WomanHow the boy sleeps!Wouldst thou within the cottage rest,Stranger? Wouldst hereRather than ’neath the open heavens bide?Now it is cool. Here, take the boy.Let me go draw the water.Sleep, darling, sleep!WandererSweet is thy rest.How, bathed in heavenly healthiness,Restful he breathes!Thou, born above the relicsOf a most sacred past,Upon thee may its spirit rest.He whom it environethWill in the consciousness of power divineEach day enjoy.Seedling so rich expand,The shining spring’sResplendent ornament,In presence of thy fellows shine,And when the flower-sheathe fades and fallsMay from thy bosom riseThe abounding fruit,And ripening, front the sun.WomanGod bless him—and ever still he sleeps.Nought have I with this water clearExcept a piece of bread to offer thee.WandererI give thee thanks.How gloriously all blooms aroundAnd groweth green!WomanMy husband soonHome from the fieldsReturns. Stay, stay, O man,And eat with us thy evening bread.WandererHere do ye dwell?WomanThere, between yonder walls,The cot. My father builded itOf brick, and of the wreckage stones.Here do we dwell.He gave me to a husbandman,And in our arms he died—Sweetheart—and hast thou slept?How bright he is—and wants to play.My rogue!WandererO Nature! everlastingly conceiving.Each one thou bearest for the joy of life,All of thy babes thou hast endowedLovingly with a heritage—a Name.High on the cornice doth the swallow build,Of what an ornament she hidesAll unaware.The caterpillar round the golden boughSpins her a winter quarters for her young.Thus dost thou patch in ’twixt the augustFragments of bygone timeFor needs of thine—for thy own needsA hut. O men—Rejoicing over graves.Farewell, thou happy wife.WomanThou wilt not stay?WandererGod keep you safeAnd bless your boy.WomanA happy wayfaring!WandererWhere doth the pathway lead meOver the mountain there?WomanTo Cuma.WandererHow far is it hence?Woman’Tis three good miles.WandererFarewell!O Nature! guide my way,The stranger’s travel-trackWhich over gravesOf sacred times foregoneI still pursue.Me to some covert guide,Sheltered against the north,And where from noontide’s glareA poplar grove protects.And when at eve I turnHome to the hut,Made golden with the sun’s last beam,Grant that such wife may welcome me,The boy upon her arm.

IMITATED FROM GOETHE’S “ALEXIS AND DORA”

Ah, without stop or stay the ship still momently pressesOn through the foaming deep, further and further from shore.Far-traced the furrow is cut by the keel, and in it the dolphinsBounding follow as though prey were before them in flight.All betokens a fortunate voyage; light-hearted the shipmanGently handles the sail that takes on it labour for all.Forward as pennon and streamer presses the voyager’s spirit,One alone by the mast stands reverted and sad.Mountains already blue he sees departing, he sees themSink in the sea, while sinks every joy from his gaze.Also for thee has vanished the ship that bears thy Alexis,Robs thee, O Dora, of friend, robs thee of, ah! the betrothed.Thou, too, gazest in vain after me. Our hearts are still beatingFor one another, but ah! on one another no more.Single moment wherein I have lived, thou weigh’st in the balanceMore than all days erewhile coldly squandered by me.Ah, in that moment alone, the last, arose in my bosomLife unhoped for in thee, come down as a gift from the Gods.Now in vain dost thou with thy light make glorious the æther,Thy all-illumining day—Phœbus, by me is abhorred.Back on myself I return, and fain would I there in the silenceLive o’er again the time when daily to me she appeared.Was it possible beauty to see and never to feel it?Did not the heavenly charm work on thy dullness of soul?Blame not thyself, poor heart, so the poet proposes a riddle,Artfully wrought into words oft to the ear of the crowd,The network of images, lovely and strange, is a joy to the hearer,Yet still there lacketh the word affirming the sense of the whole.Is it at last disclosed, then every spirit is gladdened,And in the verse perceives meaning of twofold delight.Ah, why so late, O love, dost thou unbind from my foreheadWrappings that darkened my eyes—why too late dost unbind?Long time the freighted bark delayed for favouring breezes,Fair at last rose the wind pressing off-shore to the sea.Idle seasons of youth and idle dreams of the futureYe have departed—for me only remaineth the hour;Yes, it remains the gladness remaining for me; Dora, I hold thee.Hope to my gaze presents, Dora, thy image alone.Often on thy way to the temple I saw thee gay-decked and decorous,Stepped the good mother beside, all ceremonious and grave.Quick-footed wert thou and eager, bearing thy fruit to the market,Quitting the well, thy head how daringly balanced the jar;There, lo! thy throat was shown, thy neck more fair than all others,Fairer than others were shown the poise and play of thy limbs.Ofttime I held me in fear for the totter and crash of the pitcher,Yet upright ever it stood, there where the kerchief was pleached.Fairest neighbour, yes, my wont it was to behold thee,As we behold the stars, as we contemplate the moon.In them rejoicing, while never once in the tranquil bosom,Even in shadow of thought stirs the desire to possess.Thus did ye pass, my years. But twenty paces asunderOur dwellings, thine and mine, nor once on thy threshold I trod.Now the hideous deep divides us! Ye lie to the heavens,Billows! your lordly blue to me is the colour of night.Already was everything in motion. A boy came runningSwift to my father’s house, calling me down to the shore.“The sail is already hoisted; it flaps in the wind,” so spake he.“Weighed with a lusty cheer the anchor parts from the sand.Come, Alexis! O come!” And gravely, in token of blessing,Laid my good father his hand on the clustering curls of the son.Careful the mother reached me a bundle newly made ready;“Come back happy!” they cried. “Come back happy and rich.”So out of doors, the bundle under my arm, did I fling me,And at the wall below, there by the garden gate,Saw thee stand; thou smiledst upon me and spake’st. “Alexis,Yonder clamouring folk, are these thy comrades aboard?Distant shores thou visitest now and merchandise preciousThou dost deal in, and jewels for the wealthy city dames.Wilt thou not bring me also one little light chain? I would buy itThankfully. I have wished so oft to adorn me with this.”Holding my own I stood and asked, in the way of a merchant,First of the form, the weight exact, of the order thou gavest.Modest in truth was the price thou assignedst. While gazing upon thee,Neck and shoulders I saw worthy the jewels of our queen.Louder sounded the cry from the ship. Then saidest thou kindly,“Some of the garden fruit take thou with thee on thy way.Take the ripest oranges—take white figs. The sea yieldsNever a fruit at all. Nor doth every country give fruits.”Thereon I stepped within; the fruit thou busily broughtest,There in the gathered robe bearing a burden all gold.Often I pleaded, “see this is enough,” and ever anotherAnd fairer fruit down dropped, lightly touched, to thy hand.Then at the last to the bower thou camest. There was a basket,And the myrtle in bloom bent over thee, over me.Skilfully didst thou begin to arrange the fruit and in silence.First the orange, that lies heavy a globe of gold,Then the tenderer fig, which slightest pressure will injure,And with myrtle o’erlaid, fair adorned was the gift.But I lifted it not. I stood, we looked one anotherFull in the eyes. When straight the sight of my eyes waxed dim.Thy bosom I felt on my own! and now my arm encircledThe stately neck, whereon thousandfold kisses I showered.Sank thy head on my shoulder—by tender arms enfoldedAs with a chain was he the man whom thou hast made blest.The hands of Love I felt, he drew us with might together,And thrice from a cloudless sky it thundered; and now there flowedTears from my eyes, down streaming, weeping wert thou. I wept,And through sorrow and joy the world seemed to pass from our sense.Ever more urgent their shoreward cry; but thither to bear meMy feet refused: I cried, “Dora, and art thou not mine?”“For ever,” thou gently saidst. And thereon it seemed that our tears,As by some breath divine, gently were blown from our eyes.Nearer the cry “Alexis!” Then peered the boy, as he sought me,In through the garden gate. How the basket he eyed.How he constrained me. How I pressed thee once more by the hand.How arrived I aboard? I know as one drunken I seemed.Even so my companions took me to be; they bore with one ailing,And already in haze of distance the city grew dim.“For ever,” Dora, thy whisper was. In my ear it echoesEven with the thunder of Zeus. There stood she by his throne,She, his daughter, the Goddess of Love, and beside her the Graces.So by the Gods confirmed this our union abides.O then haste thee, our bark, with the favouring winds behind thee.Labour, thou lusty keel, sunder the foaming flood!Bring me to that strange haven; that so for me may the goldsmithIn his workshop anon fashion the heavenly pledge.Ay, in truth, the chainlet shall grow to a chain, O Dora.Nine times loosely wound shall it encircle thy neck.Further, jewels most manifold will I procure for thee; goldenBracelets also. My gifts richly shall deck thy hand.There shall the ruby contend with the emerald; loveliest sapphireMatched against jacinth shall stand, while with a setting of goldEvery gem may be held in a perfect union of beauty.O what joy for the lover to grace with jewel and gold the beloved.If pearls I view, my thought is of thee; there rises before meWith every ring the shape slender and fair of thy hand.I will barter and buy, and out of them all the fairestThou shalt choose. I devote all my lading to thee.But not jewel and gem alone shall thy lover procure thee.What a housewife would choose, that will he bring with him too.Coverlets delicate, woollen and purple, hemmed to make readyA couch that grateful and soft fondly shall welcome the pair.Lengths of the finest linen. Thou sittest and sewest and clothestMe therein and thyself, and haply also a third.Visions of hope delude my heart. Allay, O Divine Ones,Flames of resistless desire wildly at work in my breast,And yet I fain would recall delights that are bitter,When care to me draws near, hideous, cold and unmoved.Not the Erinnyes torch nor the baying of hounds infernalStrikes such terror in him, the culprit in realms of despair,As that phantom unmoved in me who shows me the fair oneFar away. Open stands even now the garden gate,And another, not I, draws near—for him fruits are falling,And for him, too, the fig strengthening honey retains.Him too doth she draw to the bower. Does he follow? O sightlessMake me, O Gods! destroy the vision of memory in me.Yes—a maiden is she—she who gives herself straight to one lover,She to another who woes as speedily turns her around.Laugh not, O Zeus, this time, at an oath audaciously broken—Thunder more fiercely! strike! yet hold back thy lightning shaft.Send on my trace the sagging clouds. In gloom as of night-timeLet thy bright lightning-flash strike this ill-fated mast.Scatter the planks around and give to the raging watersThis my merchandise. Give me to the dolphins a prey.Now ye Muses enough! In vain is your effort to imageHow in a heart that loves alternate sorrow and joy.Nor are ye able to heal those wounds which Love has inflicted,Yet their assuagement comes, Gracious Ones, only from you.

Editor’s Note.—The four Goethe translations with which this volume closes are taken from rough jottings, hardly more than protoplasm.