look upon the sun, not as a short-lived hero, but as young, unchanging, and always the same, while generations after generations of mortal men were passing away. And hence, by the mere force of contrast, the first intimation of beings which do not wither and decay of immortals, of immortality! Then the poet would implore the immortal sun to come again, to vouchsafe to the sleeper a new morning. The god of day would become the god of time, of life and death. Again the evening twilight, the sister of the dawn, repeating, though with a more sombre light, the wonders of the morning, how many feelings must it have roused in the musing poet how many poems must it have elicited in the living language of ancient times! Was it the dawn that came again to give a last embrace to him who had parted from her in the morning? Was she the immortal, the always returning goddess, and he the mortal, the daily dying sun? Or was she the mortal, bidding a last farewell to her immortal lover, burnt, as it were, on the same pile which would consume her, while he would rise to the seat of the gods? Let us express these simple scenes in ancient language, and we shall find ourselves surrounded on every side by mythology full of contradictions and incongruities, the same being represented as mortal or immortal, as man or woman, as the poetical eye of man shifts its point of view, and gives its own color to the mysterious play of nature. Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. II. -- D ÜLLER, NIKOLAUS, a German-American poet; born at Langenau, in 1809; died at New York, August 14, 1875. At the age of fourteen he entered a printing office; and having thoroughly learned the trade he settled at Stuttgart. But becoming involved in the insurrectionary movements of 1848, he was forced to flee. He went to Switzerland, and thence, in 1853, to the United States, where he settled in New York as proprietor of a printing establishment. He retired from business a year before his death. His earlier poems were published at Stuttgart between 1834 and 1837, under the general title Lieder eines Autodidakten; and were issued in collective form in the latter year. During the Civil War he issued at New York a volume entitled Zehn Gepanzerte Sonette; and in 1867 he published his Neueste Gedichte. During the war between France and Germany he issued his patriotic poem Friesche Blätter auf die Wunden Deutscher Krieger; and he was preparing a complete edition of his poems at the time of his death. THE PARADISE OF TEARS. Beside the River of Tears, with branches low, On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh; Then comes a child, whose face is like the sun, Where falls the tears of love the rose appears, The souls of mourners, all whose tears are dried, Walk up the golden sands by which it flows, There every heart rejoins its kindred heart; Translation of WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. ÜLLER, WILHELM, a German poet; born at Dessau, October 7, 1794; died there, September 30, 1827. He entered the University of Berlin in 1813, but left it the following year to serve in the War of Liberation. The war over, he returned to complete his studies, giving much attention to philology and history. In 1817 he began a two years' tour on the Continent, and on his return to Dessau became a teacher in the Normal School. He translated into German Marlowe's Faustus, and Fauriel's Modern Greek Popular Songs, published a collection in ten volumes of poems of the seventeenth century, and wrote many original poems, the first volume of which, entitled Blumenlese aus den Minnesängen, appeared in 1816. He published Lyrische Spaziergänge in 1827. After his death a new volume, Vermischte Schriften, was published, and in 1837 a collection of his poems was edited by Schwab. Another volume, Ausgewählte Gedichte, appeared in 1864 An appreciative and impartial essay on his work is to be found in the first series of Chips from a German Workshop, by his son, F. Max Müller. SONG BEFORE BATTLE. Whoe'er for freedom fights and falls, his fame no blight shall know, As long as through heaven's free expanse the breezes freely blow, As long as in the forest wild the green leaves flutter free, As long as rivers, mountain-born, roll freely to the sea, As long as free the eagle's wing exulting cleaves the skies, As long as from a freeman's heart a freeman's breath doth rise. Whoe'er for freedom fights and falls, his fame no blight shall know, As long as spirits of the free through earth and air shall go; Through earth and air a spirit band of heroes moves always, 'Tis near us at the dead of night and in the noontide's blaze, In the storm that levels towering pines, and in the breeze that waves With low and gentle breath the grass upon our fathers' graves. There's not a cradle in the bounds of Hellas broad and fair, But the spirit of our free-born sires is surely hovering there, It breathes in dreams of fairy-land upon the infant's brain, And in his first sleep dedicates the child to manhood's pain; Its summons lures the youth to stand, with new-born joy possessed, Where once a freeman fell, and there it fires his thrilling breast, And a shudder runs through all his frame; he knows not if it be A throb of rapture, or the first sharp pang of agony. Come, swell our banners on the breeze, thou sacred spirit band, Give wings to every warrior's foot and nerve to every hand. We go to strike for freedom, to break the oppressor's rod, We go to battle and to death for our country and our God. Ye are with us, we hear your wings, we hear in magic tone Your spirit-voice the pæan swell, and mingle with our own. Ye are with us, ye throng around you from Ther mopylæ, You from the verdant Marathon; you from the azure sea, By the cloud-capped rocks of Mykale, at Salamis - all you From field and forest, mount and glen, the land of Hellas through. Whoe'er for freedom fights and falls, his fame no blight shall know, As long as through heaven's free expanse the breezes freely bow, As long as in the forest wild the green leaves flutter free, As long as rivers, mountain-born, roll freely to the sea, As long as free the eagle's wing, exulting, cleaves the skies, As long as from a freeman's heart a freeman's breath doth rise. - Translation of F. MAX MÜLLER. |