Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

If I have wandered in those paths

Of life I ought to shun,

As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;

Thou know'st that Thou hast formèd me
With passions wild and strong;
And listening to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.

Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stepped aside,

Do Thou, All-Good!-for such Thou art,-
In shades of darkness hide.

Where with intention I have erred,

No other plea I have,

But, Thou art good; and Goodness still

Delighteth to forgive.

Robert Burns [1759-1796]

SONG OF THE SILENT LAND

INTO the Silent Land!

*

Ah! who shall lead us thither?

Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,

And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.

Who leads us with a gentle hand

Thither, oh, thither,

Into the Silent Land?

Into the Silent Land!

To you, ye boundless regions

Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions

Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band!
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand,

Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land!

* For the original of this poem see page 3582.

O Land! O Land!

June

For all the broken-hearted

The mildest herald by our fate allotted,

Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand

To the land of the great Departed,
Into the Silent Land!

After von Salis-Seewis, by

3243

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

JUNE

I GAZED upon the glorious sky

And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
At rest within the ground,

'Twere pleasant that, in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain-turf should break.

A cell within the frozen mould,

A coffin borne through sleet,

And icy clods above it rolled,

While fierce the tempests beat

Away! I will not think of these-
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,
Earth green beneath the feet,

And be the damp mould gently pressed

Into my narrow place of rest.

There through the long, long summer hours,

The golden light should lie,

And thick young herbs and groups of flowers

Stand in their beauty by.

The oriole should build and tell

His love-tale close beside my cell;

The idle butterfly

Should rest him there, and there be heard

The housewife bee and humming-bird.

And what if cheerful shouts at noon
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?

I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know that I no more should see
The season's glorious show,

Nor would its brightness shine for me,
Nor its wild music flow;

But if, around my place of sleep,

The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.

Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their softened hearts should bear
The thought of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;

Whose part, in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,

Is that his grave is green;

And deeply would their hearts rejoice

To hear again his living voice.

William Cullen Bryant [1794-1878]

LOVE, TIME AND DEATH

Ан me, dread friends of mine,-Love, Time, and Death:
Sweet Love, who came to me on shining wing,
And gave her to my arms, her lips, her breath,

And all her golden ringlets clustering:

And Time, who gathers in the flying years,

He gave me all, but where is all he gave?

He took my love and left me barren tears;
Weary and lone I follow to the grave.

A Wish

There Death will end this vision half-divine.
Wan Death, who waits in shadow evermore,
And silent, ere he give the sudden sign;

3245

Oh, gently lead me through thy narrow door,
Thou gentle Death, thou trustieth friend of mine—
Ah me, for Love-will Death my Love restore?

Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895]

A WISH

I ASK not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favored sons, not me.

I ask not each kind soul to keep

Tearless, when of my death he hears. Let those who will, if any, weep!

There are worse plagues on earth than tears.

I ask but that my death may find

The freedom to my life denied;

Ask but the folly of mankind

Then, then at last, to quit my side.

Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;

The ceremonious air of gloom

All, which makes death a hideous show!

Nor bring, to see me cease to live,
Some doctor full of phrase and fame,
To shake his sapient head, and give
The ill he cannot cure a name.

Nor fetch, to take the accustomed toll,
Of the poor sinner bound for death,

His brother-doctor of the soul,

To canvass with official breath

The future and its viewless things—

That undiscovered mystery

Which one who feels death's winnowing wings
Must needs read clearer, sure, than he!

Bring none of these; but let me be,
While all around in silence lies,
Moved to the window near, and see
Once more, before my dying eyes,
Bathed in the sacred dews of morn

The wide aërial landscape spread—
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead;

Which never was the friend of one,

Nor promised love it could not give,
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.

There let me gaze, till I become

In soul, with what I gaze on, wed!
To feel the universe my home;

To have before my mind-instead
Of the sick room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath-
The pure eternal course of life,

Not human combatings with death!

Thus feeling, gazing, might I grow

Composed, refreshed, ennobled, clear;

Then willing let my spirit go

To work or wait elsewhere or here!

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

NEXT OF KIN

THE shadows gather round me, while you are in the sun: My day is almost ended, but yours is just begun:

The winds are singing to us both and the streams are sing

ing still,

And they fill your heart with music, but mine they cannot

fill.

« ElőzőTovább »