He shall direct thy wandering feet, Give to the winds thy fears; God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears, Through waves and clouds and storms Wait thou His time; so shall this night What though thou rulest not? Leave to His sovereign sway So shalt thou wondering own, His way Thou seest our weakness, Lord! Let us, in life, in death, And publish, with our latest breath, - Translation of JOHN WESLEY. 6 ESSNER, SALOMON, a Swiss painter, engraver, and poet; born at Zürich, April 1, 1730; died there, March 2, 1788. His father was a bookseller at Zürich. The son was eminent as an artist and prose poet, but also became a partner in the business of his father. Most of his works are prose poems. The best known of them are The Death of Abel (1758), and The First Navigator (1762). He furnished capital illustrations to his own poems. His poetry is distinguished for elegance of language and rhythmic metre, but his delineation of life departs so far from reality that his works have lost much of their former popularity. The following is a metrical translation of the opening of the prose-poem Semira and Semin: A PICTURE OF THE DELUGE. Now beneath the flood of night' Shrouded the marble turrets are, Remains one lonely speck above Still rang on the air. As the rushing wave pursued in its pride, Oh, is not yonder shore less steep, And instantly the echoing sky Howls to the howl of the hapless race That burden the hill, or under it die. Yonder, the torrent of waters behold! The virtuous son, with his sire so old! He, strengthened with duty and proud of his strength But their very last sob the mad waters have drunken! To the deluge's dire unatonable tomb Yon mother abandons the children she tried In vain to preserve; and the watery gloom Swells over the dead, as they float side by side; And she hath plunged after! How madly she died! From forth the waters waste and wild And they were mid the flood alone. Broke on them the wild waters; - all Around, deep darkness, save the flash And every cloud from the lowering sky With carcasses borne on ooze and foam, Semira to her fluttering breast Folded her lover; and their hearts Throbbed on each other, unrepressed, Such horror nothing now imparts. There is no hope of safety - none. And senseless sinks the maid on him. Semin embraced the fainting maid; Words faltered on his quivering lips, So death-like on his bosom lay, Off from his heart thine icy touch! Love conquers Death; and he hath kissed Her bleached cheeks by the cold rain bleached; He hath folded her to his bosom; and, list! His tender words her heart have reached, She hath awakened, and she looks Upon her lover tenderly, Whose tenderness the Flood rebukes, As on destroying goeth he. "O God of judgment!" she cried aloud, "Refuge or pity is there none? Waves rave, and thunder rends the cloud, And the winds howl, 'Be vengeance done!' Our years have innocently sped, My Semin; thou wert ever good. Woe's me! my joy and pride have fled! All but my love is now subdued! And thou to me who gavest life, Torn from my side. I saw thy strife With the wild surges, and thy head Heave evermore above the water, Thine arms exalted, and outspread, For the last time to bless thy daughter! Yet 'twere a paradise to me, Is there no pity, God above! For innocence and blameless love? But what shall innocence plead before Thee Still his beloved the youth sustains, Our last; gaunt Death ascends! Lo, he - Yearns to embrace us eagerly! — That on the rock to-day is brightest; |