His, who unwillingly sees
One of his little ones lost-
Yours is the praise, if mankind
Hath not as yet in its march
Fainted, and fallen, and died!

See! In the rocks of the world
Marches the host of mankind,
A feeble, wavering line.

Where are they tending?—A God
Marshall'd them, gave them their goal.
Ah, but the way is so long!

Years they have been in the wild!
Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,
Rising all round, overawe;
Factions divide them, their host
Threatens to break, to dissolve.
-Ah, keep, keep them combined!
Else, of the myriads who fill
That army, not one shall arrive ;
Sole they shall stray; in the rocks
Stagger for ever in vain.
Die one by one in the waste.

Then, in such hour of need

Of your fainting, dispirited race,
Ye, like angels, appear,
Radiant with ardor divine!
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.

Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.

Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave!
Order, courage, return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God.

HEINE

(FROM HEINE'S GRAVE)

THE Spirit of the world,

Beholding the absurdity of men

1867.

That was Heine! and we,
Myriads who live, who have lived,
What are we all, but a mood,
A single mood, of the life

Of the Spirit in whom we exist,
Who alone is all things in one?
Spirit, who fillest us all!
Spirit, who utterest in each
New-coming son of mankind
Such of thy thoughts as thou wilt!
O thou, one of whose moods,
Bitter and strange, was the life
Of Heine-his strange, alas,
His bitter life!-may a life
Other and milder be mine!
May'st thou a mood more serene,
Happier, have utter'd in mine!
May'st thou the rapture of peace
Deep have embreathed at its core;
Made it a ray of thy thought,
Made it a beat of thy joy!

OBERMANN ONCE MORE

1867.

Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d'un monde ? OBERMANN.

GLION?—Ah, twenty years, it cuts 1 All meaning from a name !

White houses prank where once were huts.

Glion, but not the same!

And yet I know not! All unchanged
The turf, the pines, the sky!

The hills in their old order ranged;
The lake, with Chillon by !

And, 'neath those chestnut-trees, where

stiff

And stony mounts the way,

The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if
I left them yesterday!

Across the valley, on that slope,
The huts of Avant shine !

Its pines, under their branches, ope
Ways for the pasturing kine.

Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,
Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,
Invite to rest the traveller there
Before he climb the pass-

1 Probably all who know the Vevey end of the Lake of Geneva, will recollect Glion, the moun tain-village above the castle of Chillon. Glion now has hotels, pensions, and villas; but twenty years ago it was hardly more than the huts of Avant opposite to it,-huts through which goes that beautiful path over the Col de Jaman, fol lowed by so many foot-travellers on their way from Vevey to the Simmenthal and Thun.

(Arnold).

And who but thou must be, in truth,
Obermann! with me here?
Thou master of my wandering youth,
But left this many a year!

Yes, I forget the world's work wrought,
Its warfare waged with pain;
An eremite with thee, in thought
Once more I slip my chain,

And to thy mountain-chalet come,
And lie beside its door,

And hear the wild bee's Alpine hum,
And thy sad, tranquil lore!

Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm; serene,
Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that might have been-

The harmony from which man swerved
Made his life's rule once more!
The universal order served,
Earth happier than before!

-While thus I mused, night gently ran
Down over hill and wood.

Then, still and sudden, Obermann
On the grass near me stood.

Those pensive features well I knew,
On my mind, years before,
Imaged so oft! imaged so true!
-A shepherd's garb he wore,

1 Montbovon. See Byron's Journal, in his Works, vol. iii. p. 258. The river Saane becomes the Sarine below Montbovon. (Arnold).

A mountain-flower was in his hand, A book was in his breast.

Bent on my face, with gaze which scann'd

My soul, his eyes did rest.

"And is it thou," he cried, 66 so long Held by the world which we

Loved not, who turnest from the throng Back to thy youth and me?

"And from thy world, with heart opprest,

Choosest thou now to turn ?—

Ah me! we anchorites read things best, Clearest their course discern !

"Thou fledst me when the ungenial earth,

Man's work-place, lay in gloom.
Return'st thou in her hour of birth,
Of hopes and hearts in bloom?

"Perceiv'st thou not the change of day? Ah! Carry back thy ken,

What, some two thousand years! Survey

The world as it was then!

"Like ours it look'd in outward air.
Its head was clear and true,
Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare,
No pause its action knew;

"Stout was its arm, each thew and bone Seem'd puissant and alive

But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone, And so it could not thrive!

"On that hard Pagan world disgust And secret loathing fell.

Deep weariness and sated lust

Made human life a hell.

"In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;

He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.

"He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,

And crown'd his hair with flowers

No easier nor no quicker pass'd

The impracticable hours.

"The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world.

The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd, And on her head was hurl'd.

"And oh, we cried, that on this corse
Might fall a freshening storm!
Rive its dry bones, and with new force
A new-sprung world inform!

"-Down came the storm! O'er France it pass'd

In sheets of scathing fire;

All Europe felt that fiery blast,
And shook as it rush'd by her.

"Down came the storm! In ruins fell
The worn-out world we knew.
--It pass'd, that elemental swell!
Again appear'd the blue;

"The sun shone in the new-wash'd sky,
And what from heaven saw he?
Blocks of the past. like icebergs high,
Float on a rolling sea!

"Upon them plies the race of man
All it before endeavor'd;

Ye live,' I cried, 'ye work and plan,
And know not ye are sever'd!

"Poor fragments of a broken world
Whereon men pitch their tent!
Why were ye too to death not hurl'd
When your world's day was spent?

"That glow of central fire is done
Which with its fusing flame

Knit all your parts, and kept you one--
But ye, ye are the same!

"The past, its mask of union on,
Had ceased to live and thrive.
The past, its mask of union gone,
Say, is it more alive?

"Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead,

Your social order too!

Where tarries he, the Power who said: See, I make all things new?

"The millions suffer still, and grieve, And what can helpers heal

With old-world cures men half believe
For woes they wholly feel?

"And yet men have such need of joy!
But joy whose grounds are true;
And joy that should all hearts employ
As when the past was new.

"Ah, not the emotion of that past,
Its common hope, were vain!

Some new such hope must dawn at last, Or man must toss in pain.

Composed to bear, I lived and died,
And knew my life was vain,
With fate I murmur not, nor chide.
At Sèvres by the Seine

"(If Paris that brief flight allow)
My humble tomb explore!
It bears: Eternity, be thou
My refuge! and no more.

"But thou, whom fellowship of mood
Did make from haunts of strife
Come to my mountain-solitude,
And learn my frustrate life;

"O thou, who, ere thy flying span
Was past of cheerful youth,
Didst find the solitary man
And love his cheerless truth-

"Despair not thou as I despair'd,
Nor be cold gloom thy prison!
Forward the gracious hours have fared,
And see! the sun is risen!

"He breaks the winter of the past;
A green, new earth appears.

Millions, whose life in ice lay fast, Have thoughts, and smiles, and tears.

"What though there still need effort,

strife?

Though much be still unwon?

Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life! Death's frozen hour is done!