Of the new covenant symbol it is, of Atonement a token,
Stablished between earth and heaven. Man by his sins and transgressions
Far has wandered from God, from his essence. ‘T was in the beginning 300
Fast by the Tree of Knowledge he fell, and it hangs its crown o’er the
Fall to this day; in the Thought is the Fall; in the Heart the Atonement.
Infinite is the fall, — the Atonement infinite likewise.
See! behind me, as far as the old man remembers, and forward,
Far as Hope in her flight can reach with her wearied pinions, 305
Sin and Atonement incessant to through the lifetime of mortals,
Sin is brought forth full-grown; but Atonement sleeps in our bosoms
Still as the cradled babe; and dreams of heaven and of angels,
Cannot awake to sensation; is like the tones in the harp’s strings,
Spirits imprisoned, that wait evermore the deliverer’s finger. 310
Therefore, ye children beloved, descended the Prince of Atonement,
Woke the slumberer from sleep, and she stands now with eyes all resplendent,
Bright as the vault of the sky, and battles with Sin and o’ercomes her.
Downward to earth He came and, transfigured, thence reascended,
Not from the heart in like wise, for there He still lives in the Spirit, 315
Loves and atones evermore. So long as Time is, is Atonement.
Therefore with reverence take this day her visible token.
Tokens are dead if the things live not. The light everlasting
Unto the blind is not, but is born of the eye that has vision.
Neither in bread nor in wine, but in the heart that is hallowed 320
Lieth forgiveness enshrined; the intention alone of amendment
Fruits of the earth ennobles to heavenly things, and removes all
Sin and the guerdon of sin. Only Love with his arms wide extended,
Penitence weeping and praying; the Will that is tried, and whose gold flows
Purified forth from the flames; in a word, mankind by Atonement 325
Breaketh Atonement’s bread, and drinketh Atonement’s wine-cup.
But he who cometh up hither, unworthy. with hate in his bosom,
Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of Christ’s blessed body,
And the Redeemer’s blood! To himself he eateth and drinketh
Death and doom! And from this, preserve us, thou heavenly Father! 330
Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the bread of Atonement?”
Thus with emotion he asked, and together answered the children,
“Yes!” with deep sobs interrupted. Then read he the due supplications,
Read the Form of Communion, and in chimed the organ and anthem:
‘O Holy Lamb of God, who takest away our transgressions, 335
Hear us! give us thy peace! have mercy, have mercy upon us!”
Th’ old man, with trembling hand, and heavenly pearls on his eyelids,
Filled now the chalice and paten, and dealt round the mystical symbols.
Oh, then seemed it to me as if God, with the broad eye of midday,
Clearer looked in at the windows, and all the trees in the churchyard 340
Bowed down their summits of green, and the grass on the graves ‘gan to shiver.
But in the children (I noted it well; I knew it) there ran a
Tremor of holy rapture along through their ice-cold members.
Decked like an altar before them, there stood the green earth, and above it
Heaven opened itself, as of old before Stephen; they saw there 345
Radiant in glory the Father, and on his right hand the Redeemer.
Under them hear they the clang of harp-strings, and angels from gold clouds
Beckon to them like brothers, and fan with their pinions of purple.
Closed was the Teacher’s task, and with heaven in their hearts and their faces,
Up rose the children all, and each bowed him, weeping full sorely, 350
Downward to kiss that reverend hand, but all of them pressed he
Moved to his bosom, and laid, with a prayer, his hands full of blessings,
Now on the holy breast, and now on the innocent tresses.
King Christian
(Kong Christian stod ved hoien mast)
A National Song of Denmark
Written during a visit to Copenhagen in September, 1835. The poet first heard the air from some strolling musician in a coffee-house, and looking up the words by Johannes Evald in his lyrical drama Fiskerne (The Fishermen), Act ii. Sc. v., translated them.
KING CHRISTIAN stood by the lofty mast
In mist and smoke;
His sword was hammering so fast,
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed;
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast, 5
In mist and smoke.
“Fly!” shouted they, “fly, he who can!
Who braves of Denmark’s Christian
The stroke?”
Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest’s roar, 10
Now is the hour!
He hoisted his blood-red flag once more,
And smote upon the foe full sore,
And shouted loud, through the tempest’s roar,
“Now is the hour!” 15
“Fly!” shouted they, “for shelter fly!
Of Denmark’s Juel who can defy
The power?”
North Sea! a glimpse of Wessel rent
Thy murky sky! 20
Then champions to thine arms were sent;
Terror and Death glared where he went;
From the waves was heard a wail, that rent
Thy murky sky!
From Denmark thunders Tordenskiol’, 25
Let each to Heaven commend his soul,
And fly!
Path of the Dane to fame and might!
Dark-rolling wave!
Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight, 30
Goes to meet danger with despite,
Proudly as thou the tempest’s might,
Dark-rolling wave!
And amid pleasures and alarms,
And war and victory, be thine arms 35
My grave!
The Elected Knight
(Den Udkaarne Ridder)
This strange and somewhat mystical ballad is from Nyerup and Rahbek’s Danske Viser fra Middelalderen. It seems to refer to the first preaching of Christianity in the North, and to the institution of Knight-Errantry. The three maidens I suppose to be Faith, Hope, and Charity. The irregularities of the original have been carefully preserved in the translation. H. W. L.
SIR OLUF he rideth over the plain,
Full seven miles broad and seven miles wide,
But never, ah never can meet with the man
A tilt with him dare ride.
He saw under the hillside 5
A Knight full well equipped;
His steed was black, his helm was barred;
He was riding at full speed.
He wore upon his spurs
Twelve little golden birds; 10
Anon he spurred his steed with a clang,
And there sat all the birds and sang.
He wore upon his mail
Twelve little golden wheels;
Anon in eddies the wild wind blew, 15
And round and round the wheels they flew.
He wore before his breast
A lance that was poised in rest;
And it was sharper than diamond-stone,
It made Sir Oluf’s heart to groan. 20
He wore upon his helm
A wreath of ruddy gold;
And that gave him the Maidens Three,
The youngest was fair to behold.
Sir Oluf questioned the Knight eftsoon 25
If he were come from heaven down;
“Art thou Christ of Heaven,” quoth he,
&
nbsp; “So will I yield me unto thee.”
“I am not Christ the Great,
Thou shalt not yield thee yet; 30
I am an Unknown Knight,
Three modest Maidens have me bedight.”
“Art thou a Knight elected,
And have three maidens thee bedight,
So shalt thou ride a tilt this day, 35
For all the Maidens’ honor!”
The first tilt they together rode
They put their steeds to the test;
The second tilt they together rode
They proved their manhood best. 40
The third tilt they together rode
Neither of them would yield;
The fourth tilt they together rode
They both fell on the field.
Now lie the lords upon the plain, 45
And their blood runs unto death;
Now sit the Maidens in the high tower,
The youngest sorrows till death.
Childhood
(Da jeg var lille)
By Jens Immanuel Baggesen
THERE was a time when I was very small,
When my whole frame was but an ell in height;
Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,
And therefore I recall it with delight.
I sported in my tender mother’s arms, 5
And rode a-horseback on best father’s knee;
Alike were sorrows, passions and alarms,
And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown to me.
Then seemed to me this world far less in size,
Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far; 10
Like points in heaven, I saw the stars arise,
And longed for wings that I might catch a star.
I saw the moon behind the island fade,
And thought, “Oh, were I on that island there,
I could find out of what the moon is made, 15
Find out how large it is, how round, how fair!”
Wondering, I saw God’s sun, through western skies,
Sink in the ocean’s golden lap at night,
And yet upon the morrow early rise,
And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light; 20
And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly Father,
Who made me, and that lovely sun on high,
And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung together,
Dropped, clustering, from his hand o’er all the sky.
With childish reverence, my young lips did say 25
The prayer my pious mother taught to me:
“O gentle God! oh, let me strive alway
Still to be wise, and good, and follow thee!”
So prayed I for my father and my mother,
And for my sister, and for all the town; 30
The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,
Who, bent with age, went, sighing, up and down.
They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,
And all the gladness, all the peace I knew!
Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished; — 35
God! may I never lose that too!
From the German.
The Happiest Land
The first ten of the following poems are all from the volume Voices of the Night, into which they were brought for the most part from Hyperion. The winter of 1836, spent by Mr. Longfellow in Germany, appears to have been the time when most of his translations from German poetry were made.
THERE sat one day in quiet,
By an alehouse on the Rhine,
Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine.
The landlord’s daughter filled their cups, 5
Around the rustic board;
Then sat they all so calm and still,
And spake not one rude word.
But when the maid departed,
A Swabian raised his hand, 10
And cried, all hot and flushed with wine,
“Long live the Swabian land!
“The greatest kingdom upon earth
Cannot with that compare;
With all the stout and hardy men 15
And the nut-brown maidens there.”
“Ha!” cried a Saxon, laughing,
And dashed his beard with wine;
“I had rather live in Lapland,
Than that Swabian land of thine! 20
“The goodliest land on all this earth,
It is the Saxon land!
There have I as many maidens
As fingers on this hand!”
“Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!” 25
A bold Bohemian cries;
“If there’s a heaven upon this earth,
In Bohemia it lies.
“There the tailor blows the flute,
And the cobbler blows the horn, 30
And the miner blows the bugle,
Over mountain gorge and bourn.”
* * * * *
And then the landlord’s daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,
And said, “Ye may no more contend, — 35
There lies the happiest land!”
The Wave
(Die Welle)
By Christoph August Tiedge
“WHITHER, thou turbid wave?
Whither, with so much haste,
As if a thief wert thou?”
“I am the Wave of Life,
Stained with my margin’s dust; 5
From the struggle and the strife
Of the narrow stream I fly
To the Sea’s immensity,
To wash from me the slime
Of the muddy banks of Time.” 10
The Dead
By Ernst Stockmann
HOW they so softly rest,
All they the holy ones,
Unto whose dwelling-place
Now doth my soul draw near!
How they so softly rest, 5
All in their silent graves,
Deep to corruption
Slowly down-sinking!
And they no longer weep,
Here, where complaint is still! 10
And they no longer feel,
Here, where all gladness flies!
And by the cypresses
Softly o’ershadowed,
Until the Angel 15
Calls them, they slumber!
The Bird and the Ship
(Schiff und Vogel)
By Wilhelm Müller
“THE RIVERS rush into the sea,
By castle and town they go;
The winds behind them merrily
Their noisy trumpets blow.
“The clouds are passing far and high, 5
We little birds in them play;
And everything, that can sing and fly,
Goes with us, and far away.
“I greet thee, bonny boat! Whither, or whence,
With thy fluttering golden band?” — 10
“I greet thee, little bird! To the wide sea
I haste from the narrow land.
“Full and swollen is every sail;
I see no longer a hill,
I have trusted all to the sounding gale, 15
And it will not let me stand still.
“And wilt thou, little bird, go with us?
Thou mayest stand on the mainmast tall,
For full to sinking is my house
With merry companions all.” — 20
“I need not and seek not company,
Bonny boat, I can sing all alone;
For the mainmast tall too heavy am I,
Bonny boat, I have wings of my own.
“High over the sails, high over the mast, 25
Who shall gainsay these joys?
When thy merry companions are still, at last,
Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice.
“Who neither may rest, nor listen may,
God bless them every one! 30
I dart away, in the brig
ht blue day,
And the golden fields of the sun.
“Thus do I sing my weary song,
Wherever the four winds blow;
And this same song, my whole life long, 35
Neither Poet nor Printer may know.”
Whither?
(Wohin?)
By Wilhelm Müller
I HEARD a brooklet gushing
From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.
I know not what came o’er me, 5
Nor who the counsel gave;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave;
Downward, and ever farther,
And ever the brook beside; 10
And ever fresher murmured,
And ever clearer, the tide.
Is this the way I was going?
Whither, O brooklet, say!
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur, 15
Murmured my senses away.
What do I say of a murmur?
That can no murmur be;
‘T is the water-nymphs, that are singing
Their roundelays under me. 20
Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur,
And wander merrily near;
The wheels of a mill are going
In every brooklet clear.
Beware!
(Hüt du dich!)
I KNOW a maiden fair to see,
Take care!
She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not, 5
She is fooling thee!
She has two eyes, so soft and brown,
Take care!
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 139
