Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13)
Page 141
Are melting away with love!
Poetic Aphorisms
From the Sinngedichte of Friedrich von Logau
MONEY
WHEREUNTO is money good?
Who has it not wants hardihood,
Who has it has much trouble and care,
Who once has had it has despair.
THE BEST MEDICINES
Joy and Temperance and Repose 5
Slam the door on the doctor’s nose.
SIN
Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave. 10
POVERTY AND BLINDNESS
A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is;
For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees.
LAW OF LIFE
Live I, so live I,
To my Lord heartily,
To my Prince faithfully, 15
To my Neighbor honestly,
Die I, so die I.
CREEDS
Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three
Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be.
THE RESTLESS HEART
A mill-stone and the human heart are driven ever round; 20
If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.
CHRISTIAN LOVE
Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke;
But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke.
ART AND TACT
Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find. 25
RETRIBUTION
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
TRUTH
When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch’s fire,
Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus
Truth silences the liar. 30
RHYMES
If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers’ ears,
They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs;
For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own,
They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known.
Silent Love
WHO love would seek,
Let him love evermore
And seldom speak;
For in love’s domain
Silence must reign; 5
Or it brings the heart
Smart
And pain.
Blessed are the Dead
(Selig sind, die in dem Herrn Sterben)
By Simon Dach
OH, how blest are ye whose toils are ended!
Who, through death, have unto God ascended!
Ye have arisen
From the cares which keep us still in prison.
We are still as in a dungeon living, 5
Still oppressed with sorrow and misgiving;
Our undertakings
Are but toils, and troubles, and heartbreakings.
Ye, meanwhile, are in your chambers sleeping,
Quiet, and set free from all our weeping; 10
No cross nor trial
Hinders your enjoyments with denial.
Christ has wiped away your tears for ever;
Ye have that for which we still endeavor.
To you are chanted 15
Songs which yet no mortal ear have haunted.
Ah! who would not, then, depart with gladness,
To inherit heaven for earthly sadness?
Who here would languish
Longer in bewailing and in anguish? 20
Come, O Christ, and loose the chains that bind us!
Lead us forth, and cast this world behind us!
With thee, the Anointed,
Finds the soul its joy and rest appointed.
Wanderer’s Night-Songs
(Wandrers Nachtlied and Ein Gleiches)
By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I
THOU that from the heavens art,
Every pain and sorrow stillest,
And the doubly wretched heart
Doubly with refreshment fillest,
I am weary with contending! 5
Why this rapture and unrest?
Peace descending
Come, ah, come into my breast!
II
O’er all the hill-tops
Is quiet now, 10
In all the tree-tops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait; soon like these 15
Thou too shalt rest.
Remorse
(Mut and Unmut)
By August von Platen
HOW I started up in the night, in the night,
Drawn on without rest or reprieval!
The streets, with their watchmen, were lost to my sight,
As I wandered so light
In the night, in the night, 5
Through the gate with the arch mediæval.
The mill-brook rushed from the rocky height,
I leaned o’er the bridge in my yearning;
Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight,
As they glided so light 10
In the night, in the night,
Yet backward not one was returning.
O’erhead were revolving, so countless and bright,
The stars in melodious existence;
And with them the moon, more serenely bedight; 15
They sparkled so light
In the night, in the night,
Through the magical, measureless distance.
And upward I gazed in the night, in the night,
And again on the waves in their fleeting; 20
Ah woe! thou hast wasted thy days in delight,
Now silence thou light,
In the night, in the night,
The remorse in thy heart that is beating.
Forsaken
SOMETHING the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn,
Something with passion clasp, or perish,
And in itself to ashes burn.
So to this child my heart is clinging, 5
And its frank eyes, with look intense,
Me from a world of sin are bringing
Back to a world of innocence.
Disdain must thou endure forever;
Strong may thy heart in danger be! 10
Thou shalt not fail! but ah, be never
False as thy father was to me.
Never will I forsake thee, faithless,
And thou thy mother ne’er forsake,
Until her lips are white and breathless, 15
Until in death her eyes shall break.
Allah
By Siegfried August Mahlmann
ALLAH gives light in darkness,
Allah gives rest in pain,
Cheeks that are white with weeping
Allah paints red again.
The flowers and the blossoms wither, 5
Years vanish with flying feet;
But my heart will live on forever,
That here in sadness beat.
Gladly to Allah’s dwelling
Yonder would I take flight; 10
There will the darkness vanish,
There will my eyes have sight.
From the Anglo-Saxon.
The Grave
FOR thee was a house built
Ere thou wast born,
For thee was a mould meant
Ere thou of mother camest.
But it is not made ready, 5
Nor its depth measured,
Nor is it seen
How long it shall be.
No
w I bring thee
Where thou shalt be; 10
Now I shall measure thee,
And the mould afterwards.
Thy house is not
Highly timbered,
It is unhigh and low; 15
When thou art therein,
The heel-ways are low,
The side-ways unhigh.
The roof is built
Thy breast full nigh, 20
So thou shalt in mould
Dwell full cold,
Dimly and dark.
Doorless is that house,
And dark it is within; 25
There thou art fast detained
And Death hath the key.
Loathsome is that earth-house,
And grim within to dwell.
There thou shalt dwell, 30
And worms shall divide thee.
Thus thou art laid,
And leavest thy friends;
Thou hast no friend,
Who will come to thee, 35
Who will ever see
How that house pleaseth thee;
Who will ever open
The door for thee,
And descend after thee; 40
For soon thou art loathsome
And hateful to see.
Beowulf’s Expedition to Heort
THUS then, much care-worn,
The son of Healfden
Sorrowed evermore,
Nor might the prudent hero
His woes avert. 5
The war was too hard,
Too loath and longsome,
That on the people came,
Dire wrath and grim,
Of night-woes the worst. 10
This from home heard
Higelac’s Thane,
Good among the Goths,
Grendel’s deeds.
He was of mankind 15
In might the strongest,
At that day
Of this life,
Noble and stalwart.
He bade him a sea-ship, 20
A goodly one, prepare.
Quoth he, the war-king,
Over the swan’s road,
Seek he would
The mighty monarch, 25
Since he wanted men.
For him that journey
His prudent fellows
Straight made ready,
Those that loved him. 30
They excited their souls,
The omen they beheld.
Had the good-man
Of the Gothic people
Champions chosen, 35
Of those that keenest
He might find,
Some fifteen men.
The sea-wood sought he.
The warrior showed, 40
Sea-crafty man!
The land-marks,
And first went forth.
The ship was on the waves,
Boat under the cliffs. 45
The barons ready
To the prow mounted.
The streams they whirled
The sea against the sands.
The chieftains bore 50
On the naked breast
Bright ornaments,
War-gear, Goth-like.
The men shoved off,
Men on their willing way, 55
The bounden wood.
Then went over the sea-waves,
Hurried by the wind,
The ship with foamy neck,
Most like a sea-fowl, 60
Till about one hour
Of the second day
The curved prow
Had passed onward
So that the sailors 65
The land saw,
The shore-cliffs shining,
Mountains steep,
And broad sea-noses.
Then was the sea-sailing 70
Of the Earl at an end.
Then up speedily
The Weather people
On the land went,
The sea-bark moored, 75
Their mail-sarks shook,
Their war-weeds.
God thanked they,
That to them the sea-journey
Easy had been. 80
Then from the wall beheld
The warden of the Scyldings,
He who the sea-cliffs
Had in his keeping,
Bear o’er the balks 85
The bright shields,
The war-weapons speedily.
Him the doubt disturbed
In his mind’s thought,
What these men might be. 90
Went then to the shore,
On his steed riding,
The Thane of Hrothgar.
Before the host he shook
His warden’s-staff in hand, 95
In measured words demanded:
“What men are ye
War-gear wearing,
Host in harness,
Who thus the brown keel 100
Over the water-street
Leading come
Hither over the sea?
I these boundaries
As shore-warden hold, 105
That in the Land of the Danes
Nothing loathsome
With a ship-crew
Scathe us might….
Ne’er saw I mightier 110
Earl upon earth
Than is your own,
Hero in harness.
Not seldom this warrior
Is in weapons distinguished; 115
Never his beauty belies him,
His peerless countenance!
Now would I fain
Your origin know,
Ere ye forth 120
As false spies
Into the Land of the Danes
Farther fare.
Now, ye dwellers afar-off!
Ye sailors of the sea: 125
Listen to my
One-fold thought.
Quickest is best
To make known
Whence your coming may be.” 130
The Soul’s Complaint against the Body
MUCH it behoveth
Each one of mortals,
That he his soul’s journey
In himself ponder,
How deep it may be. 5
When Death cometh,
The bonds he breaketh
By which were united
The soul and the body.
Long it is thenceforth 10
Ere the soul taketh
From God himself
Its woe or its weal;
As in the world erst,
Even in its earth-vessel, 15
It wrought before.
The soul shall come
Wailing with loud voice,
After a sennight,
The soul, to find 20
The body
That it erst dwelt in; —
Three hundred winters,
Unless ere that worketh
The Eternal Lord, 25
The Almighty God,
The end of the world.
Crieth then, so care-worn,
With cold utterance,
And speaketh grimly, 30
The ghost to the dust:
“Dry dust! thou dreary one!
How little didst thou labor for me!
In the foulness of earth
Thou all wearest away 35
Like to the loam!
Little didst thou think
How thy soul’s journey
Would be thereafter,
When from the body 40
It should be led forth.”
From the French.
Song: Hark! Hark!
From The Paradise of Love
The first work which Mr. Longfellow printed in the way of translation of French poetry was in connection with his article on Origin and Progress of the French Language, which he contributed to the North American Review for April 1831. He used a portion of this paper in the chapter, The Trouvères, in Outer-Mer, introducing his translation o
f some early lyrics by these words: “The favorite theme of the ancient lyric poets of the North of France is the wayward passion of love. They all delight to sing les douces dolors et li mal plaisant de fine amor.’ With such feelings the beauties of the opening spring are naturally associated. Almost every love-ditty of the old poets commences with some such exordium as this: ‘When the snows of winter have passed away, when the soft and gentle spring returns, and the flower and leaf shoot in the groves, and the little birds warble to their mates in their own sweet language, — then will I sing my lady-love!’ Another favorite introduction to these little rhapsodies of romantic passion is the approach of morning and its sweet-voiced herald, the lark. The minstrel’s song to his lady-love frequently commences with an allusion to the hour
When the rosebud opes its een,
And the bluebells droop and die,
And upon the leaves so green
Sparkling dew-drops lie.
“The following is at once the simplest and prettiest piece of this kind which I have met with among the early lyric poets of the North of France. It is taken from an anonymous poem, entitled The Paradise of Love. A lover, having passed the ‘live-long night in tears as he was wont,’ goes forth to beguile his sorrows with the fragrance and beauty of morning. The carol of the vaulting skylark salutes his ear, and to this merry musician he makes his complaint.”
HARK! hark!
Pretty lark!
Little heedest thou my pain!
But if to these longing arms
Pitying Love would yield the charms 5
Of the fair
With smiling air,
Blithe would beat my heart again.
Hark! hark!
Pretty lark! 10
Little heedest thou my pain!
Love may force me still to bear,
While he lists, consuming care;
But in anguish,
Though I languish, 15
Faithful shall my heart remain.
Hark! hark!
Pretty lark!
Little heedest thou my pain!
Then cease, Love, to torment me so; 20