O if you now are there
And sweet as once you were,
Grandmamma,
This nether world agrees,
You'll all the better please
Grandpapa.
She smiles, but her heart is in sable,
Ay, sad as her Christmas is chill:
She reads, and her book is the fable
He penn'd for her while she was ill.
It is nine years ago since he wrought it,
Where reedy old Tiber is king;
And chapter by chapter he brought it,
And read her the Rose and the Ring.
And when it was printed, and gaining
Renown with all lovers of glee,
He sent her this copy containing
His comical little croquis;
A sketch of a rather droll couple-
She's pretty, he's quite t'other thing! He begs (with a spine vastly supple)
She will study the Rose and the Ring.
It pleased the kind Wizard to send her The last and the best of his toys; He aye had a sentiment tender
For innocent maidens and boys;
And though he was great as a scorner
The guileless were safe from his sting; Oh, how sad is past mirth to the mourner!— A tear on the Rose and the Ring!
She reads; I may vainly endeavour
Her mirth-chequer'd grief to pursue,
For she knows she has lost, and for ever,
The heart that was bared to so few ;
But here, on the shrine of his glory,
One poor little blossom I fling;
And you see there's a nice little story
Attach'd to the Rose and the Ring.
THE TOMB IN THE CHURCH OF BROU
So rest, for ever, O princely Pair!
In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air,
Where horn and hound and vassals never come,
Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb,
From the rich painted windows of the nave,
On aisle and transept, and your marble grave;
Where thou, young Prince! shalt never more arise
From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies,
On autumn mornings, when the bugle sounds
To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve;
And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive,
Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state,
The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,
Coming benighted to the castle-gate.
So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair!
Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair
On the carved western front a flood of light
Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright
Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave,
In the vast western window of the nave;
And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints
A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints,
And amethyst, and ruby-then unclose
Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose,
And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads,
And rise upon your cold white marble beds;
And, looking down on the warm rosy tints,
Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints,
Say: What is this? we are in bliss-forgiven—
Behold the pavement of the Courts of Heaven!
Or let it be on Autumn nights, when rain
Doth rustlingly above your heads complain
On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls
Shedding her pensive light at intervals,
The moon through the clerestory windows shines,
And the wind washes through the mountain-pines,
Then, gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high,
The foliaged marble forest where ye lie,
Hush, ye will say, it is eternity!
This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these
The columns of the heavenly palaces!
And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear
The passage of the Angels' wings will hear,
And on the lichen-crusted leads above
The rustle of the eternal rain of love.
STANZAS IN MEMORY OF THE AUTHOR OF "OBERMANN"
In front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;
The Autumn storm-winds drive the wrack
Close o'er it, in the air.
Behind are the abandon'd baths
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are in the valley-paths,
The mists are on the Rhone
The white mists rolling like a sea!
I hear the torrents roar.
-Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee;
I feel thee near once more!
I turn thy leaves! I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;
That air of languor, cold and death,
Which brooded o'er thy soul.
Fly hence, poor wretch, whoe'er thou art,
Condemn'd to cast about,
All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,
For comfort from without!
A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spirit turns,
Here, on its bed of pain.
Yes, though the virgin mountain air Fresh through these pages blows; Though to these leaves the glaciers spare The soul of their white snows;
Though here a mountain-murmur swells Of many a dark-bough'd pine; Though, as you read, you hear the bells Of the high-pasturing kine.
Yet, through the hum of torrent lone,
And brooding mountain-bee,
There sobs I know not what ground-tone
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