A youth, with the foot of youth,
Heine! thou climbest again!
Up, through the tall dark firs

Warming their heads in the sun,

Chequering the grass with their shade-
Up, by the stream, with its huge
Moss-hung boulders, and thin
Musical water half-hid-

Up, o'er the rock-strewn slope,
With the sinking sun, and the air
Chill, and the shadows now
Long on the grey hill-side-
To the stone-roof'd hut at the top!

Or, yet later, in watch

On the roof of the Brocken-tower
Thou standest, gazing!-to see
The broad red sun, over field,
Forest, and city, and spire,

And mist-track'd stream of the wide
Wide German land, going down
In a bank of vapours-again
Standest, at nightfall, alone!

Or, next morning, with limbs
Rested by slumber, and heart
Freshen'd and light with the May,
O'er the gracious spurs coming down
Of the Lower Hartz, among oaks
And beechen coverts, and copse
Of hazels green in whose depth
Ilse, the fairy transform'd,
In a thousand water-breaks light
Pours her petulant youth—
Climbing the rock which juts

O'er the valley-the dizzily perch'd
Rock-to its iron cross

Once more thou cling'st; to the Cross
Clingest! with smiles, with a sigh!

Goethe, too, had been there.25
In the long-past winter he came
To the frozen Hartz, with his soul
Passionate, eager his youth
All in ferment!-but he
Destined to work and to live
Left it, and thou, alas!
Only to laugh and to die.

But something prompts me: Not thus
Take leave of Heine! not thus
Speak the last word at his grave !

Not in pity, and not

With half censure-with awe

Hail, as it passes from earth
Scattering lightnings, that soul!

The Spirit of the world,

Beholding the absurdity of men—

Their vaunts, their feats-let a sardonic smile,
For one short moment, wander o'er his lips.
That smile was Heine !-for its earthly hour
The strange guest sparkled; now 'tis pass'd away.

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!

STANZAS FROM

THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE.

THROUGH Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,

The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,

Over his boiling cauldron broods.

Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing-then blotting from our sight!-
Halt-through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.

Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony forest-way.

At last the encircling trees retire;
Look! through the showery twilight grey
What pointed roofs are these advance?—
A palace of the Kings of France?

Approach, for what we seek is here!
Alight, and sparely sup, and wait
For rest in this outbuilding near;

Then cross the sward and reach that gate;
Knock; pass the wicket! Thou art come
To the Carthusians' world-famed home.

The silent courts, where night and day
Into their stone-carved basins cold
The splashing icy fountains play-
The humid corridors behold,

Where, ghostlike in the deepening night,
Cowl'd forms brush by in gleaming white!

The chapel, where no organ's peal
Invests the stern and naked prayer!—
With penitential cries they kneel
And wrestle; rising then, with bare
And white uplifted faces stand,
Passing the Host from hand to hand;

Each takes, and then his visage wan
Is buried in his cowl once more.

The cells!—the suffering Son of Man
Upon the wall-the knee-worn floor-
And where they sleep, that wooden bed,
Which shall their coffin be, when dead!

The library, where tract and tome
Not to feed priestly pride are there,
To hymn the conquering march of Rome,
Nor yet to amuse, as ours are!

They paint of souls the inner strife,
Their drops of blood, their death in life.

The garden, overgrown-yet mild,
See, fragrant herbs are flowering there!
Strong children of the Alpine wild
Whose culture is the brethren's care;
Of human tasks their only one,
And cheerful works beneath the sun.

Those halls, too, destined to contain
Each its own pilgrim-host of old,
From England, Germany, or Spain-
All are before me! I behold

The House, the Brotherhood austere !—
And what am I, that I am here?

For rigorous teachers seized my youth,
And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire,
Shew'd me the high, white star of Truth,
There bade me gaze, and there aspire.
Even now their whispers pierce the gloom:
What dost thou in this living tomb?

Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago

So much unlearnt, so much resign'd-
I come not here to be your foe!