Have ye not met ere now? so let those trust That meet for moments but to part for years, That weep, watch, pray, to hold back dust from dust, That love where love is but a fount of tears. Brother, sweet sister! peace around ye dwell! Lyre, sword, and flower, farewell!
It is the Rhine! our mountain vineyards laving, I see the bright flood shine:
Sing on the march, with every banner waving: Sing, brothers, 'tis the Rhine!
The Rhine! the Rhine, our own imperial river! Be glory on thy track!
We left thy shores to die or to deliver,
We bear thee freedom back!
Hail! hail! my childhood knew the rush of water, E'en as my mother's song;
That sound went past me on the field of slaughter, And heart and arm grew strong!
Roll proudly on! brave blood is with thee sweeping, Pour'd out by sons of thine,
Where sword and spirit forth in joy were leaping, Like thee, victorious Rhine!
Home! home! thy glad wave hath a tone of greeting, Thy path is by my home:
Even now my children count the hours till meeting, Oh ransom'd ones, I come!
Go tell the seas that chains shall bind thee never, Sound on by hearth and shrine !
Sing through the hills that thou art free for ever- Lift up thy voice, oh Rhine!
THE HOUR OF DEATH.
LEAVES have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, And stars to set; but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh! Death.
Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth,
Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of But all for thee, thou Mightiest of the earth. [prayer, The banquet hath its hour,
Its feverish hour of mirth, and song, and wine;
There comes a day for grief's o'erwhelming
A time for softer tears, but all are thine.
Youth and the opening rose
May look like things too glorious for decay,
And smile at thee; but thou art not of those That wait the ripen'd bloom to seize their prey.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, And stars to set; but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh! Death.
We know when moons shall wane,
When summer-birds from far shall cross the sea, When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain,
But who shall teach us when to look for thee?
Is it when Spring's first gale
Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie? Is it when roses in our paths grow pale? They have one season: all are ours to die!
Thou art where billows foam,
Thou art where music melts upon the air;
Thou art around us in our peaceful home, And the world calls us forth, and thou art there.
Thou art where friend meets friend,
Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest;
Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend
The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, And stars to set; but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh! Death.
OUR life is twofold: sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being; they become A portion of ourselves as of our time, And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past; they speak Like sibyls of the future; they have power- The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what they will, And shake us with the vision that's gone by, The dread of vanish'd shadows. Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind? The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd Perchance in sleep; for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.
I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke Arising from such rustic roofs; the hill Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd, Not by the sport of nature, but of man: These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing the one on all that was beneath,
Fair as herself; but the boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young, yet not alike in youth. As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge, The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him; he had look'd Upon it till it could not pass away; He had no breath nor being but in hers; She was his voice; he had not spoke to her, But trembled on her words; she was his sight, For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers, Which colour'd all his objects: he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony. But she in these fond feelings had no share : Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother, but no more; 'twas much, For brotherless she was, save in the name Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him; Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honour'd race. It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and Time taught him a deep answer--when she loved Another; even now she loved another;
And on the summit of that hill she stood, Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. There was an ancient mansion, and before Its walls there was a steed caparison'd: Within an antique oratory stood
The boy of whom I spake; he was alone, And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sat him down, and seized a pen, and traced Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 'twere With a convulsion; then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear What he had written, but he shed no tears. And he did calm himself, and fix his brow Into a kind of quiet; as he paused, The lady of his love re-enter'd there; She was serene and smiling then, and yet She knew she was by him beloved; she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded as it came;
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