Of a past night, and a far different scene.
Headlands stood out into the moonlit deep
As clearly as at noon;

The spring-tide's brimming flow
Heaved dazzlingly between;

Houses, with long white sweep,

Girdled the glistening bay;

Behind, through the soft air,

The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away,
The night was far more fair-

But the same restless pacings to and fro,

And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, And the same bright, calm moon.

And the calm moonlight seems to say:
Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast,
Which neither deadens into rest,
Nor ever feels the fiery glow

That whirls the spirit from itself away,

But fluctuates to and fro,

Never by passion quite possess'd

And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?

And I, I know not if to pray

Still to be what I am, or yield and be

Like all the other men I see.

For most men in a brazen prison live,
Where, in the sun's hot eye,

With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly
Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give,
Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.
And as, year after year,

Fresh products of their barren labour fall
From their tired hands, and rest

Never yet comes more near,

Gloom settles slowly down over their breast;

Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.

16

And while they try to stem

The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,
Death in their prison reaches them,
Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.

And the rest, a few,

Escape their prison and depart

On the wide ocean of life anew.

There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart

Listeth, will sail;

Nor doth he know how there prevail,

Despotic on that sea,

Trade-winds which cross it from eternity.
Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd
By thwarting signs, and braves

The freshening wind and blackening waves.
And then the tempest strikes him; and between
The lightning-bursts is seen

Only a driving wreck,

And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck
With anguish'd face and flying hair

Grasping the rudder hard,

Still bent to make some port he knows not where,
Still standing for some false, impossible shore.

And sterner comes the roar

Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom
Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom,
And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?

Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!
Clearness divine!

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign
Of languor, though so calm, and, though so great,

Are yet untroubled and unpassionate;

Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,
And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!
I will not say that your mild deeps retain

A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain-
But I will rather say that you remain

A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency!

How it were good to abide there, and breathe free;
How fair a lot to fill

Is left to each man still!

THE BURIED LIFE.

[Empedocles etc. 1852.]

LIGHT flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,

And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved

Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest

Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!-doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?-must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,

Even for a moment, can get free

Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;

For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

Fate, which foresaw

How frivolous a baby man would be--
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity—
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life

Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see

The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,

There rises an unspeakable desire

After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;

A longing to inquire

Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us-to know

Whence our lives come and where they go.

And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,

Been on our own line, have we been ourselves—
Hardly had skill to utter one of all

The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well-but 'tis not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;

Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!

Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,

Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.

Only-but this is rare—

When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,

Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear

Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd

A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.