Strong was he, with a spirit free

From mists, and sane, and clear;
Clearer, how much! than ours—yet we
Have a worse course to steer.

For though his manhood bore the blast
Of a tremendous time,

Yet in a tranquil world was pass'd

His tenderer youthful prime.

But we, brought forth and rear'd in hours

Of change, alarm, surprise—

What shelter to grow ripe is ours?

What leisure to grow wise?

Like children bathing on the shore,

Buried a wave beneath,

The second wave succeeds, before

We have had time to breathe.

Too fast we live, too much are tried,

Too harass'd, to attain

Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's wide

And luminous view to gain.

And then we turn, thou sadder sage,

To thee! we feel thy spell!

-The hopeless tangle of our age,

Thou too hast scann'd it well!

Immoveable thou sittest, still

As death, composed to bear!
Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill,
And icy thy despair.

Yes, as the son of Thetis said,

I hear thee saying now :

Greater by far than thou art dead;
Strive not! die also thou!

Ah! two desires toss about

The poet's feverish blood.

One drives him to the world without,

And one to solitude.

The glow, he cries, the thrill of life,
Where, where do these abound ?—
Not in the world, not in the strife
Of men, shall they be found.

He who hath watch'd, not shared, the strife, Knows how the day hath gone.

He only lives with the world's life,

Who hath renounced his own.

To thee we come, then! Clouds are roll'd

Where thou, O seer! art set;

Thy realm of thought is drear and cold

The world is colder yet!

And thou hast pleasures, too, to share
With those who come to thee-

Balms floating on thy mountain-air,
And healing sights to see.

How often, where the slopes are green

On Jaman, hast thou sate

By some high chalet-door, and seen

The summer-day grow late;

And darkness steal o'er the wet grass
With the pale crocus starr'd,

And reach that glimmering sheet of glass
Beneath the piny sward,

Lake Leman's waters, far below!

And watch'd the rosy light

Fade from the distant peaks of snow;

And on the air of night

Heard accents of the eternal tongue
Through the pine branches play—
Listen'd, and felt thyself grow young!
Listen'd and wept

Away!

Away the dreams that but deceive

And thou, sad guide, adieu !

I go, fate drives me; but I leave
Half of my life with you.

We, in some unknown Power's employ,

Move on a rigorous line;

Can neither, when we will, enjoy,

Nor, when we will, resign.

I in the world must live; but thou,

Thou melancholy shade!

Wilt not, if thou canst see me now,
Condemn me, nor upbraid.

For thou art gone away from earth,
And place with those dost claim,
The Children of the Second Birth,
Whom the world could not tame;

OBERMANN

And with that small, transfigured band,

Whom many a different way

Conducted to their common land,

Thou learn'st to think as they.

Christian and pagan, king and slave,

Soldier and anchorite,

Distinctions we esteem so grave,

Are nothing in their sight.

They do not ask, who pined unseen,

Who was on action hurl'd,

Whose one bond is, that all have been

Unspotted by the world.

There without anger thou wilt see

Him who obeys thy spell

No more, so he but rest, like thee,

Unsoil'd!—and so, farewell.

Farewell!-Whether thou now liest near

That much-loved inland sea,

The ripples of whose blue waves cheer
Vevey and Meillerie :

And in that gracious region bland,
Where with clear-rustling wave

The scented pines of Switzerland
Stand dark round thy green grave,

Between the dusty vineyard-walls
Issuing on that green place
The early peasant still recalls
The pensive stranger's face,

And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date
Ere he plods on again ;—

Or whether, by maligner fate,
Among the swarms of men,
Where between granite terraces
The blue Seine rolls her wave,
The Capital of Pleasure sees
The hardly-heard-of grave ;-

Farewell!

Under the sky we part,

In the stern Alpine dell.

O unstrung will! O broken heart!

A last, a last farewell!

OBERMANN ONCE MORE

(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING)

Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d'un monde?

OBERMANN.

GLION?- -Ah, twenty years, it cuts 27

All meaning from a name!

White houses prank where once were huts.

Glion, but not the same!

And yet I know not! All unchanged

The turf, the pines, the sky!

The hills in their old order ranged;

The lake, with Chillon by!

And, 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff

And stony mounts the way,

The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if

I left them yesterday !