"The waste domain of Syloson," 'tis call'd unto this day!
LOVE AND DEATH
O strong as the Eagle,
O mild as the Dove!
How like, and how unlike,
O Death and O Love!
Knitting Earth to the Heaven,
The Near to the Far—
With the step on the dust,
And the eyes on the star!
Interweaving, commingling,
Both rays from God's light!
Now in sun, now in shadow,
Ye shift to the sight!
Ever changing the sceptres
Ye bear—as in play;
Now Love as Death rules us,
Now Death has Love's sway!
Why wails so the New-born?
Love gave it the breath.
The soul sees Love's brother—
Life enters on Death!
Why that smile the wan lips
Of the dead man above?
The soul sees Death changing
Its shape into Love.
So confused and so blending
Each twin with its brother,
The frown of one melts
In the smile of the other.
Love warms where Death withers,
Death blights where Love blooms;
Death sits by our cradles,
Love stands by our tombs!
THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR
FROM THE GERMAN.—GUSTAV SCHWAB
Spurning the loud Thur's headlong march,
Who hath stretcht the stony arch?
That the wayfarer blesses his path!
That the storming river wastes his wrath!
Was it a puissant prince, in quelling
This watery vassal, oft rebelling?—
Or earthly Mars, the bar o'erleaping,
That wrong'd his war of its onward sweeping?
Did yon high-nesting Castellan
Lead the brave Street, for horse and man?
And, the whiles his House creeps under the grass,
The Road, that he built, lies fair to pass?
Nay! not for the Bridge, which ye look upon,
Manly hest knit stone with stone.
The loved word of a woman's mouth
Bound the thundering chasm with a rocky growth.
She, in turret, who sitteth lone,
Listing the broad stream's heavier groan,
Kenning the flow, from his loosen'd fountains,
From the clouds, that have wash'd a score of mountains.
A skiff she notes, by the shelvy marge,
Wont deftly across to speed its charge;
Now jumping and twisting, like leaf on a lynn,
Wo! if a foot list cradle therein!
Sooner, than hath she thought her feeling,
With travellers twain is the light plank reeling.
Who are they?... Marble watcher! Who?
Thy beautiful, youthful, only two!
Coming, glad, from the greenwood slaughter,
They reach the suddenly-swollen water;
But the nimble, strong, and young,
Boldly into the bark have sprung.
The game in the forest fall, stricken and bleeding;
Those river-waves are of other breeding!
And the shriek of the mother helpeth not,
At seeing turn upwards the keel of the boat.
Whilst her living pulses languish,
As she taketh in her anguish,
By the roar, her soul which stuns,
On the corses of her sons.
Needs must she upon the mothers think,
Who yet may stand beholding sink,
Under the hastily-roused billow,
Sons, upthriven to be their pillow.
Till, in her deeply-emptied bosom,
There buds a melancholy blossom,
Tear-nourisht:—the will the wo to spare
To others, which hath left her bare.
Ere doth her sorrow a throe abate,
Is chiseling and quarrying, early, late.
The hoarse flood chafes, with straiten'd tides:
Aloft, the proud Arch climbs and strides.
How her eyes, she fastens on frolicsome boys,
O'er the stone way racing, with careless noise.
Hark!—hark!—the wild Thur, how he batters his rocks!
But ye gaze, laugh, and greet the gruff chider, with mocks.
Or, she vieweth with soft footfall,
Mothers, following their children all.
A gleam of pleasure, a spring of yearning,