| |
Translated by J. R. Chorley
DOWN I gazed from Eifel’s ridges wooded, | |
| As the moon at full the clouds ’gan break; | |
| Far and dazzling white, her lustre flooded | |
| Laach’s monastic walls and tranquil lake. | |
| |
| Gently breathed low winds across the valley, | 5 |
| Leaves and sedges whispered round the strand; | |
| From the flood arose, and beckoned palely, | |
| Fair and slim, the Nun’s mysterious hand. | |
| |
| Like a flower afar, it glimmered whitely, | |
| Rose and fell as heaved the water slow; | 10 |
| Round it, mirrored stars were shining brightly,— | |
| Were they charmed from heaven to shine below? | |
| |
| Still the spotless hand the sign repeated; | |
| Shuddering swelled the wave with surging flow; | |
| Lights unearthly through the branches fleeted; | 15 |
| O’er the crossway leapt the frightened roe. | |
| |
| Was ’t the hind, that Genoveva mourning | |
| Long attended, and her tears consoled? | |
| O, there seized me then a sore sweet yearning | |
| For the holy fable-world of old! | 20 |
| |
| Nearly, then, yon pallid hand obeying, | |
| Had I followed to its magic cell; | |
| But, with force awaked, myself arraying | |
| ’Gainst myself, I rose above the spell. | |
| |
| Lake and abbey, spires of rock and turret, | 25 |
| Wood and vale, where Genoveva mourned: | |
| From the scene, with moonlight glancing o’er it, | |
| With one look, my last, I firmly turned. | |
| |
| Hastening thence, by tangled paths, while ever | |
| On the leaves the wildering moonlight lay, | 30 |
| Toward the morning, and my native river;— | |
| From the night to welcome in the day! | |
| |
| So for real life I left my dreaming; | |
| Shades and ghosts forsook without a sigh: | |
| Yonder, lo!—in joyous sunlight gleaming, | 35 |
| Deep and broad and green, the Rhine rushed by! | |
| |
| Rushed the Rhine;—and life in motion met me; | |
| Yes! these shores to life my heart invite; | |
| Nor like those I left, extend to greet me, | |
| Spectral hands, and lifeless fingers white. | 40 |
| |
| No! the grasp of welcome undissembling, | |
| From my people’s frank and faithful hands, | |
| That, with reverence due, but never trembling. | |
| By the mark, resolved, for Justice stands. | |
| |
| O, it chased, with ghosts and idle yearning, | 45 |
| All of night that on my bosom lay. | |
| To my nation, then, I bade “Good Morning!” | |
| Next, God willing, shall I bid “Good Day!” | |
| |
| So “Good Morning!” Free I choose my station | |
| With the people, and their cause make mine. | 50 |
| “Poet, march and labor with thy nation!” | |
| Thus I read, to-day, my Schiller’s line. | |
| |
