A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, And his cheek change tempestuously;
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 why?
Time taught him a deep answer
Himself like what he had been: on the sea And on the shore he was a wanderer! There was a mass of many images Crowded like waves upon me; but he was A part of all, and in the last he lay Reposing from the noontide sultriness, Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names Of those who rear'd them: by his sleeping side Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man, | Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while, While many of his tribe slumber'd around, when she And they were canopied by the blue sky So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, That God alone was to be seen in heaven. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The lady of his love was wed with one Who did not love her better: in her home, A thousand leagues from his, her native home, She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy, Daughters and sons of beauty, Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife, And an unquiet drooping of the eye, As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. What could her grief be? she had all 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 sate 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't were With a convulsion, then arose again, And he who had so loved her was not there And, with his teeth and quivering hands, did To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts. What could her grief be? she had loved him not, Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved; Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd Upon her mind, - a spectre of the past.
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-entered there; She was serene and smiling then, 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: He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu; For they did part with mutual smiles: he pass'd From out the massy gate of that old hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way, And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more! A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was return'd. I saw him stand Before an altar, with a gentle bride: Her face was fair,
but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood! as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock That in the antique oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then, As in that hour, a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded as it came; And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting Vows, but heard not his own words;
And all things reel'd around him! he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been;
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the And the quick spirit of the universe
All things pertaining to that place and hour, And her who was his destiny came back, And thrust themselves between him and the light: What business had they there at such a time?
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The lady of his love, oh! she was changed As by the sickness of the soul: her mind Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes, They had not their own lustre, but the look Which is not of the earth: she was become The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts Were combinations of disjointed things; And forms impalpable and unperceived Of others' sight - familiar were to hers. And this the world calls frenzy! but the wise Have a far deeper madness; and the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift: What is it but the telescope of truth? Which strips the distance of its phantasies, And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making the cold reality too real!
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was alone as heretofore; The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him! he was a mark For blight and desolation, compass'd round With hatred and contention: pain was mix'd In all which was served up to him, until, Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment: he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains! with the
Robert Southey ward am 12. August 1774 in Bristol geboren, studirte zu Oxford Theologie und fasste darauf den Plan mit Coleridge und Lorell nach Amerika zu gehn und dort eine Pantisowacy zu gründen. Es wurde jedoch Nichts daraus und Southey machte nun eine Reise nach Lissabon, von der er nach sechs Monaten zurückkehrte, sich vermählte und fortan literarischen Beschäftigungen lebte. Während der Jahre 1800 und 1801 besuchte er nochmals Spanien und Portugal und wurde darauf bei seiner Zurückkunft Secretair des damaligen Kanzlers der Schatz
kammer von Irland, Carry, legte aber 1803 dieses Amt nieder und zog sich nach Keswick in Cumberland zurück. 1813 erhielt er die Bestallung eines Hofpoeten, ohne die Verpflichtung indessen den Geburtstag des Königs alljährlich mit einer Ode zu feiern und 1834 eine Pension von 300 Pfund Sterling. Er starb 1843.
Southey hat sehr viele poetische wie prosaische Schriften hinterlassen. Seine dichterischen Leistungen umschliessen mehrere epische Poesieen von grösserem Umfange, wie z. B. Thalaba, Madae, the curse of Kehama, Roderick; ein Trauerspiel Wat Tyler, viele lyrische Gedichte u. s. w. Eine treffliche Auswahl aus denselben für die Jugend erschien London 1831 in 12. Gesammelt kamen seine poetischen Werke London 1820, 14 Bde in 8. heraus. Die Eigenschaften, welche ihn als Dichter auszeichnen, sind Reichthum der Phantasie, Geist, Lebendigkeit, Witz und Gefühl, aber es fehlt ihm an Ruhe und Besonnenheit; er lässt sich zu sehr vom Augenblicke hinreissen und giebt zu viel auf den ersten Eindruck. Er glänzt zu oft auf Kosten der Wahrheit und bleibend ist daher selten eine seiner Gestalten. Zu häufig bringt er bloss rhetorische Schönheit statt poetischer und glaubt zu genügen, wenn er die nackten Seiten seiner Stoffe durch schimmernden Flitter verhüllt. Uebrigens ist er vollkommener Herr der Sprache, aber mehr ihr launenhafter Tyrann als ihr wohlwollender Gebieter.
Noch weit bedeutender als seine Dichtungen, sind seine Biographieen, namentlich seine Lebensbeschreibung Nelson's; hier ist er auch in den kleinsten Theilen ein bewährter Meister und ein edles Vorbild.
I marvel not, o Sun! that unto thee In adoration man should bow the knee,
And pour his prayers of mingled awe and love; | For like a God thou art, and on thy way Of glory sheddest with benignant ray,
Beauty, and life, and joyance from above. No longer let these mists thy radiance shroud,
These cold raw mists that chill the comfortless
day; But shed thy splendour through the opening cloud
And cheer the earth once more. The languid flowers
Lie odourless, bent down with heavy rain, Earth asks thy presence, saturate with showers!
O lord of light! put forth thy beams again, For damp and cheerless are the gloomy hours.
Man hath a weary pilgrimage As through the world he wends, On every stage from youth to age Still discontent attends; With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before, And still remembers with a sigh The days that are no more.
To school the little exile goes, Torn from his mother's arms, What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms? Condemn'd to suffer through the day Restraints which no rewards repay, And cares where love has no concern: Hope lengthens as she counts the hours Before his wish'd return.
From hard controul and tyrant rules, The unfeeling discipline of schools, In thought he loves to roam, And tears will struggle in his eye While he remembers with a sigh The comforts of his home.
Youth comes; the toils and cares of life Torment the restless mind;
Where shall the tired and harass'd heart Its consolation find?
Then is not Youth, as Fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy? Ah no! for hopes too long delay'd, And feelings blasted or betray'd, The fabled bliss destroy; And Youth remembers with a sigh The careless days of Infancy.
Maturer Manhood now arrives, And other thoughts come on, But with the baseless hopes of Youth Its generous warmth is gone : Cold calculating cares succeed, The timid thought, the wary deed, The dull realities of truth;
Back on the past he turns his eye; Remembering with an envious sigh The happy dreams of Youth.
So reaches he the latter stage Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow; New ills that latter stage await, And old Experience learns too late
That all is vanity below. Life's vain delusions are gone by, Its idle hopes are o'er, Yet Age remembers with a sigh The days that are no more.
Passing across a green and lonely lane A funeral met our view. It was not here A sight of every day, as in the streets Of some great city, and we stopt and ask'd Whom they were bearing to the grave. A girl, They answer'd, of the village, who had pined Through the long course of eighteen painful months
With such slow wasting, that the hour of death Came welcome to her. We pursued our way To the house of mirth, and with that idle talk Which passes o'er the mind and is forgot,
We wore away the time. But it was eve When homewardly I went, and in the air Was that cool freshness, that discolouring shade Which makes the eye turn inward: hearing then Over the vale the heavy toll of death Sound slow, it made me think upon the dead; I question'd more, and learnt her mournful tale. She bore unhusbanded a mother's pains; And he who should have cherish'd her, far off Sail'd on the seas. Left thus a wretched one, Scorn made a mock of her, and evil tongues Were busy with her name. She had to bear The sharper sorrow of neglect from him Whom she had loved so dearly. Once he wrote, But only once that drop of comfort came To mingle with her cup of wretchedness; And when his parents had some tidings from him, There was no mention of poor Hannah there, Or 'twas the cold inquiry, more unkind Than silence. So she pined and pined away, And for herself and baby toil'd and toil'd; Nor did she, even on her death-bed, rest From labour, knitting there with lifted arms,
Till she sunk with very weakness. Her old mother
Omitted no kind office, working for her, Albeit her hardest labour barely earn'd Enough to keep life struggling, and prolong The pains of grief and sickness. Thus she lay On the sick bed of poverty, worn out With her long suffering and those painful thoughts Which at her heart were rankling, and so weak, That she could make no effort to express Affection for her infant; and the child, Whose lisping love perhaps had solaced her, Shunn'd her as one indifferent. But she too Had grown indifferent to all things of earth; Finding her only comfort in the thought Of that cold bed wherein the wretched rest. There had she now, in that last home been laid, And all was over now, sickness and grief, Her shame, her suffering, and her penitence: Their work was done. The school-boys as they sport
In the church-yard, for awhile might turn away From the fresh grave till grass should cover it; Nature would do that office soon; and none Who trod upon the senseless turf would think Of what a world of woes lay buried there!
Slowly thy flowing tide
Came in, old Avon! scarcely did mine eyes, As watchfully I roam'd thy green-wood side, Behold the gentle rise.
With many a stroke and strong The labouring boatmen upward plied their oars, And yet the eye beheld them labouring long Between thy winding shores.
Now down thine ebbing tide The unlabour'd boat falls rapidly along; The solitary helmsman sits to guide, And sings an idle song.
Now o'er the rocks that lay So silent late the shallow current roars; Fast flow thy waters on their sea-ward way, Through wider-spreading shores.
Avon! I gaze and know The lesson emblem'd in thy varying way; It speaks of human joys that rise so slow, So rapidly decay.
Time's tardy course to manhood's envied stage; With what an agony of tenderness Alas! how hurryingly the ebbing years Then hasten to old age!
She gazed upon her children, and beheld His image who was gone. O God! be Thou, Who art the widow's friend, her comforter!
Stuns the glad ear! tidings of joy have come, Good tidings of great joy! two gallant ships Met on the element; they met, they fought A desperate fight! good tidings of great joy! Old England triumph'd! — yet another day Of glory for the ruler of the waves!
For those who fell, 'twas in their country's cause, They have their passing paragraphs of praise, And are forgotten!
There was one who died In that day's glory, whose obscurer name No proud historian's page will chronicle. Peace to his honest soul! I read his name, 'Twas in the list of slaughter, and blest God The sound was not familiar to mine ear. But it was told me, after, that this man Was one whom lawful violence had forced From his own home, and wife, and little ones, Who by his labour lived; that he was one Whose uncorrupted heart could keenly feel A husband's love, a father's anxiousness; That, from the wages of his toil, he fed
The distant dear ones, and would talk of them At midnight, when he trod the silent deck With him he valued; Which he had known,
talk of them, of joys
oh God! and of the hour
It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something lurge and round, Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And with a natural sigh,
"Tis some poor fellow's scull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden,
"For there's many here about; "And often when I go to plough,
"The ploughshare turns them out! "For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory."
"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries; While little Wilhelmine looks up,
With wonder-waiting eyes; "Now tell us all about the war, "And what they kill'd each other for."
"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; "But what they kill'd each other for,
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