The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06

Violet and sulphur-yellow was its hue,
It seemed to throb with love's mysterious magic.

Tradition says, when Christ was crucified
On Calvary, that in that very hour
These petals with the Savior's blood were dyed,
And therefore is it named the passion-flower.

The hue of blood, they say, its blossom wears,
And all the instruments of human malice
Used at the crucifixion still it bears
In miniature within its tiny chalice.

Whatever to the Passion's rite belongs,
Each tool of torture here is represented
The crown of thorns, cup, nails and hammer, thongs,
The cross on which our Master was tormented.

'Twas such a flower at my tomb did stand,
Above my lifeless form in sorrow bending,
And, like a mourning woman, kissed my hand,
My brow and eyes, with silent grief contending.

And then—O witchery of dreams most strange!—
By some occult and sudden transformation
This flower to a woman's shape did change—
'Twas she I loved with soul-deep adoration!

'Twas thou in truth, my dearest, only thou;
I knew thee by thy kisses warm and tender.
No flower-lips thus softly touched my brow,
Such burning tears no flower's cup might render!
Mine eyes were shut, and yet my soul could see
Thy steadfast countenance divinely beaming,
As, calm with rapture, thou didst gaze on me,
Thy features in the spectral moonlight gleaming.

We did not speak, and yet my heart could tell
The hidden thoughts that thrilled within thy bosom.
No chaste reserve in spoken words may dwell—
With silence Love puts forth its purest blossom.

A voiceless dialogue! one scarce might deem,
While mute we thus communed in tender fashion,
How time slipped by like some seraphic dream
Of night, all woven of joy and fear-sweet passion.

Ah, never ask of us what then we said;
Ask what the glow-worm glimmers to the grasses,
Or what the wavelet murmurs in its bed,
Or what the west wind whispers as it passes.

Ask what rich lights from carbuncles outstream,
What perfumed thoughts o'er rose and violet hover—
But never ask what, in the moonlight's beam,
The sacred flower breathed to her dead lover.

I cannot tell how long a time I lay,
Dreaming the ecstasy of joys Elysian,
Within my marble shrine. It fled away—
The rapture of that calm untroubled vision.

Death, with thy grave-deep stillness, thou art best,
Delight's full cup thy hand alone can proffer;
The war of passions, pleasure without rest—
Such boons are all that vulgar life can offer.

Alas! a sudden clamor put to flight
My bliss, and all my comfort rudely banished;
'Twas such a screaming, ramping, raging fight
That mid the uproar straight my flower vanished.

Then on all sides began a savage war
Of argument, with scolding and with jangling.
Some voices surely I had heard before—
Why, 'twas my bas-reliefs had fall'n a-wrangling!

Do old delusions haunt these marbles here,
And urge them on to frantic disputations?
The terror-striking shout of Pan rings clear,
While Moses hurls his stern denunciations.

Alack! the wordy strife will have no end,
Beauty and Truth will ever be at variance,
A schism still the ranks of man will rend
Into two camps, the Hellenes and Barbarians.

Both parties thus reviled and cursed away,
And none who heard could tell the why or whether,
Till Balaam's ass at last began to bray
And soon outbawled both gods and saints together.

With strident-sobbing hee-haw, hee-haw there—
His unremitting discords without number—
That beast so nearly brought me to despair
That I cried out—and wakened from my slumber.

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Prose