AUF WIEDERSEHEN. Now go and write thy little rhyme, AUF WIEDERSEHEN. IN MEMORY OF J. T. F. UNTIL we meet again! That is the meaning Of the familiar words, that men repeat At parting in the street. Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain We wait for the Again. THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. Farewells, that better might be called predictions, Faith overleaps the confines of our reason, And if by faith, as in old times was said, Women received their dead Raised up to life, then only for a season Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain Until we meet again! THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. [A FRAGMENT.] I. WHAT is this I read in history, Who shall answer or divine? Like a shower of blossoms blown More and more its whitening current Down through chasm and black ravine. Below, Now around them, white with snow, Plunged the cataract, white with foam; And it said, or seemed to say: "Oh return, while yet you may, Foolish children, to your home, There the Holy City is!" But the dauntless leader said: "Faint not, though your bleeding feet O'er these slippery paths of sleet Move but painfully and slowly; Other feet than yours have bled; Other tears than yours been shed. Courage! lose not heart or hope; On the mountains' southern slope Lies Jerusalem the Holy! As a white rose in its pride, By the wind in summer-tide Tossed and loosened from the branch, Showers its petals o'er the ground, From the distant mountain's side, Scattering all its snows around, With mysterious, muffled sound, Loosened, fell the avalanche. Voices, echoes far and near, Roar of winds and waters blending, Mists uprising, clouds impending, Filled them with a sense of fear, Formless, nameless, never ending. THE CITY AND THE SEA. THE panting City cried to the Sea, "I am faint with heat, — O breathe on me!" And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath To some will be life, to others death!” As to Prometheus, bringing ease In pain, come the Oceanides, So to the City, hot with the flame Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came. It came from the heaving breast of the deep, Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep. Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be; O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea? THESE words the poet heard in Paradise, A great soul cries to us in our suspense, "I came from martyrdom unto this peace!" In flowing robes of azure dressed; By day the coursers of the sun Their swift diurnal round on high; Fair lakes, serene and full of light. MOONLIGHT. As a pale phantom with a lamp Ascends some ruin's haunted stair, So glides the moon along the damp Mysterious chambers of the air. We see but what we have the gift TO THE AVON. FLOW on, sweet river! like his verse Thy playmate once; I see him now I see him by thy shallow edge He wonders whitherward it flows; WILL ever the dear days come back again, Forever and forever in this room, Of the heart's secret places, and we heard THE WINE OF JURANÇON. FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES CORAN. LITTLE Sweet wine of Jurançon, You are dear to my memory still! With mine host and his merry song, Under the rose-tree I drank my fill. Twenty years after, passing that way, Under the trellis I found again Mine host, still sitting there au frais, And singing still the same refrain. The Jurançon, so fresh and bold, Treats me as one it used to know; Souvenirs of the days of old Already from the bottle flow. With glass in hand our glances met; Was to my palate sour as this! And yet the vintage was good, in sooth; |