Behind are the abandon'd baths 1
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are on the valley-paths,
The mists are on the Rhone-

The white mists rolling like a sea!
I hear the torrents roar.

-Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee;
I feel thee near once more!

I turn thy leaves! I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;

That air of languor, cold, and death,
Which brooded o'er thy soul.

Fly hence, poor wretch, whoe'er thou art,
Condemn'd to cast about,

All shipwreck in thy own weak heart, For comfort from without!

A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spirit turns,
Here, on its bed of pain.

Yes, though the virgin mountain-air
Fresh through these pages blows;
Though to these leaves the glaciers spare
The soul of their white snows;

Though here a mountain-murmur swells
Of many a dark-bough'd pine;
Though, as you read, you hear the bells
Of the high-pasturing kine-

Yet, through the hum of torrent lone, And brooding mountain-bee,

There sobs I know not what ground-tone Of human agony.

Is it for this, because the sound
Is fraught too deep with pain,
That, Obermann! the world around
So little loves thy strain?

Some secrets may the poet tell, For the world loves new ways; To tell too deep ones is not wellIt knows not what he says.

Yet, of the spirits who have reign'd In this our troubled day,

I know but two, who have attain'd Save thee, to see their way.

1 The Baths of Leuk. This poem was con ceived, and partly composed, in the valley going down from the foot of the Gemmi Pass towards the Rhone. (Arnold.)

By England's lakes, in gray old age,
His quiet home one keeps;
And one, the strong much-toiling sage,
In German Weimar sleeps.

But Wordsworth's eyes avert their ken
From half of human fate;

And Goethe's course few sons of men
May think to emulate.

For he pursued a lonely road,
His eyes on Nature's plan;
Neither made man too much a God,
Nor God too much a man.

Strong was he, with a spirit free
From mists, and sane, and clear;
Clearer, how much! than ours--yet we
Have a worse course to steer.

For though his manhood bore the blast
Of a tremendous time,

Yet in a tranquil world was pass'd
His tenderer youthful prime.

But we, brought forth and rear'd in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise-
What shelter to grow ripe is ours?
What leisure to grow wise?

Like children bathing on the shore,
Buried a wave beneath,

The second wave succeeds, before
We have had time to breathe.

Too fast we live, too much are tried,
Too harass'd, to attain
Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's
wide

And luminous view to gain.

And then we turn, thou sadder sage,
To thee! we feel thy spell!
-The hopeless tangle of our age,
Thou too hast scann'd it well!

Immoveable thou sittest, still
As death, composed to bear!
Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill,
And icy thy despair.

Yes, as the son of Thetis said,

I hear thee saying now:

Greater by far than thou are dead;

Strive not! die also thou!

Ah! two desires toss about
The poet's feverish blood.

One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.

The glow, he cries, the thrill of life, Where, where do these abound ?— Not in the world, not in the strife Of men, shall they be found.

He who hath watch'd, not shared, the strife,

Knows how the day hath gone.
He only lives with the world's life,
Who hath renounced his own.

To thee we come, then! Clouds are roll'd
Where thou, O seer! art set;

Thy realm of thought is drear and coldThe world is colder yet!

And thou hast pleasures, too, to share With those who come to theeBalms floating on thy mountain-air, And healing sights to see.

How often, where the slopes are green
On Jaman, hast thou sate

By some high chalet-door, and seen
The summer-day grow late;

And darkness steal o'er the wet grass
With the pale crocus starr'd,

And reach that glimmering sheet of glass

Beneath the piny sward,

Lake Leman's waters, far below!
And watch'd the rosy light

Fade from the distant peaks of snow;
And on the air of night

Heard accents of the eternal tongue
Through the pine branches play-
Listen'd, and felt thyself grow young!
Listen'd and wept-Away!

Away the dreams that but deceive
And thou, sad guide, adieu!

I go, fate drives me ; but I leave
Half of my life with you.

We, in some unknown Power's employ,
Move on a rigorous line;

Can neither, when we will, enjoy,
Nor, when we will, resign.

I in the world must live; but thou,
Thou melancholy shade!

Wilt not, if thou canst see me now,
Condemn me, nor upbraid.

For thou art gone away from earth, And place with those dost claim, The Children of the Second Birth, Whom the world could not tame;

And with that small, transfigured band,
Whom many a different way
Conducted to their common land,
Thou learn'st to think as they.

Christian and pagan, king and slave,
Soldier and anchorite,

Distinctions we esteem so grave,
Are nothing in their sight.

They do not ask, who pined unseen,
Who was on action hurl'd.

Whose one bond is, that all have been
Unspotted by the world.

There without anger thou wilt see
Him who obeys thy spell

No more, so he but rest, like thee,
Unsoil'd-and so, farewell.

Farewell!-Whether thou now liest near
That much-loved inland sea,

The ripples of whose blue waves cheer
Vevey and Meillerie :

And in that gracious region bland,
Where with clear-rustling wave
The scented pines of Switzerland
Stand dark round thy green grave,

Between the dusty vineyard-walls
Issuing on that green place
The early peasant still recalls
The pensive stranger's face,

And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date
Ere he plods on again ;--

Or whether, by maligner fate,
Among the swarms of men,

Where between granite terraces
The blue Seine rolls her wave,
The Capital of Pleasure sees
The hardly-heard-of grave;—-

Farewell! Under the sky we part,
In the stern Alpine dell.

O unstrung will! O broken heart!
A last, a last farewell!

REQUIESCAT

STREW on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes;

Ah, would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required;

She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be.

1852.

AND the first gray of morning fill'd the east,

And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;

Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; But when the gray dawn stole into his tent.

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,

And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent;

And went abroad into the cold wet fog. Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.

Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood Clustering like beehives on the low flat strand

Of Oxus, where, the summer-floods o'erflow

When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere:

Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,

And to a hillock came, a little back From the stream's brink-the spot where first a boat,

Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes

the land.

Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;

And he rose quickly on one arm, and said :

"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.

Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:

"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. The sun is not yet risen, and the foe Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie

Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, In Samarcand, before the army march'd; And I will tell thee what my heart desires.

Thou know's if, since from Ader-baijan first

I came among the Tartars and bore arms, I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,

At my boy's years, the courage of a man. This too thou know'st, that while I still

bear on

Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs,

And share the battle's common chance with us

Who love thee, but must press for ever first,

In single fight incurring single risk,
To find a father thou hast never seen?"
That were far best, my son, to stay with

us

Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war,

And when 't is truce, then in Afrasiab's towns.

But, if this one desire indeed rules all, To seek out Rustum-seek him not through fight!

Seek him in peace, and carry to his

arms,

O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! But far hence seek him, for he is not here.

For now it is not as when I was young, When Rustum was in front or every fray;

But now he keeps apart, and sits at home,

In Seistan, with Zal, his father old. Whether that his own mighty strength at last

Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, Or in some quarrel with the Persian King.

There go!-Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes

Danger or death awaits thee on this field.

Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost

To us; fain therefore send thee hence,

In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword;

And on his head he set his sheep-skin сар,

Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of KaraKul;

And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd

His herald to his side, and went abroad. The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog

From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.

And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed

Into the open plain; so Haman badeHaman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled The host, and still was in his lusty prime.

From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;

As when some gray November morn the

files,

Light men and on light steeds, who only drink

The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.

And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came

From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;

The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks

Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes [ern waste, Who roam o'er Kipchak and the north

Second, and was the uncle of the King; These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:

"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up,

Yet champion have we none to match this youth.

He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart;

But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits

And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart.

Him will I seek, and carry to his ear The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name.

Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up."

So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried :

"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast