The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 4

"Jehovah! Thy glories I spit upon; I am the King of Babylon!"

But scarce had the awful words been said When the King's heart withered with secret dread.

The boisterous laughter was stifled all, And corpselike still did wax the hall;

Lo! lo! on the whited wall there came The likeness of a man's hand in flame,

And wrote, and wrote, in letters of flame, And wrote and vanished, and no more came.

The King stark-staring sat, a-quail, With knees a-knocking, and face death-pale,

The satraps' blood ran cold--none stirred; They sat like statues, without a word.

The Magians came; but none of them all Could read those letters of flame on the wall.

But in that same night of his vaunting vain By his satraps' hand was Belshazzar slain.

THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR[27] (1823)

1

The mother stood at the window; Her son lay in bed, alas!

"Will you not get up, dear William, To see the procession pa.s.s?"

"O mother, I am so ailing, I neither can hear nor see; I think of my poor dead Gretchen, And my heart grows faint in me."

"Get up, we will go to Kevlaar; Your book and your rosary take; The Mother of G.o.d will heal you, And cure your heart of its ache."

The Church's banners are waving, They are chanting a hymn divine; 'Tis at Koln is that procession, At Koln upon the Rhine.

With the throng the mother follows; Her son she leads with her; and now They both of them sing in the chorus, "Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!"

2

The Mother of G.o.d at Kevlaar Is drest in her richest array; She has many a cure on hand there, Many sick folk come to her today.

And her, for their votive offerings, The suffering sick folk greet With limbs that in wax are molded, Many waxen hands and feet.

And whoso a wax hand offers, His hand is healed of its sore; And whoso a wax foot offers, His foot it will pain him no more.

To Kevlaar went many on crutches Who now on the tight-rope bound, And many play now on the fiddle Had there not one finger sound.

The mother she took a wax taper, And of it a heart she makes "Give that to the Mother of Jesus, She will cure thee of all thy aches."

With a sigh her son took the wax heart, He went to the shrine with a sigh; His words from his heart trickle sadly, As trickle the tears from his eye.

"Thou blest above all that are blest, Thou virgin unspotted divine, Thou Queen of the Heavens, before thee I lay all my anguish and pine.

"I lived with my mother at Koln, At Koln in the town that is there, The town that has hundreds many Of chapels and churches fair.

"And Gretchen she lived there near us, But now she is dead, well-a-day!

O Mary! a wax heart I bring thee, Heal thou my heart's wound, I pray!

"Heal thou my heart of its anguish, And early and late, I vow, With its whole strength to pray and to sing, too, 'Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!'"

3

The suffering son and his mother In their little bed-chamber slept; Then the Mother of G.o.d came softly, And close to the sleepers crept.

She bent down over the sick one, And softly her hand did lay On his heart, with a smile so tender, And presently vanished away.

The mother sees all in her dreaming, And other things too she marked; Then up from her slumber she wakened, So loudly the town dogs barked.

There lay her son, to his full length Stretched out, and he was dead; And the light on his pale cheek flitted Of the morning's dawning red.

She folded her hands together, She felt as she knew not how, And softly she sang and devoutly, "Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!"

THE RETURN HOME (1823-24)

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Once upon my life's dark pathway Gleamed a phantom of delight; Now that phantom fair has vanished, I am wholly wrapt in night.

Children in the dark, they suffer At their heart a spasm of fear; And, their inward pain to deaden, Sing aloud, that all may hear.

I, a madcap child, now childlike In the dark to sing am fain; If my song be not delightsome, It at least has eased my pain.

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We sat at the fisherman's cottage, And gazed upon the sea; Then came the mists of evening, And rose up silently.

The lights within the lighthouse Were kindled one by one, We saw still a s.h.i.+p in the distance On the dim horizon alone.

We spoke of tempest and s.h.i.+pwreck, Of sailors and of their life, And how 'twixt clouds and billows They're tossed, 'twixt joy and strife.

We spoke of distant countries From North to South that range, Of strange fantastic nations, And their customs quaint and strange.

The Ganges is flooded with splendor, And perfumes waft through the air, And gentle people are kneeling To Lotos flowers fair.

In Lapland the people are dirty, Flat-headed, large-mouthed, and small; They squat round the fire and, frying Their fishes, they shout and they squall.

The girls all gravely listened, Not a word was spoken at last; The s.h.i.+p we could see no longer, Darkness was settling so fast.

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