With useless grief, but tell me, gentle friend!
The god, the generous Prince you thus commend,
The noble patron to whose kind decrees
Second Shepherd.
good shepherd! hast thou heard
What wonders lurk beneath that little word?
For me, I own, before I view'd her towers,
I fondly thought her some such place as ours,
Our pretty Mantua, where so oft we drive
Our flocks to market. Shepherd, as I live,
It shames me now the idle dream to tell,
That liken'd things in no way parallel.
Why, gentle shepherd! Rome as far outvies
All other towns, her lordly turrets rise
As far above all fear of rivalry
Or envious peerage, as the cypress tree
In yonder garden towers in spiry pride
Above the lowly bushes by its side.
But what of Rome? what powerful cause or care
Could lead a rustic swain to wander there?
Freedom! gentle friend!
To sue for Freedom was my glorious end.
Sweet nymph! she mock'd my hopes with long delay;
She made me linger till my locks were grey;
But smil'd at last. Good shepherd! I had been
Too long the victim of a thriftless quean,
On whom, enthrall'd by love's inglorious chains,
In costly gifts I wasted all my gains,
Nor hop'd for liberty, nor car'd for gold.
In vain I toil'd; in vain the victim sold
For many a shrine; — in vain my cheeses bore
The highest prices; empty was my store:
My Galatea wanted all and more:
At length, though much too late, - Aminta's eyes Revers'd the charm, and taught me to be wise.
Aminta's charms your heart may justly move,
Since thus she gave you life as well as love.
I well remember when the voyage you made
To Rome, how oft the graceful mourner pray'd
At every altar, call'd in loud despair
The gods to aid her; still with generous care
Kept the ripe fruit that paid her husbandry
In mellow pride untouch'd upon the tree.
For you, my friend, the fruit was kept, — for you
She wept and pray'd: — we all, — the country through
Deplor'd your loss, the very groves of pine
Lamented it in tears of turpentine ;
Grief's gushing tides each fountain's margin wet,
And alders shone with dew-drops of regret.
In truth, good shepherd! much it griev'd my heart
From such a mistress, such a friend to part,
But nowhere else could I pursue my end
With like advantage, — nowhere else attend
The generous patron, in whose honor'd name
Twelve times each year my loaded altars flame.
At Rome I found him, there my suit preferr'd;
All trembling I, while he as kindly heard.
In peace ! no stranger shall invade your plains Or dare to interrupt your much-lov'd rustic strains.
Oh favor'd ancient! dwelling as before
On your own fields! nor need you wish for more.
Small though they be, and of that narrow bound,
Half, naked rock, and half, a swampy ground,
O'ergrown with rushes, they to you become,
Being, as they are, the dear domain of home,
More rich and charming than Hesperian bowers.
Amid their well-known haunts and wonted flowers
No pasture strange shall harm your pregnant ewes,
No stranger flock contagion shall diffuse
Among them:- here beneath your beech-tree laid,
Beside the babbling brook you court the shade.
From yonder willow hedge the toiling bee
With drowsy hum shall sing your lullaby;
The distant woodman trill his ditty clear
To rock and hill; and on the elm-tree here
Your favorite bird, the pretty ringdove, woo
His gentle mate, the constant turtle coo.
Delightful thoughts! and ere your friend shall cease
To bless the giver of a boon like this,
Great Nature's general laws no more shall stand;
Deer tread the deep, and fish frequent the land;
The Parthian bathe him in the turbid Rhine
And blue-eyed Belgium bask beneath the Line.
Less favor'd we to various regions haste,
Crete, - frozen Scythia, Afric's thirsty waste,
Or northward, where the circling Sleeve* divides
Britannia's cliffs from all the world besides.
Ah luckless shepherd! shall I e'er again
Some ten years hence behold my lov'd domain?
My little palace, roof'd with thatch, espy,
In time, at least, at its low door to die?
Oh God! what horrors civil discord pours
Upon the people, all my rural stores,—
The rich reward of all my toils and cares,
My golden grain,—my curious grafted pears,
My luscious grapes ; all sacrific'd to feed
The ruffian butchers, by whose rage we bleed.
Away, my goats! - poor fools! — in other time
How blest!-away! no longer shall you climb
With skilful step the mountain's beetling brow
While stretch'd in some green bower, I view you from
No more I sing ; I feed my kids no more:
Song, labor, pastime, hope itself is o'er.
Hard lot but, gentle friend! forget your care!
And deign to-night my humble roof to share;
Sweet apples, chestnuts, cheese in plenty spread
Shall be your meal; fresh leaves your fragrant bed.
Night hastens on : — o'er yonder roof aspires
The smoke, up-curling from the evening fires,
And from the hills the sun descending throws
A lengthening shade; - 't is time to seek repose.
*The French name for the British Channel is La Manche, The Sleeve.
SCENES FROM GOETHE'S FAUST.
[Boston Miscellany, October, 1842.]
THE plan of Faust was conceived by Goethe very early in his literary life, but was executed slowly and at long intervals of time. The first draft is supposed to have been made between 1770 and 1775. It was published, for the first time, in 1790, in a complete edition of the author's works, where it appeared as a fragment, without the introductory scenes, and with important variations, in other respects, from its later form. It was first published in its present shape in the edition of the author's works that appeared in 1807. In the introductory stanzas, which were then prefixed, for the first time, under the title of Zueignung, -'Dedication,'-and to which the translator has given the title of the Spirit Land, the poet expresses his feelings on resuming the favorite work of his earlier years at a later period of life, when most of the friends and companions of his youth had been separated from him. The stanzas are distinguished by a tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, which are not very frequently the prevailing characteristics of Goethe's works, and which render this one of the most pleasing of his minor poems.
Again ye throng around me, shadowy dreams,
That wont before my youthful eyes to play!
Shall I once more your ever changing gleams
Attempt to catch before they pass away?
And now ye nearer press. Then since, it seems,
Ye must and will appear, I bid you stay;
Although your presence racks my tortur'd brain
With a deep sense of long-forgotten pain.
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