The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iii Part 2

THE VEILED IMAGE AT SAS (1795)

A youth, whom wisdom's warm desire had lured To learn the secret lore of Egypt's priests, To Sas came. And soon, from step to step Of upward mystery, swept his rapid soul!

Still ever sped the glorious Hope along, Nor could the parch'd Impatience halt, appeased By the calm answer of the Hierophant-- "What have I, if I have not all," he sigh'd; "And giv'st thou but the little and the more?

Does thy truth dwindle to the gauge of gold, A sum that man may smaller or less small Possess and count--subtract or add to--still?

Is not TRUTH _one_ and indivisible?

Take from the Harmony a single tone A single tint take from the Iris bow-- And lo! what once was all, is nothing--while Fails to the lovely whole one tint or tone!"

They stood within the temple's silent dome, And, as the young man paused abrupt, his gaze Upon a veil'd and giant IMAGE fell: Amazed he turn'd unto his guide--"And what Towers, yonder, vast beneath the veil?"

"THE TRUTH,"

Answered the Priest.

"And have I for the truth Panted and struggled with a lonely soul, And yon the thin and ceremonial robe That wraps her from mine eyes?"

Replied the Priest, "There shrouds herself the still Divinity.

Hear, and revere her best: 'Till I this veil Lift--may no mortal-born presume to raise; And who with guilty and unhallow'd hand Too soon profanes the Holy and Forbidden-- He,' says the G.o.ddess."-- "Well?"

"'SHALL SEE THE TRUTH!'"

"And wond'rous oracle; and hast _thou_ never Lifted the veil?"

"No! nor desired to raise!"

"What! nor desired? O strange, incurious heart, Here the thin barrier--there reveal'd the truth!"

Mildly return'd the priestly master: "Son, More mighty than thou dream'st of, Holy Law Spreads interwoven in yon slender web, Air-light to touch--lead-heavy to the soul!"

The young man, thoughtful, turn'd him to his home, And the sharp fever of the Wish to Know Robb'd night of sleep. Around his couch he roll'd, Till midnight hatch'd resolve-- "Unto the shrine!"

Stealthily on, the involuntary tread Bears him--he gains the boundary, scales the wall, And midway in the inmost, holiest dome, Strides with adventurous step the daring man.

Now halts he where the lifeless Silence sleeps In the embrace of mournful Solitude;-- Silence unstirr'd--save where the guilty tread Call'd the dull echo from mysterious vaults!

High from the opening of the dome above, Came with wan smile the silver-s.h.i.+ning moon.

And, awful as some pale presiding G.o.d, Dim-gleaming through the hush of that large gloom, In its wan veil the Giant Image stood.

With an unsteady step he onward past, Already touch'd the violating hand The Holy--and recoil'd! a shudder thrill'd His limbs, fire-hot and icy-cold in turns, As if invisible arms would pluck the soul Back from the deed.

"O miserable man!

What would'st thou?" (Thus within the inmost heart Murmur'd the warning whisper.) "Wilt thou dare The All-hallow'd to profane? 'No mortal-born'

(So spake the oracular word)--'may lift the veil Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not-- The same oracular word--'who lifts the veil Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may, I dare the hazard--I will lift the veil--"

Loud rang his shouting voice--"and I will see!"

"SEE!"

A lengthen'd echo, mocking, shrill'd again!

He spoke and rais'd the veil! And ask'st thou what Unto the sacrilegious gaze lay bare?

I know not--pale and senseless, stretch'd before The statue of the great Egyptian queen, The priests beheld him at the dawn of day; But what he saw, or what did there befall, His lips reveal'd not. Ever from his heart Was fled the sweet serenity of life, And the deep anguish dug the early grave "Woe--woe to him"--such were his warning words, Answering some curious and impetuous brain, "Woe--for her face shall charm him never more!

Woe--woe to him who treads through Guilt to TRUTH!"

THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL LIFE (1795)

I

Forever fair, forever calm and bright, Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light, For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice-- Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb, And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom The rosy days of G.o.ds-- With Man, the choice, Timid and anxious, hesitates between The sense's pleasure and the soul's content; While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen, The beams of both are blent.

II

Seek'st thou on earth the life of G.o.ds to share, Safe in the Realm of Death?--beware To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eye; Content thyself with gazing on their glow-- Short are the joys Possession can bestow, And in Possession sweet Desire will die.

'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that bound Thy daughter, Ceres, to the Stygian river-- She pluck'd the fruit of the unholy ground, And so--was h.e.l.l's forever!

III

The Weavers of the Web--the Fates--but sway The matter and the things of clay; Safe from each change that Time to Matter gives, Nature's blest playmate, free at will to stray With G.o.ds a G.o.d, amidst the fields of Day, The FORM, the ARCHETYPE,[4] serenely lives.

Would'st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing?

Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and the real, High from this cramp'd and dungeon being, spring Into the Realm of the Ideal!

IV

Here, bathed, Perfection, in thy purest ray, Free from the clogs and taints of clay, Hovers divine the Archetypal Man!

Dim as those phantom ghosts of life that gleam And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,-- Fair as it stands in fields Elysian, Ere down to Flesh the Immortal doth descend:-- If doubtful ever in the Actual life Each contest--_here_ a victory crowns the end Of every n.o.bler strife.

V

Not from the strife itself to set thee free, But more to nerve--doth Victory Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime.

Whate'er thy wish, the Earth has no repose-- Life still must drag thee onward as it flows, Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time.

But when the courage sinks beneath the dull Sense of its narrow limits--on the soul, Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful, Bursts the attained goal!

VI

If worth thy while the glory and the strife Which fire the lists of Actual Life-- The ardent rush to fortune or to fame, In the hot field where Strength and Valor are, And rolls the whirling thunder of the car, And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game-- Then dare and strive--the prize can but belong To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails; In life the victory only crowns the strong-- He who is feeble fails.

VII

But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil'd, Chafed while confin'd, foams fierce and wild, Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand, When its waves, gla.s.sing in their silver play, Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray, Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL--that Shadow-Land!

Here, contest grows but interchange of Love; All curb is but the bondage of the Grace; Gone is each foe,--Peace folds her wings above Her native dwelling-place.

VIII

When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light, With the dull matter to unite The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows; Behold him straining every nerve intent-- Behold how, o'er the subject element, The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes!

For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well-- The statue only to the chisel's stroke Wakes from its marble cell.

IX

But onward to the Sphere of Beauty--go Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo, Out of the matter which thy pains control The Statue springs!--not as with labor wrung From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung-- Airy and light--the offspring of the soul!

The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost Leave not a trace when once the work is done-- The Artist's human frailty merged and lost In Art's great victory won!

X

If human Sin confronts the rigid law Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe Seizes and saddens thee to see how far Beyond thy reach, Perfection;--if we test By the Ideal of the Good, the best, How mean our efforts and our actions are!

This s.p.a.ce between the Ideal of man's soul And man's achievement, who hath ever past?

An ocean spreads between us and that goal Where anchor ne'er was cast!

XI