Rampolli by George MacDonald

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Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed Proofreaders

RAMPOLLI

BY

GEORGE MACDONALD

CONTENTS.

PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS--
FROM NOVALIS
" SCHILLER
" GOETHE
" UHLAND
" HEINE
" VON SALIS-SEEWIS
" CLAUDIUS
FROM THE DUTCH OF GENESTET
FROM THE GERMAN--_Author to me unkown_
FROM PETRARCH
MILTON'S ITALIAN POEMS
LUTHER'S SONG-BOOK

A YEAR'S DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL

PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS.

I think every man who can should help his people to inherit the earth by
bringing into his own of the wealth of other tongues. In the flower-pots
of translation I offer these few exotics, with no little labour taught to
exist, I hope to breathe, in English air. Such labour is to me no less
serious than delightful, for to do a man's work, in the process of
carrying over, more injury than must be, is a serious wrong.

I have endeavoured, first of all, to give the spirit of the poetry.

Next, I have sought to retain each individual meaning that goes to form
the matter of a poem.

Third, I have aimed at preserving the peculiar mode, the aroma of the
poet's style, so far as I could do it without offence to the translating
English.

Fourth, both rhythm and rime being essential elements of every poem in
which they are used, I have sought to respect them rigorously.

Fifth, spirit, matter, and form truly represented, the more literal the
translation the more satisfactory will be the result.

After all, translation is but a continuous effort after the impossible.
There is in it a general difficulty whose root has a thousand
ramifications, the whole affair being but an accommodation of
difficulties, and a perfect translation from one language into another is
a thing that cannot be effected. One is tempted even to say that in the
whole range of speech there is no such thing as a synonym.

Much difficulty arises from the comparative paucity in English of double,
or feminine rimes. But I can remember only one case in which, yielding to
impossibility, I have sacrificed the feminine rime: where one thing or
another must go, the less valuable must be the victom.

But sometimes a whole passage has had to suffer that a specially poetic
line might retain its character.

With regard to the _Hymns to the Night_ and the _Spiritual Songs_ of
Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly called Novalis, it is desirable to
mention that they were written when the shadow of the death of his
betrothed had begun to thin before the approaching dawn of his own new
life. He died in 1801, at the age of twentynine. His parents belonged to
the sect called Moravians, but he had become a Roman Catholic.

Perhaps some of Luther's Songs might as well have been omitted, but they
are all translated that the Songbook might be a whole. Some, I cannot tell
how many or which, are from the Latin. His work is rugged, and where an
occasional fault in rime occurs I have reproduced it.

In the few poems from the Italian, I have found the representation of the
feminine rimes, so frequent in that language, an impossibility.

FROM NOVALIS.

HYMNS TO THE NIGHT
SPIRITUAL SONGS
A PARABLE (From THE DISCIPLES AT SAIS)

HYMNS TO THE NIGHT.

I.

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what
living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light, with its colours,
its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the
wakening Day? The giant world of the unresting constellations inhales it
as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its azure flood; the
sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the
wild, burning, multiform beast-world inhales it; but more than all, the
lordly stranger with the meaning eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly
closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every
force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable
alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. Its
presence alone reveals the marvellous splendour of the kingdoms of the
world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the
world, sunk in a deep grave; waste and lonely is its place. In the chords
of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of
dew, and mingle with the ashes.--The distances of memory, the wishes of
youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole
long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapour after the
sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents: what if
it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of
innocence?

What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the
soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dusky Night?
What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my
soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou
upliftest the heavy-laden pinions of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly
are we moved: joy-startled, I see a grave countenance that, tender and
worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks,
reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a
thing seems to me now the light! how joyous and welcome the departure of
the day!--Didst thou not only therefore, because the Night turns away from
thee thy servants, strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to
proclaim, in seasons of thy absence, thy omnipotence, and thy return?

More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which
the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those
countless hosts. Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths
of a loving soul that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory
to the queen of the world, to the great prophetess of holier worlds, to
the foster-mother of blissful love! she sends thee to me, thou tenderly
beloved, the gracious sun of the Night. Now am I awake, for now am I thine
and mine. Thou hast made me know the Night, and brought her to me to be my
life; thou hast made of me a man. Consume my body with the ardour of my
soul, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and
then our bridal night endure for ever.

II.

Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never
cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the
time never come when Love's hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the
Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of
the Night. Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep, gladden not too
seldom in this earthly day-labour, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools
alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the
gloaming of the real night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee
not in the golden flood of the grapes, in the magic oil of the almond
tree, and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who
hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap;
never suspect it is thou, the portress of heaven, that steppest to meet
them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the
blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.

III.

Once when I was shedding bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope
was melting away, and I stood alone by the barren hillock which in its
narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my Life, lonely as never yet
was lonely man, driven by anguish unspeakable, powerless, and no longer
aught but a conscious misery;--as there I looked about me for help, unable
to go on or to turn back, and clung to the fleeting, extinguished life
with an endless longing: then, out of the blue distances, from the hills
of my ancient bliss, came a shiver of twilight, and at once snapped the
bond of birth, the fetter of the Light. Away fled the glory of the world,
and with it my mourning; the sadness flowed together into a new,
unfathomable world. Thou, soul of the Night, heavenly Slumber, didst come
upon me; the region gently upheaved itself, and over it hovered my
unbound, new-born spirit. The hillock became a cloud of dust, and through
the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity
reposed. I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling chain
that could not be broken. Into the distance swept by, like a tempest,
thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic
tears. Never was such another dream; then first and ever since I hold fast
an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night, and its sun,
the Beloved.

IV.

Now I know when will come the last morning: when the light no more scares
away the Night and Love, when sleep shall be without waking, and but one
continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful
was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The
crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the
dark bosom of the hillock against whoose foot breaks the flood of the
world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of
the world, and looked across into the new land, into the abode of the
Night, verily he turns not again into the tumult of the world, into the
land where dwells the Light in ceaseless unrest.

On those heights he builds for himself tabernacles--tabernacles of peace;
there longs and loves and gazes across, until the welcomest of all hours
draws him down into the waters of the spring. Afloat above remains what is
earthly, and is swept back in storms; but what became holy by the touch of
Love, runs free through hidden ways to the region beyond, where, like
odours, it mingles with love asleep. Still wakest thou, cheerful Light,
the weary man to his labour, and into me pourest gladsome life; but thou
wilest me not away from Memory's mossgrown monument. Gladly will I bestir
the deedy hands, everywhere behold where thou hast need of me; bepraise
the rich pomp of thy splendour; pursue unwearied the lovely harmonies of
thy skilled handicraft; gladly contemplate the thoughtful pace of thy
mighty, radiant clock; explore the balance of the forces and the laws of
the wondrous play of countless worlds and their seasons; but true to the
Night remains my secret heart, and to creative Love, her daughter. Canst
_thou_ show me a heart eternally true? Has thy sun friendly eyes that know
me? Do thy stars lay hold of my longing hand? Do they return me the tender
pressure and the caressing word? Was it thou didst bedeck them with
colours and a flickering outline? Or was it _she_ who gave to thy jewels a
higher, a dearer significance? What delight, what pleasure offers _thy_
life, to outweigh the transports of Death? Wears not everything that
inspirits us the livery of the Night? Thy mother, it is she who brings
thee forth, and to her thou owest all thy glory. Thou wouldst vanish into
thyself, thou wouldst dissipate in boundless space, if she did not hold
thee fast, if she swaddled thee not, so that thou grewest warm, and,
flaming, gavest birth to the universe. Verily I was before thou wast; the
mother sent me with my sisters to inhabit thy world, to sanctify it with
love that it might be an ever present memorial, to plant it with flowers
unfading. As yet they have not ripened, these thoughts divine; as yet is
there small trace of our coming apocalypse. One day thy clock will point
to the end of Time, and then thou shalt be as one of us, and shalt, full
of ardent longing, be extinguished and die. I feel in me the close of thy
activity, I taste heavenly freedom, and happy restoration. With wild pangs
I recognize thy distance from our home, thy feud with the ancient lordly
Heaven. Thy rage and thy raving are in vain. Inconsumable stands the
cross, victory-flag of our race.

Over I pilgrim
Where every pain
Zest only of pleasure
Shall one day remain.
Yet a few moments
Then free am I,
And intoxicated
In Love's lap lie.
Life everlasting
Lifts, wave-like, at me:
I gaze from its summit
Down after thee.
Oh Sun, thou must vanish
Yon hillock beneath;
A shadow will bring thee
Thy cooling wreath.
Oh draw at my heart, love,
Draw till I'm gone;
That, fallen asleep, I
Still may love on!
I feel the flow of
Death's youth-giving flood;
To balsam and aether, it
Changes my blood!
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might:
In holy rapture
I die every night.

V.

In ancient times an iron Fate lorded it, with dumb force, over the
widespread families of men. A gloomy oppression swathed their anxious
souls: the Earth was boundless, the abode of the gods and their home. From
eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond the red hills of the
morning, in the sacred bosom of the sea, dwelt the sun, the
all-enkindling, live luminary. An aged giant upbore the happy world.
Prisoned beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth,
helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods,
and their kindred, glad-hearted men. Ocean's dusky, green abyss was the
lap of a goddess. In the crystal grottoes revelled a wanton folk. Rivers,
trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine, poured
out by youth impersonated; a god was in the grape-clusters; a loving,
motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves; love's sacred carousal
was a sweet worship of the fairest of the goddesses. Life revelled through
the centuries like one spring-time, an ever-variegated festival of the
children of heaven and the dwellers on the earth. All races childlike
adored the ethereal, thousandfold flame, as the one sublimest thing in the
world.

It was but a fancy, a horrible dream-shape--

That fearsome to the merry tables strode,
And wrapt the spirit in wild consternation.
The gods themselves here counsel knew nor showed
To fill the stifling heart with consolation.
Mysterious was the monster's pathless road,
Whoose rage would heed no prayer and no oblation;
Twas Death who broke the banquet up with fears,
With anguish, with dire pain, and bitter tears.

Eternally from all things here disparted
That sway the heart with pleasure's joyous flow,
Divided from the loved, whom, broken-hearted,
Vain longing tosses and unceasing woe--
In a dull dream to struggle, faint and thwarted,
Smeemed all was granted to the dead below!
Broke lay the merry wave of human glory
On Death's inevitable promontory.

With daring flight, aloft Thought's pinions sweep;
The horrid thing with beauty's robe men cover:
A gentle youth puts out his torch, to sleep;
Sweet comes the end, like moaning lute of lover.
Cool shadow-floods o'er melting memory creep:
So sang the song, for Misery was the mover.
Still undeciphered lay the endless Night--
The solemn symbol of a far-off Might.

The old world began to decline. The pleasure-garden of the young race
withered away; up into opener regions and desolate, forsaking his
childhood, struggled the growing man. The gods vanished with their
retinue. Nature stood alone and lifeless. Dry Number and rigid Measure
bound her with iron chains. As into dust and air the priceless blossoms of
life fell away in words obscure. Gone was wonder-working Faith, and the
all-transforming, all-uniting angel-comrade, the Imagination. A cold north
wind blew unkindly over the torpid plain, and the wonderland first froze,
then evaporated into aether. The far depths of heaven filled with flashing
worlds. Into the deeper sanctuary, into the more exalted region of the
mind, the soul of the world retired with all her powers, there to rule
until the dawn should break of the glory universal. No longer was the
Light the abode of the gods, and the heavenly token of their presence:
they cast over them the veil of the Night. The Night became the mighty
womb of revelations; into it the gods went back, and fell asleep, to go
abroad in new and more glorious shapes over the transfigured world. Among
the people which, untimely ripe, was become of all the most scornful and
insolently hostile to the blessed innocence of youth, appeared the New
World, in guise never seen before, in the song-favouring hut of poverty, a
son of the first maid and mother, the eternal fruit of mysterious embrace.
The forseeing, rich-blossoming wisdom of the East at once recognized the
beginning of the new age; a star showed it the way to the lowly cradle of
the king. In the name of the far-reaching future, they did him homage with
lustre ond odour, the highest wonders of Nature. In solitude the heavenly
heart unfolded itself to a flower-chalice of almighty love, upturned to
the supreme face of the father, and resting on the bliss-boding bosom of
the sweetly solemn mother. With deifying fervour the prophetic eye of the
blooming child beheld the years to come, foresaw, untroubled over the
earthly lot of his own days, the beloved offspring of his divine stem. Ere
long the most childlike souls, by true love marvellously possessed,
gathered about him. Like flowers sprang up a new strange life in his
presence. Words inexhaustible and tidings the most joyful fell like sparks
of a divine spirit from his friendly lips. From a far shore came a singer,
born under the clear sky of Hellas, to Palestine, and gave up his whole
heart to the marvellous child:--

The youth art thou who ages long hast stood
Upon our graves, lost in a maze of weening;
Sign in the darkness of God's tidings good,
Whence hints of growth humanity is gleaning;
For that we long, on that we sweetly brood
Which erst in woe had lost all life and meaning;
In everlasting life death found its goal,
For thou art Death, and thou first mak'st us whole.

Filled with joy, the singer went on to Indostan, his heart intoxicated
with sweetest love, and poured it out in fiery songs under that tender
sky, so that a thousand hearts bowed to him, and the good news sprang up
with a thousand branches. Soon after the singer's departure, his precious
life was made a sacrifice for the deep fall of man. He died in his youth,
torn away from his loved world, from his weeping mother, and his trembling
friends. His lovely mouth emptied the dark cup of unspeakable wrongs. In
horrible anguish the birth of the new world drew near. Hard he wrestled
with the terrors of old Death; heavy lay the weight of the old world upon
him. Yet once more he looked kindly at his mother; then came the releasing
hand of the Love eternal, and he fell asleep. Only a few days hung a deep
veil over the roaring sea, over the quaking land; countless tears wept his
loved ones; the mystery was unsealed: heavenely spirits heaved the ancient
stone from the gloomy grave. Angels sat by the sleeper, sweetly outbodied
from his dreams; awaked in new Godlike glory, he clomb the apex of the
new-born world, buried with his own hand the old corpse in the forsaken
cavity, and with hand almighty laid upon it the stone which no power shall
again upheave.

Yet weep thy loved ones over thy grave tears of joy, tears of emotion,
tears of endless thanksgiving; ever afresh, with joyous start, see thee
rise again, and themselves with thee; behold thee weep with soft fervour
on the blessed bosom of thy mother, walk in thoughtful communion with thy
friends, uttering words plucked as from the tree of life; see thee hasten,
full of longing, into thy father's arms, bearing with thee youthful
Humanity, and the inexhaustible cup of the golden Future. Soon the mother
hastened after thee in heavenly triumph; she was the first with thee in
the new home. Since then, long ages have flowed past, and in splendour
ever increasing hath bestirred itself thy new creation, and thousands
have, out of pangs and tortures, followed thee, filled with faith and
longing and truth, and are walking about with thee and the heavenly virgin
in the kingdom of Love, minister in the temple of heavenly Death, and are
for ever thine.

Uplifted is the stone,
And all mankind is risen;
We all remain thine own,
And vanished is our prison.
All troubles flee away
Before thy golden cup;
For Earth nor Life can stay
When with our Lord we sup.

To the marriage Death doth call;
No virgin holdeth back;
The lamps burn lustrous all;
Of oil there is no lack.
Would thy far feet were waking
The echoes of our street!
And that the stars were making
Signal with voices sweet!

To thee, O mother maiden,
Ten thousand hearts aspire;
In this life, sorrow-laden,
Thee only they desire;
In thee they hope for healing;
In thee expect true rest,
When thou, their safety sealing,
Shalt clasp them to thy breast.

With disappointment burning
Who made in hell their bed,
At last from this world turning
To thee have looked and fled:
Helpful thou hast appeared
To us in many a pain:
Now to thy home we're neared,
Not to go out again!

Now at no grave are weeping
Such as do love and pray;
The gift that Love is keeping
From none is taken away.
To soothe and quiet our longing
Night comes, and stills the smart;
Heaven's children round us thronging
Now watch and ward our heart.

Courage! for life is striding
To endless life along;
The Sense, in love abiding,
Grows clearer and more strong.
One day the stars, down dripping,
Shall flow in golden wine:
We, of that nectar sipping,
As living stars shall shine!

Free, from the tomb emerges
Love, to die never more;
Fulfilled, life heaves and surges
A sea without a shore!
All night! all blissful leisure!
One jubilating ode!
And the sun of all our pleasure
The countenance of God!

VI.

LONGING AFTER DEATH.

Into the bosom of the earth!
Out of the Light's dominions!
Death's pains are but the bursting forth
Of glad Departure's pinions!
Swift in the narrow little boat,
Swift to the heavenly shore we float!

Blest be the everlasting Night,
And blest the endless Slumber!
We are heated with the day too bright,
And withered up with cumber!
We're weary of that life abroad:
Come, we will now go home to God!

Why longer in this world abide?
Why love and truth here cherish?
That which is old is set aside--For
us the new may perish!
Alone he stands and sore downcast
Who loves with pious warmth the Past.

The Past where yet the human spirit
In lofty flames did rise;
Where men the Father did inherit,
His countenance recognize;
And, in simplicity made ripe,
Many grew like their archetype.

The Past wherin, still rich in bloom,
Old stems did burgeon glorious;
And children, for the world to come,
Sought pain and death victorious;
And, though both life and pleasure spake,
Yet many a heart for love did break.

The Past, where to the glow of youth
God yet himself declared;
And early death, in loving truth
The young beheld, and dared--
Anguish and torture patient bore
To prove they loved him as of yore.

With anxious yearning now we see
That Past in darkness drenched;
With this world's water never we
Shall find our hot thirst quenched:
To our old home we have to go
That blessed time again to know.

What yet doth hinder our return?
Long since repose our precious!
Their grave is of our life the bourn;
We shrink from times ungracious!
By not a hope are we decoyed:
The heart is full; the world is void!

Infinite and mysterious,
Thrills through me a sweet trembling,
As if from far there echoed thus
A sigh, our grief resembling:
The dear ones long as well as I,
And send to me their waiting sigh.

Down to the sweet bride, and away
To the beloved Jesus!
Courage! the evening shades grow gray,
Of all our griefs to ease us!
A dream will dash our chains apart,
And lay us on the Father's heart.

SPIRITUAL SONGS.

I.

Without thee, what were life or being!
Without thee, what had I not grown!
From fear and anguish vainly fleeing,
I in the world had stood alone;
For all I loved could trust no shelter;
The future a dim gulf had lain;
And when my heart in tears did welter,
To whom had I poured out my pain?

Consumed in love and longing lonely
Each day had worn the night's dull face
With hot tears I had followed only
Afar life's wildly rushing race.
No rest for me, tumultuous driven!
A hopeless sorrow by the hearth!--
Who, that had not a friend in heaven,
Could to the end hold out on earth?

But if his heart once Jesus bareth,
And I of him right sure can be,
How soon a living glory scareth
The bottomless obscurity!
Manhood in him first man attaineth;
His fate in Him transfigured glows;
On freezing Iceland India gaineth,
And round the loved one blooms and blows.

Life grows a twilight softly stealing;
The world speaks all of love and glee;
For every wound grows herb of healing,
And every heart beats full and free.
I, his ten thousand gifts receiving,
Humble like him, his knees embrace;
Sure that we share his presence living
When two are gathered in one place.

Forth, forth to all highways and hedges!
Compel the wanderers to come in;
Stretch out the hand that good will pledges,
And gladly call them to their kin.
See heaven high over earth up-dawning!
In faith we see it rise and spread:
To all with us one spirit owning--
To them with us 'tis opened.

An ancient, heavy guilt-illusion
Haunted our hearts, a changeless doom;
Blindly we strayed in night's confusion;
Gladness and grief alike consume.
Whate'er we did, some law was broken!
Mankind appeared God's enemy;
And if we thought the heavens had spoken,
They spoke but death and misery.

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