Hyperion by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >> Hyperion
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"Yes, a most undoubted--copy!"
And here their conversation ended; for at that moment the little
Moldavian Prince Jerkin made his way through the crowd, with his
snuff-box as usual in his hand, and hurried up to Flemming whom he
had known in Heidelberg. He was eager to let every one know that he
spoke English, and in his haste began by making a mistake.
"Good bye! Good bye! Mr. Flemming!" said he, instead of good
evening. "I am ravished to see you in Ems. Nice place;--all that
there is of most nice. I drink my water and am good! Do you not
think the Frau Kranich has a very beautiful leather?"
He meant skin. Flemming laughed outright; but it was not perceived
by the Prince, because at that moment he was pushed aside, in the
rush of a gallopade, and Flemming beheld his face no more. At the
same moment the Baron introduced a friend of his, who also spoke
English and said;
"You will sup with me to-night. I have some Rhine-wine, which
will be a seduction to you."
Soon after, the Baron stood with an impassioned, romantic lady
leaning on his arm, examining a copy of Raphael's Fornarina.
"Ach! I wish I had been the Fornarina," sighed the impassioned,
romantic lady.
"Then, my dear Madam," replied the Baron, "I wish I had been
Raphael."
And so likewise said to himself a very tall man with fiery red
hair, and fancy whiskers, who was waltzing round and round in one
spot, and in a most extraordinary waistcoat; thus representing a
fiery, floating-light, to warn men of the hidden rocks, on which the
breath of vanity drives them shipwreck. At length, his partner,
tired of spinning, sank upon a sofa, like a child's top, when it
reels and falls.
"You do not like the waltz?" said an elderly French gentleman,
remarking the expression of Flemming's countenance.
"O yes; among the figurantes of the Opera. But I confess, it
sometimes makes me shudder to see a young rake clasp his arms round
the waist of a pure and innocent girl. What would you say, were you
to see him sitting on a sofa with his arms round your wife?"
"Mere prejudice of education," replied the French gentleman. "I
know that situation. I have read all about it in the Bibliotheque de
Romans Choisis!"
And merrily went the dance; and bright eyes and flushed cheeks
were not wanting among the dancers;
"And they waxed red, and waxed warm,
And rested, panting, arm in arm,"
and the Strauss-walzes sounded pleasantly in the ears of
Flemming, who, though he never danced, yet, like Henry of
Ofterdingen, in the Romance of Novalis, thought to music. The
wheeling waltz set the wheels of his fancy going. And thus the
moments glided on, and the footsteps of Time were not heard amid the
sound of music and voices.
But suddenly this scene of gayety was interrupted. The door
opened wide; and the short figure of a gray-haired old man presented
itself, with a flushed countenance and wild eyes. He was but
half-dressed, and in his hand held a silver candlestick without a
light. A sheet was wound round his head, like a turban; and he
tottered forward with a vacant, bewildered look, exclaiming;
"I am Mahomet, the king of the Jews!"
At the same moment he fell in a swoon; and was borne out of the
room by the servants. Flemming looked at the lady of the festival,
and she was deadly pale. For a moment all was confusion; and the
dance and the music stopped. Theimpression produced on the company
was at once ludicrous and awful. They tried in vain to rally. The
whole society was like a dead body, from which the spirit has
departed. Ere long the guests had all dispersed, and left the lady
of the mansion to her mournful, expiring lamps, and still more
mournful reflections.
"Truly," said Flemming, to the Baron, as they wended their way
homeward, "this seems not like reality; but like one of the sharp
contrasts we find in novels. Who shall say, after this, that there
is not more romance in real life, than we find written in
books!"
"Not more romance," said the Baron, "but a different
romance."
A still more tragic scene had been that evening enacted in
Heidelberg. Just as the sun set, two female figures walked along the
romantic woodland path-way, leading to the Angel's Meadow, a little
green opening on the brow of one of the high hills, which see
themselves in the Neckar and hear the solemn bells of
Kloster-Neuburg. The evening shadows were falling broad and long;
and the cuckoo began to sing.
"Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" said the eldest of the two figures, repeating
an old German popular rhyme,
`Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Tell me true,
Tell me fair and fine,
How long must I unmarried pine!'"
It was the voice of an evil spirit, that spoke in the person of
Madeleine; and the pale and shrinking figure, that walked by her
side, and listened to those words, was Emma of Ilmenau. A young man
joined them, where the path turns into the thick woodlands; and they
disappeared among the shadowy branches. It was the Polish Count.
The forget-me-nots looked up to heaven with their meek blue eyes,
from their home in the Angel's Meadow. Calmly stood the mountain of
All-Saints, in its majestic, holy stillness;--the river flowed so
far below, that the murmur of itswaters was not heard;--there was
not a sigh of the evening wind among the leaves,--not a sound upon
the earth nor in the air;--and yet that night there fell a star from
heaven!
CHAPTER X. THE PARTING.
It was now that season of the year, which an old English writer
calls the amiable month of June, and at that hour of the day, when,
face to face, the rising moon beholds the setting sun. As yet the
stars were few in heaven. But, after the heat of the day, the
coolness and the twilight descended like a benediction upon the
earth, by all those gentle sounds attended, which are the meek
companions of the night.
Flemming and the Baron had passed the afternoon at the Castle.
They had rambled once more together, and for the last time, over the
magnificent ruin. On the morrow they were to part, perhaps forever.
The Baron was going to Berlin, to join his sister; and Flemming,
drivenforward by the restless spirit within him, longed once more
for a change of scene, and was going to the Tyrol and Switzerland.
Alas! he never said to the passing hour; "Stay, for thou art fair!"
but reached forward into the dark future, with unsatisfied longings
and aimless desires, that were never still.
As the day was closing, they sat down on the terrace of
Elisabeth's Garden. The sun had set beyond the blue Alsatian hills;
and on the valley of the Rhine fell the purple mist, like the mantle
of the departing prophet from his fiery chariot. Over the castle
walls, and the trees of the garden, rose the large moon; and between
the contending daylight and moonlight there were as yet no shadows.
But at length the shadows came; transparent and faint outlines, that
deepened into form. In the valley below only the river gleamed, like
steel; and here and there the lamps were lighted in the town.
Solemnly stood the leafy lindentrees in the garden near them, their
trunks in darkness and their summits bronzed with moonlight; and in
his niche in the great round tower, overhung with ivy, like a
majestic phantom, stood the gray statue of Louis, with his venerable
beard, and shirt of mail, and flowing mantle; and the mild, majestic
countenance looked forth into the silent night, as the countenance
of a seer, who reads the stars. At intervals the wind of the summer
night passed through the ruined castle and the trees, and they sent
forth a sound as if nature were sighing in her dreams; and for a
moment overhead the broad leaves gently clashed together, like
brazen cymbals, with a tinkling sound; and then all was still, save
the sweet, passionate song of nightingales, that nowhere upon earth
sing more sweetly than in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle.
The hour, the scene, and the near-approaching separation of the
two young friends, had filled their hearts with a pleasant, though
at the same time not painless excitement. They had been conversing
about the magnificent old ruin, and the ages in which it had been
built, and the vicissitudesof time and war, that had battered down
its walls, and left it "tenantless, save to the crannying wind."
"How sorrowful and sublime is the face of that statue yonder,"
said Flemming. "It reminds me of the old Danish hero Beowulf; for
careful, sorrowing, he seeth in his son's bower the wine-hall
deserted, the resort of the wind, noiseless; the knight sleepeth;
the warrior lieth in darkness; there is no noise of the harp, no joy
in the dwellings, as there was before."
"Even as you say," replied the Baron; "but it often astonishes
me, that, coming from that fresh green world of yours beyond the
sea, you should feel so much interest in these old things; nay, at
times, seem so to have drunk in their spirit, as really to live in
the times of old. For my part, I do not see what charm there is in
the pale and wrinkled countenance of the Past, so to entice the soul
of a young man. It seems to me like falling in love with one's
grandmother. Give me the Present;--warm, glowing, palpitating with
life. She is my mistress; and the Future stands waiting like my wife
that is to be, for whom, to tell the truth, I care very little just
now. Indeed, my friend, I wish you would take more heed of this
philosophy of mine; and not waste the golden hours of youth in vain
regrets for the past, and indefinite, dim longings for the future.
Youth comes but once in a lifetime."
"Therefore," said Flemming; "let us so enjoy it as to be still
young when we are old. For my part, I grow happier as I grow older.
When I compare my sensations and enjoyments now, with what they were
ten years ago, the comparison is vastly in favor of the present.
Much of the fever and fretfulness of life is over. The world and I
look each other more calmly in the face. My mind is more
self-possessed. It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the
heat and drenched by the rain of life."
"Now you speak like an old philosopher," answered the Baron,
laughing. "But you deceive yourself. I never knew a more restless,
feverishspirit than yours. Do not think you have gained the mastery
yet. You are only riding at anchor here in an eddy of the stream;
you will soon be swept away again in the mighty current and whirl of
accident. Do not trust this momentary calm. I know you better than
you know yourself. There is something Faust-like in you; you would
fain grasp the highest and the deepest; and `reel from desire to
enjoyment, and in enjoyment languish for desire.' When a momentary
change of feeling comes over you, you think the change permanent,
and thus live in constant self-deception."
"I confess," said Flemming, "there may be some truth in what you
say. There are times when my soul is restless; and a voice sounds
within me, like the trump of the archangel, and thoughts that were
buried, long ago, come out of their graves. At such times my
favorite occupations and pursuits no longer charm me. The quiet face
of Nature seems to mock me."
"There certainly are seasons," replied the Baron, "when Nature
seems not to sympathizewith her beloved children. She sits there so
eternally calm and self-possessed, so very motherly and serene, and
cares so little whether the heart of her child breaks or not, that
at times I almost lose my patience. About that, too, she cares so
little, that, out of sheer obstinacy, I become good-humored again,
and then she smiles."
"I think we must confess, however," continued Flemming, "that all
this springs from our own imperfection, not from hers. How beautiful
is this green world, which we inhabit! See yonder, how the moonlight
mingles with the mist! What a glorious night is this! Truly every
man has a Paradise around him until he sins, and the angel of an
accusing conscience drives him from his Eden. And even then there
are holy hours, when this angel sleeps, and man comes back, and,
with the innocent eyes of a child, looks into his lost Paradise
again,--into the broad gates and rural solitudes of Nature. I feel
this often. We have much to enjoy in the quiet and retirement of
ourown thoughts. Boisterous mirth and loud laughter are not my mood.
I love that tranquillity of soul, in which we feel the blessing of
existence, and which in itself is a prayer and a thanksgiving. I
find, however, that, as I grow older, I love the country less, and
the city more."
"Yes," interrupted the Baron; "and presently you will love the
city less and the country more. Say at once, that you have an
undefined longing for both; and prefer town or country, according to
the mood you are in. I think a man must be of a very quiet and happy
nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well
contented with his own insignificant person, very self-complacent,
to be continually occupied with himself and his own thoughts. To say
the least, a city life makes one more tolerant and liberal in his
judgment of others. One is not eternally wrapped up in
self-contemplation; which, after all, is only a more holy kind of
vanity."
In conversation like this, the hours glided away; till at length,
from the Giant's Tower, the Castleclock struck twelve, with a sound
that seemed to come from the Middle Ages. Like watchmen from their
belfries the city clocks answered it, one by one. Then distant and
muffled sounds were heard. Inarticulate words seemed to blot the
foggy air, as if written on wet paper. These were the bells of
Handschuhsheimer, and of other villages on the broad plain of the
Rhine, and among the hills of the Odenwald; mysterious sounds, that
seemed not of this world.
Beneath them, in the shadow of the hills, lay the valley, like a
fathomless, black gulf; and above were the cloistered stars, that,
nun-like, walk the holy aisles of heaven. The city was asleep in the
valley below; all asleep and silent, save the clocks, that had just
struck twelve, and the veering, golden weathercocks, that were
swimming in the moonshine, like golden fishes, in a glass vase. And
again the wind of the summer night passed through the old Castle,
and the trees, and the nightingales recorded under the dark, shadowy
leaves, and the heart of Flemming was full.
When he had retired to his chamber, a feeling of utter loneliness
came over him. The night before one begins a journey is always a
dismal night; for, as Byron says,
"In leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places, one keeps looking at the steeple!"
And how much more so when the place and people are pleasant; as
was the case with those, that Flemming was now leaving. No wonder he
was sad and sleepless. Thoughts came and went, and bright and gloomy
fancies, and dreams and visions, and sweet faces looked under his
closed eyelids, and vanished away, and came again, and again
departed. He heard the clock strike from hour to hour, and said,
"Another hour is gone." At length the birds began to sing; and ever
and anon the cock crew. He arose, and looked forth into the gray
dawn; and before him lay the city he was so soon to leave, all white
and ghastly, like a city that had arisen from its grave.
"All things must change," said he to the Baron, as he embraced
him, and held him by the hand. "Friends must be torn asunder, and
swept along in the current of events, to see each other seldom, and
perchance no more. For ever and ever in the eddies of time and
accident we whirl away. Besides which, some of us have a perpetual
motion in our wooden heads, as Wodenblock had in his wooden leg; and
like him we travel on, without rest or sleep, and have hardly time
to take a friend by the hand in passing; and at length are seen
hurrying through some distant land, worn to a skeleton, and all
unknown."
BOOK III.
Epigraph
"Take away the lights, too;
The moon lends me too much to find my fears;
And those devotions I am now to pay,
Are written in my heart, not in thy book;
And I shall read them there without a taper."
CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME.
They were right,--those old German Minnesingers,--to sing the
pleasant summer-time! What a time it is! How June stands illuminated
in the Calendar! The windows are all wide open; only the Venetian
blinds closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in
through a crevice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the
trees; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to,
with a sudden sound. The trees are heavy with leaves; and the
gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The whole atmosphere is
laden with perfume and sunshine. The birds sing. The cock struts
about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow
butter-cups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and the red
blossoms of the clover like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long,
pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft;
and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white village
gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds the
river,--careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in
no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work,--the hot and
angry bee. All things else are at play; he never plays, and is vexed
that any one should.
People drive out from town to breathe, and to be happy. Most of
them have flowers in their hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and
still oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how pleasant
to you is the change from the sultry streets to the open fields,
fragrant with clover-blossoms! how pleasant the fresh, breezy
country air, dashed with brine from the meadows! howpleasant, above
all, the flowers, the manifold, beautiful flowers!
It is no longer day. Through the trees rises the red moon, and
the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night, the
coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy
them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks,
the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of
grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they
are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The
tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is
still, save the continuous wind of the summer night. Sometimes I
know not if it be the wind or the sound of the neighbouring sea. The
village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.
How different is it in the city! It is late, and the crowd is
gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of
the cool, dewy night, as if you folded her garments about you. The
whole starry heaven is spread out overhead. Beneath lies the public
walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent
darkness the spirit plunges and floats away, with some beloved
spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and
down the long street. People go by, with grotesque shadows, now
foreshortened and now lengthening away into the darkness and
vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems
to pass him on the sidewalk. The iron gates of the park shut with a
jangling clang. There are footsteps, and loud voices;--a tumult,--a
drunken brawl,--an alarm of fire;--then silence again. And now at
length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated
moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The
moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the
opening of streets,--angular, like blocks of white marble.
Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Reader! with the odor of
flowers about thee, and the song of birds, shalt thou pass onward
into the enchanted land, as through the Ivory Gate of dreams! And as
a prelude and majestic march, one sweet human voice, I know not
whose, but coming from the bosom of the Alps, sings this sublime
ode, which the Alpine echoes repeat afar.
"Come, golden Evening! In the west
Enthrone the storm-dispelling sun,
And let the triple rainbow rest
O'er all the mountain tops;--'t is done;
The tempest ceases; bold and bright,
The rainbow shoots from hill to hill;
Down sinks the sun; on presses night;
Mont Blanc is lovely still!
"There take thy stand, my spirit;--spread
The world of shadows at thy feet;
And mark how calmly overhead,
The stars, like saints in glory, meet.
While, hid in solitude sublime,
Methinks I muse on Nature's tomb,
And hear the passing foot of Time
Step through the silent gloom.
"All in a moment, crash on crash,
From precipice to precipice,
An avalanche's ruins dash
Down to the nethermost abyss,
Invisible; the ear alone
Pursues the uproar till it dies;
Echo to Echo, groan for groan,
From deep to deep, replies.
"Silence again the darkness seals,
Darkness that may be felt;--but soon
The silver-clouded east reveals
The midnight spectre of the moon;
In half-eclipse she lifts her horn,
Yet, o'er the host of heaven supreme,
Brings the faint semblance of a morn,
With her awakening beam.
"Ah! at her touch, these Alpine heights
Unreal mockeries appear;
With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights,
Emerging as she climbs the sphere;
A crowd of apparitions pale!
I hold my breath in chill suspense,
They seem so exquisitely frail,
Lest they should vanish hence.
"I breathe again, I freely breathe;
Thee, Leman's Lake, once more I trace,
Like Dian's crescent far beneath,
As beautiful as Dian's face:
Pride of the land that gave me birth!
All that thy waves reflect I love,
Where heaven itself, brought down to earth,
Looks fairer than above.
"Safe on thy banks again I stray;
The trance of poesy is o'er,
And I am here at dawn of day,
Gazing on mountains as before,
Where all the strange mutations wrought,
Were magic feats of my own mind;
For, in that fairy land of thought,
Whate'er I seek, I find."
CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING.
Tell me, my soul, why art thou restless? Why dost thou look
forward to the future with such strong desire? The present is
thine,--and the past;--and the future shall be! O that thou didst
look forward to the great hereafter with half the longing wherewith
thou longest for an earthly future,--which a few days at most will
bring thee! to the meeting of the dead, as to the meeting of the
absent! Thou glorious spirit-land! O, that I could behold thee as
thou art,--the region of life, and light, and love, and the
dwelling-place of those beloved ones, whose being has flowed onward
like a silver-clear stream into the solemn-sounding main, into the
ocean of Eternity.
Such were the thoughts that passed through thesoul of Flemming,
as he lay in utter solitude and silence on the rounded summit of one
of the mountains of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with tears in his
eyes, and ardent longing in his heart, up into the blue-swimming
heaven overhead, and at the glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around
him. Highest and whitest of all, stood the peak of the Jungfrau,
which seemed near him, though it rose afar off from the bosom of the
Lauterbrunner Thal. There it stood, holy and high and pure, the
bride of heaven, all veiled and clothed in white, and lifted the
thoughts of the beholder heavenward. O, he little thought then, as
he gazed at it with longing and delight, how soon a form was to
arise in his own soul, as holy, and high, and pure as this, and like
this point heavenward.
Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit, reposing his weary
limbs on the short, brown grass, which more resembled moss than
grass. He had sent his guide forward, that he might be alone. His
soul within him was wild with a fierce and painful delight. The
mountain air excited him; the mountain solitudes enticed, yet
maddened him. Every peak, every sharp, jagged iceberg, seemed to
pierce him. The silence was awful and sublime. It was like that in
the soul of a dying man, when he hears no more the sounds of earth.
He seemed to be laying aside his earthly garments. The heavens were
near unto him; but between him and heaven every evil deed he had
done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy
breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers, dare to look
Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the
solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and looks
not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the
countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In
the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at
us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love!
But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley of the Saint
Gothard Pass, through Amsteg, where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing
down the Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead. The road is
steep, and runs on zigzag terraces. The sides of the mountains are
barren cliffs; and from their cloud-capped summits, unheard amid the
roar of the great torrent below, come streams of snowwhite foam,
leaping from rock to rock, like the mountain chamois. As you
advance, the scene grows wilder and more desolate. There is not a
tree in sight,--not a human habitation. Clouds, black as midnight,
lower upon you from the ravines overhead; and the mountain torrent
beneath is but a sheet of foam, and sends up an incessant roar. A
sudden turn in the road brings you in sight of a lofty bridge,
stepping from cliff to cliff with a single stride. A fearful
cataract howls beneath it, like an evil spirit, and fills the air
with mist; and the mountain wind claps its hands and shrieks through
the narrow pass, Ha! ha!--This is the Devil's Bridge. It leads the
traveller across the fearful chasm, and through a mountain gallery
into the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.
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