'Champs Elysées,' and in his conversation exhibited a heartiness and indulgence towards others, almost foreign to his sarcastic nature, the identity of which, however, is prominent in his compositions to the last. There, indeed, the terrible yearning for death almost supersedes other feelings. He had long ago drawn a picture of the old age he aspired to attain,-age retaining the virtues of youth, its unselfish zeal, its unselfish tears. • Let 'me become an old man, still loving youth, still, in spite of the 'feebleness of years, sharing in its gambols and in its dangers; 'let my voice tremble and weaken as it may, while the sense of the words it utters remains fresh with hope, and unpalsied by 'fear.' Piteously different was this life from the event, from the reality which found its true expression in the following apologue, and in the poems which we have selected as the best illustration of the power of genius to draw up treasure from the deepest abysses of human calamity. 'I will cite you a passage from the Chronicle of Limburg. This chronicle is very interesting for those who desire information about the manners and customs of the middle ages in Germany. It describes, like a Journal des Modes, the costumes both of men and women as they came out at the time. It gives also notices of the songs which were piped and sung about each year, and the first lines of many a love-ditty of the day are there preserved. Thus, in speaking of A. D. 1480, it mentions that in that year through the whole of Germany songs were piped and sung, sweeter and lovelier than all the measures hitherto known in German lands, and that young and old—especially the ladies—went so mad about them, that they were heard to sing them from morning to night. Now these songs, the chronicle goes on to say, were written by a young clerk, who was affected by leprosy, and who dwelt in a secret hermitage apart from all the world. You know, dear reader, assuredly what an awful malady in the middle ages this leprosy was; and how the poor creatures who fell under this incurable calamity were driven out of all civil society, and allowed to come near no human being. Deadalive, they wandered forth wrapt up from head to foot, the hood drawn over the face, and carrying in the hand a kind of rattle called the Lazarus-clapper, by which they announced their presence, so that every one might get out of their way in time. This poor clerk, of whose fame as poet and songster this Chronicle of Limburg has spoken, was just such a leper, and he sat desolate, in the solitude of his sorrow, while all Germany, joyful and jubilant, sang and piped his songs. 'Many a time in the mournful visions of my nights, I think I see before me the poor clerk of the Chronicle of Limburg, my brother in Apollo, and his sad, suffering eyes stare strangely at me from under his hood; but at the same moment he seems to vanish, and clanging through the distance, like the echo of a dream, I hear the sharp rattle of the Lazarus-clapper.' And, as it were in the person of this unhappy being, he entitles the following series of poems LAZARUS. 1. My one love is the Dark Ladie; The spirit suffers prison-bound: And rages like a crazy hound. Bear what God sends you nothing loth To pray for better by and by.' 2. 'Old Time is lame and halt, The snail can barely crawl: And haunts what was my brain. 'These dear old Gods or devils, 3. 'What lovely blossoms on each side Of my youth's journey shone neglected; Left by my indolence or pride To waste unheeded or respected! 'You were a fair young lady, with an air Gentle, refined, discreet and debonnaire ; I watched, and watched in vain, to see when first The passion-flower from your young heart would burst: 'Burst into consciousness of loftier things In many a hue the roses blushed to please, 'While you in quiet grace walked by my side, 6. 'My cause at Reason's bar was heard, — The fair accused no ill has done." Saying, "It was not deed or word, "But her bad heart, that ruined him.” Then come the witnesses and proofs, But when the dawn has touched the roofs, The plaintiff seeks the shame to hide : 7. 'My fathomless despair to show By certain signs, your letter came: 'O God! how wretched I must be! When even she begins to speak; When tears run down that icy cheek, The very stones can pity me. 'There's something shocks me in her woe: But, if that rigid heart is rent, May not the Omnipotent relent, And let this poor existence go.' 8. 'The Sphynx was all a Woman: proof Are but the nonsense of the poet. 'And this real Sphynx, to madden us, With all his sad domestic stigma. 9. 'Three hags on a seat Where the cross-roads meet! They mumble and grin, They sigh and they spin: Great ladies they be, Though frightful to see. 'One moistens the thread In her pendulous mouth, And the distaff is fed Though her lip has the drought. 'One dances the spindle In fanciful ways, Till the sparks from it kindle Her eyes to a blaze. "The third holds the shears The discussion to close : While with voice hard and dreary She sings "Miserere," And the rheum of her tears Makes warts on her nose. 'Sweet Fate! prithee answer |