The methods of fattening them are afterwards described; and for a mode of securing a new-laid egg to breakfast every winter morning, a luxury which our author "enjoyed for as many years as he lived in the country," we refer the reader to page 256 of the second volume.
Besides the feeding of stock, one other in-door labour demands the attention of the farmer, when the severity of winter weather has put a stop to the ploughing and the draining of his land. His grain crops are to be thrashed out, and sent to the market or the mill. In this part of his work Mr. Stephens has again availed himself of the valuable assistance of Mr. Slight, who, in upwards of 100 pages of closely printed matter, has figured and described nearly all the more useful instruments employed in the preparation of the food of cattle, and in separating the grain of the corn crops. The thrashing machine, so valuable an addition to the working establishment of a modern farm-steading, is minutely explained—the varieties in its construction illustrated by wood-cuts—and the respective merits of the different forms of the machine examined and discussed. With the following, among his other conclusions, we cordially concur.
"I cannot view these two machines without feeling impressed with a conviction that both countries would soon feel the advantage of an amalgamation between the two forms of the machine. The drum of the Scotch thrashing-machine would most certainly be improved by a transfusion from the principles of the English machine; and the latter might be equally improved by the adoption of the manufacturing-like arrangements and general economy of the Scotch system of thrashing. That such interchange will ere long take place, I am thoroughly convinced; and as I am alike satisfied that the advantages would be mutual, it is to be hoped that these views will not stand alone. It has not been lost sight of, that each machine may be said to be suited to the system to which it belongs, and that here, where the corn is cut by the sickle, the machine is adapted to that; while the same may be said of the other, where cutting by the scythe is so much practised. Notwithstanding all this, there appears to be good properties in both that either seems to stand in need of." —Vol. ii. p. 329.
Other scientific, especially chemical information, connected with the different varieties of grain, and the kind and quantity of food they respectively yield, is incorporated in the chapters upon "wheat, flour, and oat and bean meal," to which we can only advert, as further illustrations of the intimate manner in which science and skilful or enlightened practice are invariably, necessarily, and every where interwoven.
* * * * *
And now the dreary months of winter are ended—and the labours of the farmer take a new direction.
"Salvitur acris hiems gratâ vice veris et Favoni,"
* * * * *
"Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut arator igni."
But we cannot follow Mr. Stephens through the cheerful labours of the coming year. Our task is so far ended, and from the way in which the whole of the long weeks of winter are described, the reader must judge of Mr. Stephens's ability to lead him safely and surely through the rest of the year.
A closing observation or two, however, we beg to offer. We look upon a good book on agriculture as something more than a lucky speculation for the publisher, or a profitable occupation of his time for the author. It is a gain to the community at large,—a new instrument of national wealth. The first honour or praise in reference to every such instrument, is, no doubt, due to the maker or inventor—but he who brings is into general use, merits also no little approbation. Such is our case with respect to the book before us. We shall be glad to learn that our analysis of it contributes to a wider circulation among the practical farmers of the empire, of the manifold information which the book contains, not so much for the sake of the author, as with a view to the common good of the country at large. It is to the more general diffusion of sound agricultural literature among our farmers, that we look for that more rapid development of the resources of our varied soils which the times so imperatively demand. To gain this end no legitimate means ought to be passed by, and we have detained our readers so long upon the book before us, in the hope that they may be induced to lend us their aid also in attaining so desirable an object.
We do not consider The Book of the Farm a perfect work: the author indulges now and then in loose and careless writing; and this incorrectness has more frequently struck us in the later portions of the work, no doubt from the greater haste of composition. He sets out by slighting the aids of science to agriculture; and yet, in an early part of his book, tells the young farmer that he "must become acquainted with the agency of electricity before he can understand the variations of the weather," and ends by making his book, as we have said, a running commentary upon the truth we have already several times repeated, that SKILFUL PRACTICE IS APPLIED SCIENCE.
These, and no doubt other faults the book has—as what book is without them?—but as a practical manual for those who wish to be good farmers, it is the best book we know. It contains more of the practical applications of modern science, and adverts to more of those interesting questions from which past improvements have sprung, and from the discussion of which future ameliorations are likely to flow, than any other of the newer works which have come under our eye. Where so many excellences exist, we are not ill-natured enough to magnify a few defects.
The excellence of Scottish agriculture may be said by some to give rise to the excellent agricultural books which Scotland, time after time, has produced. But it may with equal truth be said, that the existence of good books, and their diffusion among a reading population, are the sources of the agricultural distinction possessed by the northern parts of the island. It is beyond our power, as individuals, to convert the entire agricultural population of our islands into a reading body, but we can avail ourselves of the tendency wherever it exists; and by writing, or diffusing, or aiding to diffuse, good books, we can supply ready instruction to such as now wish for it, and can put it in the way of those in whom other men, by other means, are labouring to awaken the dormant desire for knowledge. Reader, do you wish to improve agriculture? —then buy you a good book, and place it in the hands of your tenant or your neighbouring farmer; if he be a reading man, he will thank you, and his children may live to bless you; if he be not a reader, you may have the gratification of wakening a dormant spirit; and though you may appear to be casting your bread upon the waters, yet you shall find it again after many days.
* * * * *
No. VII.
(The two following poems, "The Ideal," and, "The Ideal and Life," are essentially distinct in their mode of treatment. The first is simple and tender, and expresses feelings in which all can sympathize. As a recent and able critic, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, has observed, this poem, "still little known, contains a regret for the period of youthful faith," and may take its place among the most charming and pathetic of all those numberless effusions of genius in which individual feeling is but the echo of the universal heart. But the poem on "The Ideal and Life" is highly mystical and obscure;— "it is a specimen," says the critic we have just quoted, "of those poems which were the immediate results of Schiller's metaphysical studies. Here the subject is purely supersensual, and does not descend to the earth at all. The very tendency of the poem is to recommend a life not in the actual world, but in the world of appearances [5]—that is, in the aesthetical world."
It requires considerable concentration of mind to follow its meaning through the cloud of its dark and gigantic images. Schiller desired his friend Humboldt to read it in perfect stillness, 'and put away from him all that was profane.' Humboldt, of course, admired it prodigiously; and it is unquestionably full of thought expressed with the power of the highest genius. But, on the other hand, its philosophy, even for a Poet or Idealist, is more than disputable, and it incurs the very worst fault which a Poet can commit, viz. obscurity of idea as well as expression. When the Poet sets himself up for the teacher, he must not forget that the teacher's duty is to be clear; and the higher the mystery he would expound, the more pains he should bestow on the simplicity of the elucidation. For the true Poet does not address philosophical coteries, but an eternal and universal public. Happily this fault is rare in Schiller, and more happily still, his great mind did not long remain a groper amidst the 'Realm of Shadow.' The true Ideal is quite as liable to be lost amidst the maze of metaphysics, as in the actual thoroughfares of work-day life. A plunge into Kant may do more harm to a Poet than a walk through Fleet Street. Goethe, than whom no man had ever more studied the elements of the diviner art, was right as an artist in his dislike to the over-cultivation of the aesthetical. The domain of the Ideal is the heart, and through the heart it operates on the soul. It grows feebler and dimmer in proportion as it seeks to rise above human emotion…. Longinus does not err, when he asserts that Passion (often erroneously translated Pathos) is the best part of the Sublime.)
[Footnote 5: Rather, according to Aesthetical Philosophy, is the actual world to be called the world of appearances, and the Ideal the world of substance.]
Then wilt thou, with thy fancies holy—
Wilt thou, faithless, fly from me?
With thy joy, thy melancholy,
Wilt thou thus relentless flee?
O Golden Time, O Human May,
Can nothing, Fleet One, thee restrain?
Must thy sweet river glide away
Into the eternal Ocean-Main?
The suns serene are lost and vanish'd
That wont the path of youth to gild,
And all the fair Ideals banish'd
From that wild heart they whilome fill'd.
Gone the divine and sweet believing
In dreams which Heaven itself unfurl'd!
What godlike shapes have years bereaving
Swept from this real work-day world!
As once, with tearful passion fired,
The Cyprian Sculptor clasp'd the stone,
Till the cold cheeks, delight-inspired,
Blush'd—to sweet life the marble grown;
So Youth's desire for Nature!—round
The Statue, so my arms I wreathed,
Till warmth and life in mine it found
And breath that poets breathe—it breathed.
With my own burning thoughts it burn'd;—
Its silence stirr'd to speech divine;—
Its lips my glowing kiss return'd;—
Its heart in beating answer'd mine!
How fair was then the flower—the tree!—
How silver-sweet the fountain's fall!
The soulless had a soul to me!
My life its own life lent to all!
The Universe of Things seem'd swelling
The panting heart to burst its bound,
And wandering Fancy found a dwelling
In every shape—thought—deed, and sound.
Germ'd in the mystic buds, reposing,
A whole creation slumber'd mute,
Alas, when from the buds unclosing,
How scant and blighted sprung the fruit!
How happy in his dreaming error,
His own gay valour for his wing,
Of not one care as yet in terror,
Did Youth upon his journey spring;
Till floods of balm, through air's dominion,
Bore upward to the faintest star—
For never aught to that bright pinion
Could dwell too high, or spread too far.
Though laden with delight, how lightly
The wanderer heavenward still could soar,
And aye the ways of life how brightly
The airy Pageant danced before!—
Love, showering gifts (life's sweetest) down,
Fortune, with golden garlands gay,
And Fame, with starbeams for a crown,
And Truth, whose dwelling is the Day.
Ah! midway soon, lost evermore,
Afar the blithe companions stray;
In vain their faithless steps explore,
As, one by one, they glide away.
Fleet Fortune was the first escaper—
The thirst for wisdom linger'd yet;
But doubts with many a gloomy vapour
The sun-shape of the Truth beset!
The holy crown which Fame was wreathing,
Behold! the mean man's temples wore!
And but for one short spring-day breathing,
Bloom'd Love—the Beautiful—no more!
And ever stiller yet, and ever
The barren path more lonely lay,
Till waning Hope could scarcely quiver
Along the darkly widening way.
Who, loving, linger'd yet to guide me,
When all her boon companions fled?
Who stands consoling still beside me,
And follows to the House of Dread?
Thine, Friendship! thine, the hand so tender—
Thine the balm dropping on the wound—
Thy task—the load more light to render,
O, earliest sought and soonest found!
And thou, so pleased with her uniting
To charm the soul-storm into peace,
Sweet Toil![6] in toil itself delighting,
That more it labor'd, less could cease:
Though but by grains, thou aid'st the pile
The vast Eternity uprears—
At least thou strik'st from Time, the while,
Life's debt—the minutes, days, and years![7]
[Footnote 6: That is to say—the Poet's occupation—The Ideal.]
[Footnote 7: Though the Ideal images of youth forsake us—the Ideal still remains to the Poet.—Nay, it is his task and his companion; unlike the worldly fantasies of fortune—fame, and love—the fantasies the Ideal creates are imperishable. While, as the occupation of his life, it pays off the debt of time; as the exalter of life, it contributes to the building of eternity.]
* * * * *
The first title of this Poem was "The Realm of Shadow." Perhaps in the whole range of German poetry there exists no poem which presents greater difficulties to the English translator. The chief object of the present inadequate version has been to render the sense intelligible as well as the words. The attempt stands in need of all the indulgence which the German scholar will readily allow that a much abler translator might reasonably require.
1
For ever fair, for ever 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 Gods—
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.
2
Seek'st thou on earth the life of Gods 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 Hell's for ever!
3
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 Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day,
The FORM, the ARCHETYPE,[8] 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!
[Footnote 8: "Die Gestalt"—Form, the Platonic Archetype.]
4
Here, bathed, Perfection, in thy purest ray,
Free from the clogs and taints of clay,
Hovers divine the Archetypal Man!
Like those dim phantom ghosts of life that gleam
And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,
While yet they stand in fields Elysian,
Ere to the flesh the Immortal ones descend—
If doubtful ever in the Actual life,
Each contest—here a victory crowns the end
Of every nobler strife.
5
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 attainèd goal!
6
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 Valour 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 valour o'er his tribe prevails;
In life the victory only crowns the strong—
He who is feeble fails.
7
But as some stream, when from its source it gushes,
O'er rocks in storm and tumult rushes,
And smooths its after course to bright repose,
So, through the Shadow-Land of Beauty glides
The Life Ideal—on sweet silver tides
Glassing the day and night star as it flows—
Here, contest is the interchange of Love,
Here, rule is but the empire of the Grace;
Gone every foe, Peace folds her wings above
The holy, haunted place.
8
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 statute only to the chisel's stroke
Wakes from its marble cell.
9
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 labour 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!
10
If human Sin confronts the rigid law
Of perfect Truth and Virtue,[9] 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 space 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!
11
But fly the boundary of the Senses—live
the Ideal life free Thought can give;
And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill
Of the soul's impotent despair be gone!
And with divinity thou sharest the throne,
Let but divinity become thy will!
Scorn not the Law—permit its iron band
The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall.
Let man no more the will of Jove withstand,
And Jove the bolt lets fall!
12
If, in the woes of Actual Human Life—
If thou could'st see the serpent strife
Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone—
Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek,
Note every pang, and hearken every shriek
Of some despairing lost Laocoon,
The human nature would thyself subdue
To share the human woe before thine eye—
Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true
To Man's great Sympathy.
13
But in the Ideal realm, aloof and far,
Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are,
Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan.
Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows—
Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows
The brave resolve of the firm soul alone:
Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew
Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given,
Gleaming through Grief's dark veil, the peaceful blue
Of the sweet Moral Heaven.
[Footnote 9: The Law, i.e. the Kantian ideal of Truth and Virtue.
This stanza and the next embody, perhaps with some exaggeration, the
Kantian doctrine of morality.]
14
So, in the glorious parable, behold
How, bow'd to mortal bonds, of old
Life's dreary path divine Alcides trode:
The hydra and the lion were his prey,
And to restore the friend he loved to day,
He went undaunted to the black-brow'd God;
And all the torments and the labours sore
Wroth Juno sent—meek majestic One,
With patient spirit and unquailing, bore,
Until the course was run—
15
Until the God cast down his garb of clay,
And rent in hallowing flame away
The mortal part from the divine—to soar
To the empyreal air! Behold him spring
Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wing,
And the dull matter that confined before
Sinks downward, downward, downward as a dream!
Olympian hymns receive the escaping soul,
And smiling Hebe, from the ambrosial stream,
Fills for a God the bowl!
* * * * *
And so we find ourselves once more
A ring, though varying yet serene,
The wreaths of song we wove of yore
Again we'll weave as fresh and green.
But who the God to whom we bring
The earliest tribute song can treasure?
Him, first of all the Gods, we sing
Whose blessing to ourselves is—pleasure!
For boots it on the votive shrine
That Ceres life itself bestows
Or liberal Bacchus gives the wine
That through the glass in purple glows—
If still there come not from the heaven
The spark that sets the hearth on flame;
If to the soul no fire is given,
And the sad heart remain the same?
Sudden as from the clouds must fall,
As from the lap of God, our bliss—
And still the mightiest lord of all,
Monarch of Time, the MOMENT is!
Since endless Nature first began
Whate'er of might the mind hath wrought—
Whate'er of Godlike comes from Man
Springs from one lightning-flash of thought!
For years the marble block awaits
The breath of life, beneath the soil—
A happy thought the work creates,
A moment's glance rewards the toil.
As suns that weave from out their blaze
The various colours round them given;
As Iris, on her arch of rays,
Hovers, and vanishes from heaven;
So fair, so fleeting every prize—
A lightning flash that shines and fades—
The Moment's brightness gilds the skies
And round the brightness close the shades.
O'er ocean with a thousand masts sails on the young man bold—
One boat, hard-rescued from the deep, draws into port the old!
* * * * *
"A little Earth from out the Earth, and I
The Earth will move"—so said the sage divine;
Out of myself one little moment try
Myself to take;—succeed, and I am thine.
* * * * *
If thou hast something, bring thy goods, a fair return be
thine!—
If thou art something—bring thy soul, and interchange with mine.
* * * * *
[Footnote 10: The first verses in the original of this poem are placed as a motto on Goethe's statue at Weimar.]
Ah! happy He, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles—to whose eyes,
Scarce waken'd yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might.
Godlike the lot ordain'd for him to share,
He wins the garland ere be runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labour vanquish'd, smiles the Grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
Self-shapes its objects and subdues the Fates—
Virtue subdues the Fates, but cannot bind
The fickle Happiness, whose smile awaits
Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
What the Grace showers not from her own free urn!
From aught unworthy, the determined will
Can guard the watchful spirit—there it ends.
The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;
As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!—Above
Favour rules Jove, as it below rules Love!
The Immortals have their bias!—Kindly they
See the bright locks of youth enamour'd play,
And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
It is not they who boast the best to see,
Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
The stately light of their divinity
Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind;—
And their choice spirit found its calm recess
In the pure childhood of a simple mind.
Unask'd they come—delighted to delude
The expectation of our baffled Pride;
No law can call their free steps to our side.
Him whom He loves, the Sire of men and gods,
(Selected from the marvelling multitude,)
Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down
The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown.
Before the fortune-favour'd son of earth,
Apollo walks—and, with his jocund mirth,
The heart-enthralling Smiler of the skies.
For him grey Neptune smooths the pliant wave—
Harmless the waters for the ship that bore
The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore!
Charm'd, at his feet the crouching lion lies,
To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;
His soul is born a sovereign o'er the strife—
The lord of all the Beautful of Life;
Where'er his presence in its calm has trod,
It charms—it sways as some diviner god.
Scorn not the Fortune-favour'd, that to him
The light-won victory by the gods is given,
Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe,
The Venus draws her darling,—Whom the heaven
So prospers, love so watches, I revere!
And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim
And baleful night, sits Fate. The Dorian lord,
August Achilles, was not less divine
That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword—
That round the mortal hover'd all the hosts
Of all Olympus—that his wrath to grace,
The best and bravest of the Grecian race
Fell by the Trojan steel, what time the ghosts
Of souls untimely slain fled to the Stygian coasts.
Scorn not the Beautiful—if it be fair,
And yet seem useless in thy human sight.
As scentless lilies in the loving air,
Be they delighted—thou in them delight.
If without use they shine, yet still the glow
May thine own eyes enamour. Oh rejoice
That heaven the gifts of Song showers down below—
That what the muse hath taught him, the sweet voice
Of the glad minstrel teaches thee!—the soul
Which the god breathes in him, he can bestow
In turn upon the listener—if his breast
The blessing feel, thy heart is in that blessing blest.
The busy mart let Justice still control,
Weighing the guerdon to the toil!—What then?
A god alone claims joy—all joy is his,
Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men.
Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!
Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be,
Shapen'd from form to form, by toiling time;
The Blissful and the Beautiful are born
Full grown, and ripen'd from Eternity—
No gradual changes to their glorious prime,
No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn.—
Like Heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight
Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea;
Like the first Pallas, in maturest might,
Arm'd, from the Thunderer's brow, leaps forth each Thought of Light.
* * * * *
We have now, with few exceptions, translated all the principal poems comprised in the third, or maturest period of Schiller's life. We here pass back to the poems of his youth. The contrast in tone, thought, and spirit, between the compositions of the first and the third period, in the great poet's intellectual career, is sufficiently striking. In the former, there is little of that majestic repose of strength so visible in the latter; but there is infinitely more fire and action—more of that lavish and exuberant energy which characterized the earlier tales of Lord Byron, and redeemed, in that wonderful master of animated and nervous style, a certain poverty of conception by a vigour and gusto of execution, which no English poet, perhaps, has ever surpassed. In his poems lies the life, and beats the heart, of Schiller. They conduct us through the various stages of his spiritual education, and indicate each step in the progress. In this division, effort is no less discernible than power—both in language and thought there is a struggle at something not yet achieved, and not, perhaps, even yet definite and distinct to the poet himself. Here may be traced, though softened by the charm of genius, (which softens all things,) the splendid errors that belong to a passionate youth, and that give such distorted grandeur to the giant melodrama of "The Robbers." But here are to be traced also, and in far clearer characters, the man's strong heart, essentially human in its sympathies—the thoughtful and earnest intellect, not yet equally developed with the fancy, but giving ample promise of all it was destined to receive. In these earlier poems, extravagance is sufficiently noticeable—yet never the sickly eccentricities of diseased weakness, but the exuberant overflowings of a young Titan's strength. There is a distinction, which our critics do not always notice, between the extravagance of a great genius, and the affectation of a pretty poet.
[Footnote 11: This and the following poem are, with some alterations, introduced in the play of "The Robbers."]
Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,
Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,
Stalks Peleus' ruthless son?
Who, when thou glidest amid the dark abodes,
To hurl the spear and to revere the Gods,
Shall teach shine Orphan One?
Woman and wife belovèd—cease thy tears;
My soul is nerved—the war-clang in my ears!
Be mine in life to stand
Troy's bulwark, fighting for our hearths—to go,
In death, exulting to the streams below,
Slain for my fatherland!
No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall—
Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall—
Fallen the stem of Troy!
Thou go'st where slow Cocytus wanders—where
Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless air
Is dark to light and joy!
Sinew and thought—yea, all I feel and think
May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink,
But my love not!
Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls!—I hear!
Gird on my sword—beloved one, dry the tear—
Lethe for love is not!
Fair as an angel from his blessed hall—
Of every fairest youth the fairest he!
Heaven-mild his look, as maybeams when they fall,
Or shine reflected from a clear blue sea!
His kisses—feelings rife with paradise!
Ev'n as two flames, one on the other driven—
Ev'n as two harp-tones their melodious sighs
Blend in some music that seems born of heaven;
So rush'd, mix'd, melted—life with life united!
Lips, cheeks burn'd, trembled—soul to soul was won!
And earth and heaven seem'd chaos, as delighted
Earth—heaven were blent round the belovèd one!
Now, he is gone! vainly and wearily
Groans the full heart, the yearning sorrow flows—
Gone! and all zest of life, in one long sigh,
Goes with him where he goes.
* * * * *
[Footnote 12: This most exquisite love-poem is founded on the Platonic notion, that souls were united in a pre-existent state, that love is the yearning of the spirit to reunite with the spirit with which it formerly made one—and which it discovers on earth. The idea has often been made subservient to poetry, but never with so earnest and elaborate a beauty.]
Who, and what gave to me the wish to woo thee—
Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee?
Who made thy glances to my soul the link—
Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink—
My life in thine to sink?
As from the conquerors unresisted glaive,
Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave—
So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
Thy gaze draw near and near triumphantly—
Yields not my soul to thee?
Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart?—
Is it because its native home thou art?
Or were they brothers in the days of yore,
Twin-bound both souls, and in the links they bore
Sigh to be bound once more?
Were once our beings blent and intertwining,
And therefore still my heart for thine is pining?
Knew we the light of some extinguished sun—
The joys remote of some bright realm undone,
Where once our souls were ONE?
Yes, it is so!—And thou wert bound to me
In the long-vanish'd Eld eternally!
In the dark troubled tablets which enroll
The Past—my Muse beheld this blessed scroll—
"One with thy love my soul!"
Oh yes, I learn'd in awe, when gazing there,
How once one bright inseparate life we were,
How once, one glorious essence as a God,
Unmeasured space our chainless footsteps trode—
All Nature our abode!
Round us, in waters of delight, for ever
Voluptuous flow'd the heavenly Nectar river;
We were the master of the seal of things,
And where the sunshine bathed Truth's mountain-springs
Quiver'd our glancing wings.
Weep for the godlike life we lost afar—
Weep!—thou and I its scatter'd fragments are;
And still the unconquer'd yearning we retain—
Sigh to restore the rapture and the reign,
And grow divine again.
And therefore came to me the wish to woo thee—
Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee;
This made thy glances to my soul the link—
This made me burn thy very breath to drink—
My life in thine to sink:
And therefore, as before the conqueror's glaive,
Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave,
So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
Thy gaze draw near and near triumphantly—
Yieldeth my soul to thee!
Therefore my soul doth from its lord depart,
Because, beloved, its native home thou art;
Because the twins recall the links they bore,
And soul with soul, in the sweet kiss of yore,
Meets and unites once more.
Thou too—Ah, there thy gaze upon me dwells,
And thy young blush the tender answer tells;
Yes! with the dear relation still we thrill,
Both lives—tho' exiles from the homeward hill—
One life—all glowing still!
* * * * *
(Rapture.)
Laura—above this world methinks I fly,
And feel the glow of some May-lighted sky,
When thy looks beam on mine!
And my soul drinks a more ethereal air,
When mine own shape I see reflected there,
In those blue eyes of thine!
A lyre-sound from the Paradise afar,
A harp-note trembling from some gracious star,
Seems the wild ear to fill;
And my muse feels the Golden Shepherd-hours,
When from thy lips the silver music pours
Slow, as against its will.
I see the young Loves flutter on the wing—
Move the charm'd trees, as when the Thracian's string
Wild life to forests gave;
Swifter the globe's swift circle seems to fly,
When in the whirling dance thou glidest by,
Light as a happy wave.
Thy looks, when there love sheds the loving smile,
Could from the senseless marble life beguile—
Lend rocks a pulse divine;
Into a dream my very being dies,
I can but read—for ever read—thine eyes—
Laura, sweet Laura, mine![13]
[Footnote 13: We confess we cannot admire the sagacity of those who have contended that Schiller's passion for Laura was purely Platonic.]
* * * * *
When o'er the chords thy fingers steal,
A soulless statue now I feel,
And now a soul set free!
Sweet Sovereign! ruling over death and life—
Seizes the heart, in a voluptuous strife
As with a thousand strings—the SORCERY![14]
[Footnote 14: "The Sorcery."—In the original, Schiller has an allusion of very questionable taste, and one which is very obscure to the general reader, to a conjurer of the name of Philadelphia who exhibited before Frederick the Great.]
Then the vassal airs that woo thee,
Hush their low breath hearkening to thee.
In delight and in devotion,
Pausing from her whirling motion,
Nature, in enchanted calm,
Silently drinks the floating balm.
Sorceress, her heart with thy tone
Chaining—as thine eyes my own!
O'er the transport-tumult driven,
Doth the music gliding swim;
From the strings, as from their heaven,
Burst the new-born Seraphim.
As when from Chaos' giant arms set free,
'Mid the Creation-storm, exultingly
Sprang sparkling thro' the dark the Orbs of Light—
So streams the rich tone in melodious might.
Soft-gliding now, as when o'er pebbles glancing,
The silver wave goes dancing;
Now with majestic swell, and strong,
As thunder peals in organ-tones along;
And now with stormy gush,
As down the rock, in foam, the whirling torrents rush.
To a whisper now
Melts it amorously,
Like the breeze through the bough
Of the aspen tree;
Heavily now, and with a mournful breath,
Like midnight's wind along those wastes of death,
Where Awe the wail of ghosts lamenting hears,
And slow Cocytus trails the stream whose waves are tears.
Speak, maiden, speak!—Oh, art thou one of those
Spirits more lofty than our region knows?
Should we in thine the mother-language seek
Souls in Elysium speak?
Children of Suns restored to youth,
In purfled fields ye dwell,
Rear'd to delight and joy—in sooth
Kind Nature loves ye well!
Broider'd with light the robes ye wear,
And liberal Flora decks ye fair
In gorgeous-colour'd pride.
Yet woe—Spring's harmless infants—woe!
Mourn, for ye wither while ye glow—
Mourn for the soul denied!
The sky-lark and the nightbird sing
To you their hymns of love;
And Sylphs that wanton on the wing,
Embrace your blooms above.
Woven for Love's soft pillow were
The chalice crowns ye flushing bear,
By the Idalian Queen.
Yet weep, soft children of the Spring,
The feelings love alone can bring
To you denied have been!
But me in vain my Fanny's [15] eyes
Her mother hath forbidden;
For in the buds I gather, lies
Love's symbol-language hidden.
Mute heralds of voluptuous pain,
I touch ye—life—speech—heart—ye gain,
And soul denied before.
And silently your leaves enclose,
The mightiest God in arch repose,
Soft-cradled in the core.
[Footnote 15: Literally "Nanny."]
* * * * *
Heavy and solemn,
A cloudy column,
Thro' the green plain they marching came!
Measureless spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The looks are bent on the shaking ground,
And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound;
Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,
Gallops the Major along the front—
"Halt!"
And fetter'd they stand at the stark command,
And the warriors, silent, halt!
Proud in the blush of morning glowing,
What on the hill-top shines in flowing?
"See you the Foeman's banners waving?"
"We see the Foeman's banners waving!"
Now, God be with you, woman and child,
Lustily hark to the music wild—
The mighty trump and the mellow fife,
Nerving the limbs to a stouter life;
Thrilling they sound with their glorious tone,
Thrilling they go, through the marrow and bone.
Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er,
In the life to come that we meet once more!
See the smoke how the lightning is cleaving asunder!
Hark the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in their thunder!
From host to host, with kindling sound,
The shouting signal circles round,
Ay, shout it forth to life or death—
Freer already breathes the breath!
The war is waging, slaughter raging,
And heavy through the reeking pall,
The iron Death-dice fall!
Nearer they close—foes upon foes
"Ready!"—From square to square it goes,
Down on the knee they sank,
And the fire comes sharp from the foremost rank.
Many a man to the earth it sent,
Many a gap by the balls is rent—
O'er the corpse before springs the hinder-man,
That the line may not fail to the fearless van.
To the right, to the left, and around and around,
Death whirls in its dance on the bloody ground.
The sun goes down on the burning fight,
And over the host falls the brooding Night.
Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er,
In the life to come that we meet once more!
The dead men lie bathed in the weltering blood,
And the living are blent in the slippery flood,
And the feet, as they reeling and sliding go,
Stumble still on the corpses that sleep below.
"What, Francis!" "Give Charlotte my last farewell."
Wilder the slaughter roars, fierce and fell.
"I'll give——Look, comrades, beware—beware
How the bullets behind us are whirring there——
I'll give thy Charlotte thy last farewell,
Sleep soft! where death's seeds are the thickest sown,
Goes the heart which thy silent heart leaves alone."
Hitherward—thitherward reels the fight,
Darker and darker comes down the night—
Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er,
In the life to come that we meet once more!
Hark to the hoofs that galloping go!
The Adjutants flying,—
The horsemen press hard on the panting foe,
Their thunder booms in dying—
Victory!
The terror has seized on the dastards all,
And their colours fall.
Victory!
Closed is the brunt of the glorious fight.
And the day, like a conqueror, bursts on the night.
Trumpet and fife swelling choral along,
The triumph already sweeps marching in song.
Live—brothers—live!—and when this life is o'er,
In the life to come may we meet once more!
* * * * *
I wish I had lived in France in 1672! It was the age of romances in twenty volumes, and flowing periwigs, and high-heeled shoes, and hoops, and elegance, and wit, and rouge, and literary suppers, and gallantry, and devotion. What names are those of La Calprenède, and D'Urfé, and De Scuderi, to be the idols and tutelary deities of a circulating library!—and Sevigné, to conduct the fashionable correspondence of the Morning Post!—and Racine, to contribute to the unacted drama!—and ladies skipping up the steepest parts of Parnassus, with petticoats well tucked up, to show the beauty of their ankles, and their hands filled with artificial flowers—almost as good as natural—to show the simplicity of their tastes! I wish I had lived in France in 1672; for in that year Madame Deshoulieres, who had already been voted the tenth muse by all the freeholders of Pieria, and whose pastorals were lisped by all the fashionable shepherdesses in Paris, left the flowery banks of the Seine to rejoin her husband. Monsieur Deshoulieres was in Guyenne; Madame Deshoulieres went into Dauphiné. Matrimony seems to be rather hurtful to geographical studies, but Madame Deshoulieres was a poetess; and in spite of the thirty-eight summers that shaded the lustre of her cheek, she was beautiful, and was still in the glow of youth by her grace and her talent, and—her heart. Wherever she moved she left crowds of Corydons and Alexises; but, luckily for M. Deshoulieres, their whole conversation was about sheep.
The two Mesdemoiselles Deshoulieres, Madeleine and Bribri, were beautiful girls of seventeen or eighteen, brought up in all the innocent pastoralism of their mother. They believed in all the poetical descriptions they read in her eclogues. They expected to see shepherds playing on their pipes, and shepherdesses dancing, and naiads reclining on the shady banks of clear-running rivers. They were delighted to get out of the prosaic atmosphere of Paris, and all the three were overjoyed when they sprang from their carriage, one evening in May, at the chateau of Madame d'Urtis on the banks of the Lignon. Though there were occasional showers at that season, the mornings were splendid; and accordingly the travellers were up almost by daylight, to tread the grass still trembling 'neath the steps of Astrea—to see the fountain, that mirror where the shepherdesses wove wild-flowers into their hair—and to explore the wood, still vocal with the complaints of Celadon. In one of their first excursions, Madeleine Deshoulieres, impatient to see some of the scenes so gracefully described by her mother, asked if they were really not to encounter a single shepherd on the banks of the Lignon? Madame Deshoulieres perceived, at no great distance, a herdsman and cow-girl playing at chuckfarthing; and, after a pause, replied—
"Behold upon the verdant grass so sweet,
The shepherdess is at her shepherd's feet!
Her arms are bare, her foot is small and white,
The very oxen wonder at the sight;
Her locks half bound, half floating in the air,
And gown as light as those that satyrs wear."
While these lines were given in Madame Deshoulieres' inimitable recitative, the party had come close to the rustic pair. "People may well say," muttered Madeleine, "that the pictures of Nature are always best at a distance. Can it be possible that this is a shepherdess—a shepherdess of Lignon?" The shepherdess was in reality a poor little peasant girl, unkempt, unshorn, with hands of prodigious size, a miraculous squint, and a mouth which probably had a beginning, but of which it was impossible to say where it might end. The shepherd was worthy of his companion; and yet there was something in the extravagant stupidity of his fat and florid countenance that was interesting to a Parisian eye. Madame Deshoulieres, who was too much occupied with the verses of the great D'Urfé to attend to what was before her, continued her description—
"The birds all round her praises ever sing,
And 'neath her steps the flowers incessant spring."
"Your occupation here is delightful, isn't it?" said Madeleine to the peasant girl.
"No, 'tain't, miss—that it ain't. I gets nothink for all I does, and when I goes hoam at night I gets a good licking to the bargain."
"And you?" enquired Madeleine, turning to the herdsman, who was slinking off.
"I'm a little b-b-b-etter off nor hur," said the man, stuttering, "for I gets board and lodging—dasht if I doesn't—but I gets bread like a stone, and s-s-sleeps below a hedge—dasht if I doesn't."
"But where are your sheep, shepherd?" said Bribri.
"Hain't a got none," stuttered the man again, "dasht if I has."
"What!" exclaimed Madeleine in despair, "am I not to see the lovely lambkins bleating and skipping in the meadows on the banks of the Lignon, O Celadon?"
But Madame Deshoulieres was too much of a poetess to hear or see what was going on. She thought of nothing but the loves of Astrea, and heard nothing but the imaginary songs of contending Damons.
On their return to the chateau, Madeleine and Bribri complained that they had seen neither flock nor shepherdess.
"And are you anxious to see them?" enquired Madame D'Urtis, with a smile.
"Oh, very," exclaimed Bribri; "we expected to live like shepherdesses when we came here. I have brought every thing a rustic wants."
"And so have I," continued Madeleine; "I have brought twenty yards of rose-coloured ribands, and twenty yards of blue, to ornament my crook and the handsomest of my ewes."
"Well then," said the Duchess d'Urtis, good-naturedly, "there are a dozen of sheep feeding at the end of the park. Take the key of the gate, and drive them into the meadows beyond."
Madeleine and Bribri were wild with joy, while their mother was labouring in search of a rhyme, and did not attend to the real eclogue which was about to be commenced. They scarcely took time to breakfast.—"They dressed themselves coquettishly"—so Madame Deshoulieres wrote to Mascaron—"they cut with their own hands a crook a-piece in the park—they beautified them with ribands. Madeleine was for the blue ribands, Bribri for the rose colour. Oh, the gentle shepherdesses! they spent a whole hour in finding a name they liked. At last, Madeleine fixed on Amaranthe, Bribri on Daphnè. I have just seen them gliding among the trees that overshadow the lovely stream.—Poor shepherdesses! be on your guard against the wolves."
At noon that very day Madeleine and Bribri, or rather Amaranthe and Daphnè, in grey silk petticoats and satin bodies, with their beautiful hair in a state of most careful disorder, and with their crooks in hand, conducted the twelve sheep out of the park into the meadows. The flock, which seemed to be very hungry, were rather troublesome and disobedient. The shepherdesses did all they could to keep them in the proper path. It was a delicious mixture of bleatings, and laughter, and baaings, and pastoral songs. The happy girls inhaled the soul of nature, as their poetical mamma expressed it. They ran—they threw themselves on the blooming grass—they looked at themselves in the limpid waters of the Lignon—they gathered lapfulls of primroses. The flock made the best use of their time; and every now and then a sheep of more observation than the rest, perceiving they were guarded by such extraordinary shepherdesses, took half an hour's diversion among the fresh-springing corn.
"That's one of yours," said Amaranthe.
"No; 'tis yours," replied Daphnè; but, by way of having no difficulties in future, they resolved to divide the flock, and ornament one-half with blue collars, and the other with rose-colour. And they gave a name also to each of the members of their flock, such as Meliboeus, and Jeannot, and Robin, and Blanchette. Twelve more poetical sheep were never fed on grass before. When the sun began to sink, the shepherdesses brought back their flocks. Madame Deshoulieres cried with joy. "Oh, my dear girls!" she said, kissing their fair foreheads; "it is you that have composed an eclogue, and not I."
"Nothing is wanting to the picture," said the Duchess, seating herself under the willows of the watering-place, and admiring the graceful girls.
"I think we want a dog," said Daphnè.
"No; we are rather in want of a wolf," whispered the beautiful
Amaranthe—and blushed.
Not far from the Chateau d'Urtis, the old manor-house of Langevy raised its pointed turrets above the surrounding woods. There, in complete isolation from the world, lived Monsieur de Langevy, his old mother, and his young son. M. de Langevy had struggled against the storms and misfortunes of human life; he now reposed in the bosom of solitude, with many a regret over his wife and his youth—his valiant sword and his adventures. His son, Hector Henri de Langevy, had studied under the Jesuits at Lyons till he was eighteen. Accustomed to the indulgent tenderness of his grandmother, he had returned, about two years before, determined to live in his quiet home without troubling himself about the military glories that had inspired his father. M. de Langevy, though he disapproved of the youth's choice, did not interfere with it, except that he insisted on his sometimes following the chase, as the next best occupation to actual war. The chase had few charms for Hector. It perhaps might have had more, if he had not been forced to arm himself with an enormous fowling-piece that had belonged to one of his ancestors, the very sight of which alarmed him a mighty deal more than the game. He was so prodigious a sportsman, that, after six months' practice, he was startled as much as ever by the whirr of a partridge. But don't imagine, on this account, that Hector's time was utterly wasted. He mused and dreamed, and fancied it would be so pleasant to be in love; for he was at that golden age—the only golden age the world has ever seen—when the heart passes from vision to vision (as the bee from flower to flower)—and wanders, in its dreams of hope, from earth to heaven, from sunshine to shade—from warbling groves to sighing maidens. But alas! the heart of Hector searched in vain for sighing maidens in the woods of Langevy. In the chateau, there was no one but an old housekeeper, who had probably not sighed for thirty years, and a chubby scullion-maid—all unworthy of a soul that dreamed romances on the banks of the Lignon. He counted greatly on a cousin from Paris, who had promised them a visit in the spring. In the meantime, he paced up and down with a gun on his shoulder, pretending to be a sportsman—happy in his hopes, happy in the clear sunshine, happy because he knew no better—as happens to a great many other people in the gay days of their youth, in this most unjustly condemned and vilipended world. And now you will probably guess what occurred one day he was walking in his usual dreamy state of abstraction, and as nearly as possible tumbled head foremost into the Lignon. By dint of marching straight on, without minding either hedge or ditch, he found himself, when he awakened from his reverie, with his right foot raised, in the very act of stepping off the bank into the water. He stood stock-still, in that somewhat unpicturesque attitude—his mouth wide open, his eyes strained, and his cheek glowing with all the colours of the rainbow. He had caught a glimpse of our two enchanting shepherdesses on the other side of the stream, who were watching his movements by stealth. He blushed far redder than he had ever done before, and hesitated whether he should retreat or advance. To retreat, he felt, would look rather awkward: at the same time, he thought it would be too great a price to pay for his honour to jump into the river. And, besides, even if he got over to the other side, would he have courage to speak to them? Altogether, I think he acted more wisely, though less chivalrously, than some might have done in his place. He laid down his gun, and seated himself on the bank, and looked at the sheep as they fed on the opposite side. At twenty years of age, love travels at an amazing pace; and Hector felt that he was already over head and ears with one of the fair shepherdesses. He did not stop to examine which of them it was; it was of no consequence—sufficient for him that he knew he was in love—gone—captivated. If he had been twenty years older, he would perhaps have admired them both: it would have been less romantic, but decidedly more wise.
It is not to be denied that Amaranthe and Daphnè blushed a little, too, at this sort of half meeting with Hector. They hung down their heads in the most captivating manner, and continued silent for some time. But at last Amaranthe, more lively than her sister, recommenced her chatter. "Look, Bribri," she said—"Daphnè I mean—he is one of the silvan deities, or perhaps Narcissus looking at himself in the water."
"Rather say, looking at you," replied Daphnè, with a blush.
"'Tis Pan hiding himself in the oziers till you are metamorphosed into a flute, dear Daphnè."
"Not so, fair sister," replied Daphnè; "'tis Endymion in pursuit of the shepherdess Amaranthe."
"At his present pace, the pursuit will last some time. If he weren't quite so rustic, he would be a captivating shepherd, with his long brown ringlets. He has not moved for an hour. What if he has taken root like a hamadryad?"
"Poor fellow!" said Daphnè, in the simplest tone in the world; "he looks very dull all by himself."
"He must come over to us—that's very plain. We will give him a crook and a bouquet of flowers."
"Oh, just the thing!" exclaimed the innocent Daphnè. "We need a shepherd: and yet, no, no"—she added, for she was a little jealous of her sister—"'tis a lucky thing there is river between us."
"I hope he will find a bridge per passa lou riou d'amor."
Now, just at that moment Hector's mind was set on passing the river of Love. In casting his eyes all round in search of a passage, he perceived an old willow half thrown across the stream. With a little courage and activity, it was a graceful and poetical bridge. Hector resolved to try it. He rose and went right onward towards the tree; but, when he arrived, he couldn't help reflecting that, at that season, the river was immensely deep. He disdained the danger—sprang lightly up the trunk, and flung himself along one of the branches, dropping, happily without any accident, on the meadow of the Chateau d'Urtis. Little more was left for him to do; and that little he did. He went towards the fair shepherdesses. He tried to overcome his timidity—he overwhelmed the first sheep of the flock with his insidious caresses—and then, finding himself within a few feet of Amaranthe—he bowed, and smiled, and said, "Mademoiselle."
He was suddenly interrupted by a clear and silvery voice.
"There are no Mesdemoiselles here—there are only two shepherdesses,
Amaranthe and Daphnè."
Hector had prepared a complimentary speech for a young lady attending a flock of sheep—but he hadn't a word to say to a shepherdess.
He bowed again, and there was a pause.
"Fair Amaranthe," he said—"and fair Daphnè, will you permit a mortal to tread these flowery plains?"
Amaranthe received the speech with a smile, in which a little raillery was mingled. "You speak like a true shepherd," she said.
But Daphnè was more good-natured, and more touched with the politeness of the sportsman. She cast her eyes on the ground and blushed.
"Oh—if you wish to pass through these meadows," she said—"we shall be"—
"We were going to do the honours of our reception room," continued
Amaranthe, "and offer you a seat on the grass."
"'Tis too much happiness to throw myself at your feet," replied
Hector, casting himself on one knee.
But he had not looked where he knelt, and he broke Daphnè's crook.
"Oh, my poor crook!" she said—and sighed.
"What have I done?" cried Hector. "I am distressed at my stupidity—I will cut you another from the ash grove below. But you loved this crook," he added—"the gift, perhaps, of some shepherd—some shepherd? —no, some prince; for you yourselves are princesses—or fairies."
"We are nothing but simple shepherdesses," said Amaranthe.
"You are nothing but beautiful young ladies from the capital," said Hector, "on a visit at the Chateau d'Urtis. Heaven be praised—for in my walks I shall at least catch glimpses of you at a distance, if I dare not come near. I shall see you glinting among the trees like enchantresses of old."
"Yes, we are Parisians, as you have guessed—but retired for ever from the world and its deceitful joys."
Amaranthe had uttered the last words in a declamatory tone; you might have thought them a quotation from her mamma.
"You complain rather early, methinks," replied Hector, with a smile; "have you indeed much fault to find with the world?"
"That is our secret, fair sportsman," answered Amaranthe; "but it seems you also live retired—an eremite forlorn."
"I? fair Amaranthe? I have done nothing but dream of the delights of a shepherd's life—though I confess I had given up all hopes of seeing a good-looking shepherdess—but now I shall go back more happily than ever to my day-dreams. Ah! why can't I help you to guard your flock?"
The two young girls did not know what to say to this proposition.
Daphnè at last replied—
"Our flock is very small—and quite ill enough attended to as it is."
"What joy for me to become Daphnis—to sing to you, and gather roses, and twine them in your hair!"
"Let us say no more," interrupted Amaranthe, a little disquieted at the sudden ardour of Daphnis; "the sun is going down: we must return to the park. Adieu," she added, rising to go away.
"Adieu, Daphnis!" murmured the tender Daphnè, confused and blushing.
Hector did not dare to follow them. He stood for a quarter of an hour with his eyes fixed first on them, and then on the door of the park. His heart beat violently, his whole soul pursued the steps of the shepherdesses.
"'Adieu, Daphnis,' the lovely Daphnè said to me. I hear her sweet voice still! How beautiful she is! how beautiful they are, both—Amaranthe is more graceful, but Daphnè is more winning—bright eyes—white hands! sweet smiles! and the delicious dress, so simple, yet so captivating! the white corset that I could not venture to look at—the gown of silk that couldn't hide the points of the charming little feet. 'Tis witchery—enchantment—Venus and Diana—I shall inevitably go mad. Ah, cousin! you ought to have come long ago, and all this might never have occurred."
The sun had sunk behind a bed of clouds—the nightingale began its song, and the fresh green leaves rustled beneath the mild breath of the evening breeze. The bee hummed joyously on its homeward way, loaded with the sweets of the spring flowers. Down in the valley, the voice of the hinds driving their herds to rest, increased the rustic concert; the river rippled on beneath the mysterious shade of old fantastic trees, and the air was filled with soft noises, and rich perfumes, and the voice of birds. There was no room in Hector's heart for all these natural enjoyments. "To-morrow," he said, kissing the broken crook—"I will come back again to-morrow."
Early in the following morning, Hector wandered along the banks of the Lignon, with a fresh-cut crook in his hand. He looked to the door of the Park d'Urtis, expecting every moment to see the glorious apparitions of the day before. And at stroke of noon, a lamb rushing through the gate, careered along the meadow, and the eleven others ran gayly after it, amidst a peal of musical laughter from Amaranthe. Daphnè did not laugh.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she glanced stealthily towards the river. "I thought so," she murmured; "Daphnis has come back." And Daphnis, in a transport of joy, was hurrying to the shepherdesses, when he was suddenly interrupted by Madame Deshoulieres and the Duchess d'Urtis. When the sisters had returned, on the evening before, Amaranthe, to Daphnè's great discomfiture, had told word for word all that had occurred; how that a young sportsman had joined them, and how they had talked and laughed; and Madame d'Urtis had no doubt, from the description, that it was Hector de Langevy. Amaranthe having added to the story, that she felt certain, in spite of Daphnè's declarations to the contrary, that he would meet them again, the seniors had determined to watch the result. Hector would fain have made his escape; two ladies he might have faced, but four!—and two of them above thirty years of age! 'Twas too much; but his retreat was instantly cut off. He stood at bay, blushed with all his might, but saluted the ladies as manfully as if he had been a page. He received three most gracious curtsies in return—only three; for Daphnè wished to pass on without taking any notice—which he considered a very favourable omen. He did not know how to begin a conversation; and besides, he began to get confused; and his blushing increased to a most alarming extent—and—in short—he held out his crook to Daphnè. As that young shepherdess had no crook of her own, and did not know how to refuse the one he offered, she took it, though her hand trenbled a little, and looked at Madame Deshoulieres.