ress. II. close; Love Thee! oh, clad in human lowliness, And babes, unchid, Thy garment's hem caIn whom each heart its mortal kindred knows, Our flesh, our form, our tears, our pains, our I see Thee doom'd by bitterest pangs to woes; die, A fellow-wanderer o'er earth's wilderness! Up the sad hill, with willing footsteps move, Love Thee ! whose every word but breathes With scourge, and taunt, and wanton agony; to bless! While the cross nods, in hideous gloom, above, Through Thee, from long-seald lips, glad lan- Though all even there be radiant Deity! guage flows; Speechless I gaze, and my whole soul is love! Elliott. Ebenezer Elliott.ward am 17. März 1781 zu Masbro, einem Dorfe in der Nähe von Sheffield geboren. Er hat dasselbe nie verlassen und lebt daselbst als Schmied, nebenbei einen Eisenhandel treibend. Seine Bildung verdankt er sich selbst durch anhaltende Lectüre. Seine Gedichte erschienen gesammelt in drei Bänden, London 1835. Elliott wird gewöhnlich the Corn-Law Rhymer genannt, weil er in einer Sammlung Poesieen, welche unter dem Titel Corn-Law-Rhymes im Jahre 1832 an das Licht trat, heftig und mit grosser Kraft die Sache des durch die englischen zum Vortheil der Landbesitzer bestehenden Korngesetze unterdrückten Volkes führte. Hier wie in allen seinen politischen Gedichten ist er schroff, hart und unversöhnlich voll Hass gegen die Bevorzugten und Alles von der schwärzesten Seite auffassend. Im Allgemeinen aber besitzt er tiefes Gefühl, reiche Naturanschauung, Phantasie und seltene Herrschaft über die Sprache und schliesst, obwohl nur ein Naturdichter, sich Männern wie Crabbe, Wordsworth, Cowper und Burns als ein würdiger und reichbegabter Genosse an. The Wonders of the Lane. Strong climber of the mountain's side, Though thou the vale disdain, The wonders of the lane. The stormy gloom is rollid; His purple, green, and gold. Where dewy daisies gleam; Burns bright in morning's beam. Complains that Sol is slow, His royal robe to throw. Here coils in light the snake; And here the fire-tuft hath begun Its beauteous nest to make. Where verdure fires the plain, The glories of the lane! This roof of sky and tree, And wakes the earliest bee! Look down on earth secure; A world in miniature; Even weakness by his might; And splendid in his light. O'er storm-lov'd mountains spread, The dying Boy to the Sloe-blossom. Before thy leaves thou com’st once more, White blossom of the sloe! Will then lie low. A month at least before thy time Thou com'st, pale flower, to me; For well thou know'st the frosty rime Will blast me ere my vernal prime, No more to be. Why here in winter? No storm lours O'er nature's silent shroud! But blithe larks meet the sunny showers, High o'er the doomed untimely flowers In beauty bowed. Sweet violets in the budding grove Peep where the glad waves run; The wren below, the thrush above, Of bright to-morrow's joy and love Sing to the sun. Or widely teaching sun and star Thy glorious thoughts are read; To sky, and sea, and land Which insects understand! Divinely plain and clear, Thy bright small hand is here. Is Huron, girt with wood; And that, Niagara's flood. Yon line of liquid light, The blind form of its might? The roar that ne'er is still? It roars, and ever will. Clothe every little stone! O'er pigmy valleys lone! Ambitious of the sky, Of mountains mushroom high. What myriad living things What nations, with their kings! While fate perchance o'erwhelms A hundred ruin'd realms! Impell’d by woe or whim, A tiny world to him! The works of nature's might, And all to him is night! Poor insects, spark'd with thought! Could smite us into nought! And mix it with the deep, Thy little ones would sleep. And where the rose-leaf, ever bold, Hears bees chaunt hymns to God, The breeze-bowed palm, mossed o'er with gold, Smiles o'er the well in summer cold, And daisied sod. But thou, pale blossom, thou art come, And flowers in winter blow, To tell me that the worm makes room For me, her brother, in the tomb, And thinks me slow. For as the rainbow of the dawn Foretels an eve of tears, A sunbeam on the saddened lawn I smile, and weep to be withdrawn In early years. Thy leaves will come! but songful spring Will see no leaf of mine; Her bells will ring, her bride's-maids sing, When my young leaves are withering Where no suns shine. Oh, might I breathe morn's dewy breath, When June's sweet Sabbaths chime ! But, thine before my time, oh, death! I go where no flow'r blossometh, Before may time. A Poet's Epitaph. Even as the blushes of the morn Vanish, and long ere noon The dew-drop dieth on the thorn, So fair I bloomed; and was I born To die as soon? To love my mother, and to die To perish in my bloom ! Is this my sad, brief history! A tear dropped from a mother's eye Into the tomb. He lived and loved will sorrow say By early sorrow tried; He smiled, he sighed, he past away: His life was but an April day, He loved, and died ! Stop, mortal! Here thy brother lies, The Poet of the poor, The meadow, and the moor; The tyrant, and the slave, The palace and the grave! And is thy brother blamed? He no exemption claim'd. He fear'd to scorn or hate; The equal of the great. The poor man's little more; From plunder'd labour's store. A heart to feel and dare Who drew them as they are. My mother smiles, then turns away, But turns away to weep: They whisper round me what they say I need not hear, for in the clay I soon must sleep. 0, love is sorrow! sad it is To be both tried and true; I ever trembled in my bliss : Now there are farewells in a kiss, They sigh adieu. To the Bramble-flower. But woodbines flaunt when blue bells fade, Where Don reflects the skies; Though Alfred dies. Then panting woods the breeze will feel, And bowers, as heretofore, Beneath their load of roses reel: But I through woodbined lanes shall steal No more, no more. Well, lay me by my brother's side, Where late we stood and wept; For I was stricken when he died, I felt the arrow as he sighed His last, and slept. Thy fruit full well the school-boy knows, Wild bramble of the brake! So, put thou forth thy small white rose; I love it for his sake. Q'er all the fragrant bowers, Thy satin-threaded flowers; That cannot feel how fair, Amid all beauty beautiful, Thy tender blossoms are ! How delicate thy gauzy frill! How rich thy branchy stem! How soft thy voice, when woods are still, And thou sing'st hymns to them; And 'mid the general hush, Lone whispering through the bush! The hawthorn flower is dead; The violet by the moss'd grey stone Hath laid her weary head; In all their beauteous power, And boyhood's blossomy hour. Thou bid'st me be a boy, In freedom and in joy. L a m b. Charles Lamb ward am 11. Februar 1775 in London geboren, erhielt seine wissenschaftliche Bildung im Christ's Hospital, bekleidete darauf ein Amt bei dem South-Sea-House und später bei der ostindischen Compagnie. Im Jahre 1825 wurde er mit einer ansehnlichen Pension in den Ruhestand versetzt. Er starb am 27. December 1831. Lamb's Schriften kamen zuerst gesammelt heraus London 1818, 2 Bde in 8. Dann nach seinem Tode Prose-Works, London 1836, 3 Bde in 8.; Poetical Works, London 1836, 1 Bd in 8. So vorzüglich Lamb auch als Prosaist sich zeigte, so haben wir hier uns doch nur mit der letzteren Sammlung zu beschäftigen. Sie sind meist lyrischen Inhaltes, mehr tändelnd als begeistert, aber voll inniger Zartheit und Anmuth, Beweise jener hohen eigenthümlichen Liebenswürdigkeit, welche von Allen, die je mit ihm in Berührung standen, auf das Lebhafteste gerühmt wird. Sprache und Weise derselben nähern sich mehr den Dichtern aus der Periode der Elisabeth als denen der Ge vart, aber gerade das verleiht den Poesieen Lamb's einen ganz besonderen Reiz. My sprightly neighbour, gone before Some summer morning, When from thy cheerful eyes a ray A sweet fore-warning? Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat. days, moved. Sonnets. Was it some sweet device of faëry I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. In those fine eyes? methought they spake the A flow'ret crushed in the bud, while A nameless piece of babyhood, Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb Still court the footsteps of the fair hair'd maid? For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut Through glasses of mortality. What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind A finish'd pattern without fault? Or lack'd she the Promethean fire With thy free tresses all summer's day, (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade. That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Or we might sit and tell some tender tale Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn, Life of health, and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! (Themselves now but cold imagery) Or love or pity, though of woman born. The sculptor to make beauty by. And cut the branch; to save the shock green When single state comes back again Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet, To the lone man, who, ʼreft of wife, Oft times would Anna seek the silent scene, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? |