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Hyperion

H >> Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >> Hyperion




And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each other, with
a musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage-time from the
villages on the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder, that the
Germanpoet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of
Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy
schoolmaster Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from
Germany to Mr. John Raven, of John's College; `Tell Mr. Maden I will
drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a
vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I
will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of
Rhenish wine.' Nor, in fine, do I wonder at the German Emperor of
whom he speaks in another letter to the same John Raven, and says,
`The Emperor drank the best that I ever saw; he had his head in the
glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a
good quart at once of Rhenish wine.' These were scholars and
gentlemen.

"But to resume our old theme of scholars and their whereabout,"
said the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught no doubt from the
golden sunshine, imprisoned, like the student Anselmus, in the glass
bottle; "where should the scholar live? In solitudeor in society? In
the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of
nature beat, or in the dark, gray city, where he can hear and feel
the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in
the dark, gray city. Oh, they do greatly err, who think, that the
stars are all the poetry which cities have; and therefore that the
poet's only dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green
roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature,
when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and
harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest,
vast and shadowy, with all the sights and sounds of rural life. But
after all, what are these but the decorations and painted scenery in
the great theatre of human life? What are they but the coarse
materials of the poet's song? Glorious indeed is the world of God
around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies
the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land. The river of
life, that flows through streets tumultuous, bearingalong so many
gallant hearts, so many wrecks of humanity;--the many homes and
households, each a little world in itself, revolving round its
fireside, as a central sun; all forms of human joy and suffering,
brought into that narrow compass;--and to be in this and be a part
of this; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing, with his
fellow-men;--such, such should be the poet's life. If he would
describe the world, he should live in the world. The mind of the
scholar, also, if you would have it large and liberal, should come
in contact with other minds. It is better that his armour should be
somewhat bruised even by rude encounters, than hang forever rusting
on the wall. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because
apparently shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely
the decorations of street scenery. A ruined character is as
picturesque as a ruined castle. There are dark abysses and yawning
gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by
bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged
the Savine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and
England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human
thought; not green grass, and flowers, and moonshine. Besides, the
mere external forms of Nature we make our own, and carry with us
into the city, by the power of memory."

"I fear, however," interrupted Flemming, "that in cities the soul
of man grows proud. He needs at times to be sent forth, like the
Assyrian monarch, into green fields, `a wonderous wretch and
weedless,' to eat green herbs, and be wakened and chastised by the
rain-shower and winter's bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there
is danger of the soul's becoming wed to pleasure, and forgetful of
its high vocation. There have been souls dedicated to heaven from
childhood and guarded by good angels as sweet seclusions for holy
thoughts, and prayers, and all good purposes; wherein pious wishes
dwelt like nuns, and every image was a saint; and yet in life's
vicissitudes, by the treachery of occasion, by the thronging
passionsof great cities, have become soiled and sinful. They
resemble those convents on the river Rhine, which have been changed
to taverns; from whose chambers the pious inmates have long
departed, and in whose cloisters the footsteps of travellers have
effaced the images of buried saints, and whose walls are written
over with ribaldry and the names of strangers, and resound no more
with holy hymns, but with revelry and loud voices."

"Both town and country have their dangers," said the Baron; "and
therefore, wherever the scholar lives, he must never forget his high
vocation. Other artists give themselves up wholly to the study of
their art. It becomes with them almost religion. For the most part,
and in their youth, at least, they dwell in lands, where the whole
atmosphere of the soul is beauty; laden with it as the air may be
with vapor, till their very nature is saturated with the genius of
their art. Such, for example, is the artist's life in Italy."

"I agree with you," exclaimed Flemming; "and such should be the
Poet's everywhere; forhe has his Rome, his Florence, his whole
glowing Italy within the four walls of his library. He has in his
books the ruins of an antique world,--and the glories of a modern
one,--his Apollo and Transfiguration. He must neither forget nor
undervalue his vocation; but thank God that he is a poet; and
everywhere be true to himself, and to `the vision and the faculty
divine' he feels within him."

"But, at any rate, a city life is most eventful," continued the
Baron. "The men who make, or take, the lives of poets and scholars,
always complain that these lives are barren of incidents. Hardly a
literary biography begins without some such apology, unwisely made.
I confess, however, that it is not made without some show of truth;
if, by incidents, we mean only those startling events, which
suddenly turn aside the stream of Time, and change the world's
history in an hour. There is certainly a uniformity, pleasing or
unpleasing, in literary life, which for the most part makes to-day
seem twin-born with yesterday. But if, byincidents, you mean events
in the history of the human mind, (and why not?) noiseless events,
that do not scar the forehead of the world as battles do, yet change
it not the less, then surely the lives of literary men are most
eventful. The complaint and the apology are both foolish. I do not
see why a successful book is not as great an event as a successful
campaign; only different in kind, and not easily compared."

"Indeed," interrupted Flemming, "in no sense is the complaint
strictly true, though at times apparently so. Events enough there
are, were they all set down. A life, that is worth writing at all,
is worth writing minutely. Besides, all literary men have not lived
in silence and solitude;--not all in stillness, not all in shadow.
For many have lived in troubled times, in the rude and adverse
fortunes of the state and age, and could say with Wallenstein,

`Our life was but a battle and a march;

And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless,

We stormed across the war convulsed earth.'

Of such examples history has recorded many; Dante, Cervantes,
Byron, and others; men of iron; men who have dared to breast the
strong breath of public opinion, and, like spectre-ships, come
sailing right against the wind. Others have been puffed out by the
first adverse wind that blew; disgraced and sorrowful, because they
could not please others. Truly `the tears live in an onion, that
should water such a sorrow.' Had they been men, they would have made
these disappointments their best friends, and learned from them the
needful lesson of self-reliance."

"To confess the truth," added the Baron, "the lives of literary
men, with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and
calamities, present a melancholy picture of man's strength and
weakness. On that very account the scholar can make them profitable
for encouragement,--consolation,--warning."

"And after all," continued Flemming, "perhaps the greatest
lesson, which the lives of literary men teach us, is told in a
single word; Wait!--Every man must patiently bide his time. He must
wait. More particularly in lands, like my native land, where the
pulse of life beats with such feverish and impatient throbs, is the
lesson needful. Our national character wants the dignity of repose.
We seem to live in the midst of a battle,--there is such a
din,--such a hurrying to and fro. In the streets of a crowded city
it is difficult to walk slowly. You feel the rushing of the crowd,
and rush with it onward. In the press of our life it is difficult to
be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all professions seem to
drag their anchors, and are swept out into the main. The voices of
the Present say, Come! But the voices of the Past say, Wait! With
calm and solemn footsteps the rising tide bears against the rushing
torrent up stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less
calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainly, does a great mind
bear up against public opinion, and push back its hurrying stream.
Therefore should every man wait;--should bide his time. Not in
listless idleness,--not in uselesspastime,--not in querulous
dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours, always
willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when the
occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never
comes, what matters it? What matters it to the world whether I, or
you, or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a book, sobeit
the deed and book were well done! It is the part of an indiscreet
and troublesome ambition, to care too much about fame,--about what
the world says of us. To be always looking into the faces of others
for approval;--to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and
say; to be always shouting to hear the echo of our own voices! If
you look about you, you will see men, who are wearing life away in
feverish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them
will be the funeral bell, that tolls them to their early graves!
Unhappy men, and unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to
accomplish well their task, but to clutch the `trick and fantasy of
fame'; and they go to their graveswith purposes unaccomplished and
wishes unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world in their
example, had they known how to wait! Believe me, the talent of
success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing
well whatever you do,--without a thought of fame. If it come at all,
it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
And, moreover, there will be no misgivings,--no disappointment,--no
hasty, feverish, exhausting excitement."

Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I make no record of the
winter. Paul Flemming buried himself in books; in old, dusty books.
He studied diligently the ancient poetic lore of Germany, from
Frankish Legends of Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, down
through Nibelungen Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and Songs of the
Minnesingers and Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and Reinecke
Foxes, and Death-Dancesand Lamentations of Damned Souls, into the
bright, sunny land of harvests, where, amid the golden grain and the
blue corn-flowers, walk the modern bards, and sing.






BOOK II.




Epigraph

"Something the heart must have to cherish,

Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn;

Something with passion clasp, or perish,

And in itself to ashes burn."




CHAPTER I. SPRING.



It was a sweet carol, which the Rhodian children sang of old in
Spring, bearing in their hands, from door to door, a swallow, as
herald of the season;

"The Swallow is come!

The Swallow is come!

O fair are the seasons, and light

Are the days that she brings,

With her dusky wings,

And her bosom snowy white."

A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hungarian boys, on the
islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in Spring;

"Stork! Stork! poor Stork!

Why is thy foot so bloody?

A Turkish boy hath torn it;

Hungarian boy will heal it,

With fiddle, fife, and drum."

But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of
ours, where Spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy
cloud-sails, and the misty pennon of the East-wind nailed to the
mast! Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there
are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the
balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring
sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun
themselves; and think it is summer. They die in their conceit; and
so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the
eastern sea; and again,

"The driving hail

Upon the window beats with icy flail."

The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple
flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood
follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed
in the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden
rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they
hide themselves in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery
cloaks? At the fireside of the great, hospitable sun, to-morrow, not
before;--they must sit in wet garments until then.

In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the South it is
intoxicating, and sets a poet beside himself. The birds begin to
sing;--they utter a few rapturous notes, and then wait for an answer
in the silent woods. Those green-coated musicians, the frogs, make
holiday in the neighbouring marshes. They, too, belong to the
orchestra of Nature; whose vast theatre is again opened, though the
doors have been so long bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung
with snow and frost, like cobwebs. This is the prelude, which
announces the rising of the broad green curtain. Already the grass
shoots forth. The waters leap with thrilling pulse through the veins
of the earth; the sap through the veins of the plants and trees; and
the blood through the veins of man. What a thrill of delight in
spring-time! What a joy in being and moving! Men are at work in
gardens; and in the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The
leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry
hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes; and ere long our next-door
neighbours will be completely hidden from us by the dense green
foliage. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let
loose in the fields and gardens. They hold butter-cups under each
others' chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls
adorn themselves with chains and curls of dandelions; pull out the
yellow leaves to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the down
from the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers want them at
home.

And at night so cloudless and so still! Not a voice of living
thing,--not a whisper of leaf or waving bough,--not a breath of
wind,--not a sound upon the earth nor in the air! And overhead bends
the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars,
like the inverted bellof some blue flower, sprinkled with golden
dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heavens are overcast, it is
no wild storm of wind and rain; but clouds that melt and fall in
showers. One does not wish to sleep; but lies awake to hear the
pleasant sound of the dropping rain.

It was thus the Spring began in Heidelberg.




CHAPTER II. A COLLOQUY.



"And what think you of Tiedge's Urania," said the Baron smiling,
as Paul Flemming closed the book, and laid it upon the table.

"I think," said Flemming, "that it is very much like Jean Paul's
grandfather,--in the highest degree poor and pious."

"Bravo!" exclaimed the Baron. "That is the best criticism I have
heard upon the book. For my part, I dislike the thing as much as
Goethe did. It was once very popular, and lay about in every parlour
and bed-room. This annoyed the old gentleman exceedingly; and I do
not wonder at it. He complains, that at one time nothing was sung or
said but this Urania. He believed in Immortality; but wished to
cherish his belief inquietness. He once told a friend of his, that
he had, however, learned one thing from all this talk about Tiedge
and his Urania; which was, that the saints, as well as the nobility,
constitute an aristocracy. He said he found stupid women, who were
proud because they believed in Immortality with Tiedge, and had to
submit himself to not a few mysterious catechizings and tea-table
lectures on this point; and that he cut them short by saying, that
he had no objection whatever to enter into another state of
existence hereafter, but prayed only that he might be spared the
honor of meeting any of those there, who had believed in it here;
for, if he did, the saints would flock around him on all sides,
exclaiming, Were we not in the right? Did we not tell you so? Has it
not all turned out just as we said? And, with such a conceited
clatter in his ears, he thought that, before the end of six months,
he might die of ennui in Heaven itself."

"How shocked the good old ladies must have been," said
Flemming.

"No doubt, their nerves suffered a little; but the young ladies
loved him all the better for being witty and wicked; and thought if
they could only marry him, how they would reform him."

"Bettina Brentano, for instance."

"O no! That happened long afterwards. Goethe was then a
silver-haired old man of sixty. She had never seen him, and knew him
only by his writings; a romantic girl of seventeen."

"And yet much in love with the Sexagenarian. And surely a more
wild, fantastic, and, excuse me, German passion never sprang up in
woman's breast. She was a flower, that worshipped the sun."

"She afterwards married Achim von Arnim, and is now a widow. And
not the least singular part of the affair, is, that, having grown
older, and I hope colder, she should herself publish the letters
which passed between her and Goethe."

"Particularly the letter in which she describes her first visit
to Weimar, and her interview with the hitherto invisible divinity of
her dreams. The old gentleman took her upon his knees, and she fell
asleep with her head upon his shoulder. It reminds me of Titania and
Nick Bottom, begging your pardon, always, for comparing your
All-sided-One to Nick Bottom. Oberon must have touched her eyes with
the juice of Love-in-idleness. However, this book of Goethe's
Correspondence with a Child is a very singular and valuable
revelation of the feelings, which he excited in female hearts. You
say she afterwards married Achim von Arnim?"

"Yes; and he and her brother, Clemens Brentano, published that
wondrous book, the Boy's Wonder-Horn."

"The Boy's Wonder-Horn!" said Flemming, after a short pause, for
the name seemed to have thrown him into a reverie;--"I know the book
almost by heart. Of all your German books it is the one which
produces upon my imagination the most wild and magic influence. I
have a passion for ballads!"

"And who has not?" said the Baron with asmile. "They are the
gypsy-children of song, born under green hedgerows, in the leafy
lanes and by-paths of literature,--in the genial summer-time."

"Why do you say summer-time and not summer?" inquired Flemming.
"The expression reminds me of your old Minnesingers;--of Heinrich
von Ofterdingen, and Walter von der Vogelweide, and Count Kraft von
Toggenburg, and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von
Hohenfels. They were always singing of the gentle summer-time. They
seem to have lived poetry, as well as sung it; like the birds who
make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees."

"Is that from Shakspere?"

"No; from Lope de Vega."

"You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity, and the Aubades
and Watch-Songs of the old Minnesingers. What do you think of the
shoe-maker poets that came after them,--with their guilds and
singing-schools? It makes me laugh to think how the great German
Helicon, shrunk toa rivulet, goes bubbling and gurgling over the
pebbly names of Zwinger, Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin, Hellfire, Old
Stoll, Young Stoll, Strong Bopp, Dang Brotscheim, Batt Spiegel,
Peter Pfort, and Martin Gumpel. And then the Corporation of the
Twelve Wise Masters, with their stumpfereime and klingende-reime,
and their Hans Tindeisen's rosemary-weise; and Joseph Schmierer's
flowery-paradise-weise, and Frauenlob's yellow-weise, and
blue-weise, and frog-weise, and looking-glass-weise!"

"O, I entreat you," exclaimed Flemming, laughing, "do not call
those men poets! You transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see
Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shaving the burgomaster."

"By the way," interrupted the Baron, "did you ever read
Hoffmann's beautiful story of Master Martin, the Cooper of
Nuremberg? I will read it to you this very night. It is the most
delightful picture of that age, which you can conceive. But look!
the sun has already set behindthe Alsatian hills. Let us go up to
the castle and look for the ghost in Prince Ruprecht's tower. O,
what a glorious sunset!"

Flemming looked at the evening sky, and a shade of sadness stole
over his countenance. He told not to his friend the sorrow, with
which his heart was heavy; but kept it for himself alone. He knew
that the time, which comes to all men,--the time to suffer and be
silent,--had come to him likewise; and he spake no word. O well has
it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not
speak.




CHAPTER III. OWL-TOWERS.



"There sits the old Frau Himmelhahn, perched up in her
owl-tower," said the Baron to Flemming, as they passed along the
Hauptstrasse. "She looks down through her round-eyed spectacles from
her nest up there, and watches every one that goes by. I wonder what
mischief she is hatching now? Do you know she has nearly ruined your
character in town? She says you have a rakish look, because you
carry a cane, and your hair curls. Your gloves, also, are a shade
too light for a strictly virtuous man."

"It is very kind in her to take such good care of my character,
particularly as I am a stranger in town. She is doubtless learned in
the Clothes-Philosophy."

"And ignorant of every thing else. She asked a friend of mine the
other day, whether Christ was a Catholic or a Protestant."

"That is really too absurd!"

"Not too absurd to be true. And, ignorant as she is, she
contrives to do a good deal of mischief in the course of the year.
Why, the ladies already call you Wilhelm Meister."

"They are at liberty to call me what they please. But you, who
know me better, know that I am something more than they would imply
by the name."

"She says, moreover, that the American ladies sit with their feet
out of the window, and have no pocket-handkerchiefs."

"Excellent!"

They crossed the market-place and went up beneath the grand
terrace into the court-yard of the castle.

"Let us go up and sit under the great linden-trees, that grow on
the summit of the Rent Tower," said Flemming. "From that point as
from awatch-tower we can look down into the garden, and see the
crowd below us."

"And amuse ourselves, as old Frau Himmelhahn does, at her window
in the Hauptstrasse," added the Baron.

The keeper's daughter unlocked for them the door of the tower,
and, climbing the steep stair-case, they seated themselves on a
wooden bench under the linden-trees.

"How beautifully these trees overgrow the old tower! And see what
a solid mass of masonry lies in the great fosse down there, toppled
from its base by the explosion of a mine! It is like a rusty helmet
cleft in twain, but still crested with towering plumes!"

"And what a motley crowd in the garden! Philisters and Sons of
the Muses! And there goes the venerable Thibaut, taking his evening
stroll. Do you see him there, with his silver hair flowing over his
shoulders, and that friendly face, which has for so many years pored
over the Pandects. I assure you, he inspires me with awe. And yet he
is a merry old man, and loves his joke, particularly at the expense
of Moses and other ancient lawgivers."

Here their attention was diverted by a wild-looking person, who
passed with long strides under the archway in the fosse, right
beneath them, and disappeared among the bushes. He was
ill-dressed,--his hair flying in the wind,--his movements hurried
and nervous, and the expression of his broad countenance wild,
strange, and earnest.

"Who can that be!" asked Flemming. "He strides away indignantly,
like one of Ossian's ghosts?"

"A great philosopher, whose name I have forgotten. Truly a
strange owl!"

"He looks like a lion with a hat on."

"He is a mystic, who reads Schubert's History of the Soul, and
lives, for the most part, in the clouds of the Middle Ages. To him
the spirit-world is still open. He believes in the transmigration of
souls; and I dare say is now followingthe spirit of some departed
friend, who has taken the form of yonder pigeon."

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