style="font-size:15px;"> The Treasure-seeker
Many weary days I suffer’d,
Sick of heart and poor of purse;
Riches are the greatest blessing—
Poverty the deepest curse!
Till at last to dig a treasure
Forth I went into the wood—
“Fiend! my soul is thine for ever!”
And I sign’d the scroll with blood.
Then I drew the magic circles,
Kindled the mysterious fire,
Placed the herbs and bones in order,
Spoke the incantation dire.
And I sought the buried metal
With a spell of mickle might—
Sought it as my master taught me;
Black and stormy was the night.
And I saw a light appearing
In the distance, like a star;
When the midnight hour was tolling,
Came it waxing from afar:
Came it flashing, swift and sudden;
As if fiery wine it were,
Flowing from an open chalice,
Which a beauteous boy did bear.
And he wore a lustrous chaplet,
And his eyes were full of thought,
As he stepp’d into the circle
With the radiance that he brought.
And he bade me taste the goblet;
And I thought—“It cannot be,
That this boy should be the bearer
Of the Demon’s gifts to me!”
“Taste the draught of pure existence
Sparkling in this golden urn,
And no more with baneful magic
Shalt thou hitherward return.
Do not dig for treasures longer;
Let thy future spellwords be
Days of labour, nights of resting;
So shall peace return to thee!”
Pass we away now from the Hartz to Heidelberg, in the company of our glorious poet. We all know the magnificent ruins of the Neckar, the feudal turrets which look down upon one of the sweetest spots that ever filled the soul of a weary man with yearning for a long repose. Many a year has gone by since the helmet of the warder was seen glancing on these lofty battlements, since the tramp of the steed was heard in the court-yard, and the banner floated proudly from the topmost turret; but fancy has a power to call them back, and the shattered stone is restored in an instant by the touch of that sublimest architect:—
The Castle on the Mountain
There stands an ancient castle
On yonder mountain height,
Where, fenced with door and portal,
Once tarried steed and knight.
But gone are door and portal,
And all is hush’d and still;
O’er ruin’d wall and rafter
I clamber as I will.
A cellar with many a vintage
Once lay in yonder nook;
Where now are the cellarer’s flagons,
And where is his jovial look?
No more he sets the beakers
For the guests at the wassail feast;
Nor fills a flask from the oldest cask
For the duties of the priest.
No more he gives on the staircase
The stoup to the thirsty squires,
And a hurried thanks for the hurried gift
Receives, nor more requires.
For burn’d are roof and rafter,
And they hang begrimed and black;
And stair, and hall, and chapel,
Are turn’d to dust and wrack.
Yet, as with song and cittern,
One day when the sun was bright,
I saw my love ascending
With me the rocky height;
From the hush and desolation
Sweet fancies did unfold,
And it seem’d as we were living
In the merry days of old.
As if the stateliest chambers
For noble guests were spread,
And out from the prime of that glorious time
A youth a maiden led.
And, standing in the chapel,
The good old priest did say,
“Will ye wed with one another?”
And we smiled and we answer’d “Yea!”
We sung, and our hearts they bounded
To the thrilling lays we sung,
And every note was doubled
By the echo’s catching tongue.
And when, as eve descended,
We left the silence still,
And the setting sun look’d upward
On that great castled hill;
Then far and wide, like lord and bride,
In the radiant light we shone—
It sank; and again the ruins
Stood desolate and lone!
We shall now select, from the songs that are scattered throughout the tale of Wilhelm Meister, one of the most genial and sweet. It is an in-door picture of evening, and of those odorous flowers of life which expand their petals only at the approach of Hesperus.
Philine’s Song
Sing not thus in notes of sadness
Of the loneliness of night;
No! ’tis made for social gladness,
Converse sweet, and love’s delight.
As to rugged man his wife is,
As his fairest half decreed,
So dear night the half of life is,
And the fairest half indeed.
Canst thou in the day have pleasure,
Which but breaks on rapture in,
Scares us from our dreams of leisure
With its glare and irksome din?
But when night is come, and glowing
Is the lamp’s attemper’d ray,
And from lip to lip are flowing
Love and mirth, in sparkling play;
When
