Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EPISTLE TO PAUL HEYSE, by LUDWIG FULDA


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EPISTLE TO PAUL HEYSE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Still in my heart the tone of your farewell
Last Line: I may be worthy of your princely gift.
Subject(s): Heyse, Paul Johann Von (1830-1914)


STILL in my heart the tone of your farewell
Sounds, as at eve reëchoes to the ear
The silver message of the matins bell.

And though I answered you with voice unclear,
Stammered, and stood before you helplessly,
Amazed with joy and awed with rapturous fear,

You felt, as hand pressed hand, how frank and free
My soul responded to what yours had given,
Knowing the worth that hour had held for me.

Then afterward, when you from me were riven,
I stood a long time staring into space,
Half blinded by the glow of that new heaven,–

Until there came a voice that waxed apace,
A longing that in words more fitly wrought
I should attempt my gratitude to trace.

And in my doubt and lack of skill I sought
The terza rima, with whose golden chime,
As in a cup, sweet music you had caught;

A cup wherein to this our grudging time
You offered vintage of a nobler day
Ripened by sunny memory sublime;

A cup which you beside the purple bay
Wreathed with Italian roses as a gift
From South to North to deck their bridal gay.

For thousands who in dreams alone may drift
Down with the current to the land of flowers
Your guiding soul to purer joy doth lift.

And thousands more, who know yon orange bowers
By actual vision, join them to your band;
Your Muse their eager fancy richly dowers.

You early felt the magic of that land
And gave your tribute as a vassal true,
Who pays his debt with deeds of heart and hand.

You mirrored in your verse that heaven's blue,
And yourself heard upon Sorrento's shore
The call of Mignon's longing, ever new.

The love of classic beauty evermore
Dwells in the harmony of German song
And thrills each German bosom to the core.

There grew the laurel, and with valor strong
The Teuton bled to gain the victor's prize
In cruel wars that raged for centuries long.

Vain strife! till one more happy and more wise,
A peaceful hero, won the trophy bright,—
The King of German Art with poet eyes.

He did not urge barbarian hordes to fight,
Yet none the less that famous land he won
By God's good-favor and his own good might.

He came and saw and conquered; like the sun
His mild brave look shone through the misty pall,
Which broke, and straight the time of doubt was done.

Then, like the urge of Spring pervading all,
Fresh flowers bedecked the tomb of many a sage,
And buried gods responded to the call.

Legends that slumbered in some moldering page,
Roused to new action by that glowing flood,
Revived the wonders of the golden age.

All this, too truly great to keep such good
For his own victor brow as garland meet,
He gave his people as none other could.

Laying the splendid offering at their feet,
He then led home that child of classic face,
Iphigenia, his fair daughter sweet.

There he devised and built a holy place
In which to serve his gods with fitting prayers,
A temple deftly wrought of pillared grace.

He went his way at last, and evil heirs
Came in, unapt to reverence, apt instead
To waste the mighty treasure unawares.

Where he had called up Beauty from the dead,
They found mid heaps of dust a weary task;
"Yon statue's but a stone," their wisdom said.

And that no breath of life might stir the mask,—
God pity them!—they bottled Art up whole
In Master Manikin's hermetic flask.

In Goethe's track there came a pilgrim shoal
Of students in an annual parade,
Rich in state bounty, passing poor in soul.

And everything was measured, counted, weighed,
As if old Romulus had intended Rome
To be a show-place for the pedant's trade.

That from the Capitol to Peter's dome,
From Palatine to Quirinal there swells
An undiminished wave of living foam,

They do not dream within their musty cells;
But bringing home dry books, they come unwet
From yon refreshing Heliconian wells.

Such did that wondrous land become (which yet
Might be a school for all the arts of life)—
Naught else now but a curio-cabinet!

A throng, for academic misdeeds rife,
Pouring through every church and art collection,
Tortured their weary souls with futile strife,—

Until at last their minds were a confection
Of busts and pictures ranged in disarray,
A tangled skein of names without connection.

But to assuage their disappointment they
Painted with many a shrewd and knavish trick
All modern Italy a lifeless gray.

They called her art a varnish, pale and thick,
And found her folk unworthy of their race,
A very villainous, unsavory clique.

Thinking the name "Italian" a disgrace,
The tourist shunned the native everywhere,
And only met the servile and the base.

He knew the people by some instinct rare,
He who in thirty days, on duty bent,
Saw every church and picture that was there!

So they deceived themselves with vain intent,
And going back no wiser than before,
Heard not the gods laugh and the Muse lament.

But then came you, modest and full of lore,
To drink of wisdom at Rome's titan breast;
You did not win so much—and yet won more.

With bookish choke-damp you were not distressed;
You gazed across your parchment to behold
The streets, the market-place with poet zest.

There 'mid the flowers and sunlight was unrolled
The primal picture, and the vital spring
Of Beauty bathed the landscape as of old.

There before church and palace hovering
Flitted madonna forms to Raphael dear,
And bards by whom the Muses once could sing.

On your receptive heart was imaged clear
The marble altar, still with glory bright,
Of inward harmony and faith austere.

And when the goal before you gleamed with light,
The power of Nature you could well invoke,
For only at her bidding would you write.

Not that at home your genius never woke,
But 'twas the soul of human purity
In Arrabiata and Annina spoke.

How seldom are we what we seem to be,
We others who 'mid labyrinthine ways
Deny our better selves continually.

But you have early won your poet bays
By conquest for humanity, no less,
And men must join in yielding you the praise.

A hero you, the Fatherland to bless,
For bravely fighting you have led us all
Where Nature bides in tranquil steadfastness.

And after, in the lofty temple hall
Of him whose wealth you guarded safe from harm
You hung your pious offering on the wall.

There unto those whose willing hearts were warm
You showed a life to noble purpose true,
Which e'en in my young mind took lasting form.

I somehow felt both far and near to you;
Surpassing far in my poor undesert,
But nearer as my love for knowledge grew.

You were my chosen guide, with wisdom girt,—
Though to be sure this modern age has grown
For gratitude and learning too inert.

The scholar now, with empty pride full-blown,
Will strike the best-won reputation dead,
And mar the master's fame to mend his own.

They tear the crown from every worthy head—
For so they think to serve the cause of Art—
And insolently crown themselves instead.

This mob in every tumult plays its part;
And though forsooth all other gods they doubt,
Believing in themselves with all their heart,

They run to each new idol with the rout.
They sit enthroned in desert vacancy
Whence all true wonder has been rooted out.

But it appeared a worthier course to me
To bend both head and heart before my guide.
The man who dedicates himself is free.

Thus, even ere the alternating tide
Of life had brought me near you, I had made
My stand by you and trusted there to bide.

You let me stay beside you, and I stayed;
I drew from out your treasure to my fill,
While with my little you appeared well paid.

And when I doubted of my slender skill,
When the goal seemed too distant from my clutch,
When nerveless and despairing sank my will,

You would sustain me with a single touch
And send me on my way with strong intent.
Courage you gave, and courage is so much!

And when I took my staff once more and went
To follow out my traveler's vocation,
I felt—how deeply!—what the parting meant.

It was a parting, but no separation;
For no mere stretch of space can break the bond
That holds two men with willing obligation.

Therefore I thought of you, as late mine eye
Beheld for the first time the sacred town
And palace-bordered Arno gliding by.

For then that medieval world looked down
And spoke to me, till fables became true
Which to my childhood told of high renown,

And with the old enchantment charmed anew,—
A magic that, when life grew dark with cloud,
Poured rays of sunlight through the rifts of blue—

I half divined the wondrous living crowd
Of visions, with whose undiminished grace
Your genius had our modern world endowed.

The first great masters of the poet race
Prepared a path with sunshine ever fair,
And the Muse led you to your destined place,—

High on whose summit through the glowing air
Shines the commandment: Follow thy desire,
Trust thy true self, and have no other care.

Who in his heart can cherish not the fire
Which from that beacon streams in living flame,
Let him not touch the chisel or the lyre.

If e'er to me a flash of genius came
I know not yet. The world sees only deeds;
You test the will, if it be free from blame.

So, when I carried back the garnered seeds
Which in the south had ripened into grain,
And brought it back to serve my country's needs,

I humbly made a vow that no poor strain
Of song I had should, like a jester's bell,
Be tuned to serve the idols Lust and Gain.

It was a providence which then befell,
That on the threshold you should meet me, who
With song and praise had led to Beauty's well.

And 'twas my happy fate that firmer grew
The earlier bond, and that you then should speak
The one word "friend" which raised me close to you.

Full many an hour, full many a day and week
Have drifted by, and still with shamefast pride
I thank the day which then for me did break.

For a bright star is now my earthly guide,
Circling above me with its glittering ray,
And though my feeble strength be sorely tried,

I hold my head erect and go my way.
And still a deep desire my soul doth lift,
That by the end of this my mortal day

I may be worthy of your princely gift.





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