DANTE. TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise, Like Farinata from his fiery tomb. Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom; Yet in thy heart what human sympathies, What soft compassion glows, as in the skies The tender stars their clouded lamps relume! Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks, By Fra Hilario in his diocese, As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks, The ascending sunbeams mark the day's de crease; And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks, Thy voice along the cloister whispers," Peace!" THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS. FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINRICH HEINE. THE sea hath its pearls, The heaven hath its stars; But my heart, my heart, My heart hath its love. Great are the sea and the heaven; Thou little, youthful maiden, Come unto my great heart; My heart, and the sea, and the heaven Are melting away with love! POETIC APHORISMS. FROM THE SINNGEDICHTE OF FRIEDRICH VON LOGAU. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. MONEY. WHEREUNTO is money good? Who has it not wants hardihood, THE BEST MEDICINES. Joy and Temperance and Repose SIN. Man-like is it to fall into sin, POVERTY AND BLINDNESS. A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is; For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees. LAW OF LIFE. Live I, so live I, To my Lord heartily, CREEDS. Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three Are extant; but the doubt is, where Christianity may be. THE RESTLESS HEART. A millstone and a human heart are driven ever round; If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground. CHRISTIAN LOVE. Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke; But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke. |