"AH! what 's the matter?" oft I cry, Starting from slumber deep "Ah! what's the matter? isn't she here? Even by broad day, at times, I start, And cry: "Where is she? wasn't she here? What? where? was I asleep?" CARLSRUHE, March 10, 1856. 'I TOOK thee for a rose, thou 'rt but a poppy. Been richer now by one sweet rose the more. CARLSRUHE, May 20, 1856. *See DIRGE FOR THE XIII. DEC. MDCCCLII in My Book; also POEMS CHIEFLY PHILOSOPHICAL, pages 181, 208 and 285. As bees their cells build and as birds their nests, As spiders weave and as Allegri painted By nature, not by art thou madest thy verses: Even therefore art thou, in these times of art, Pedants and sophists, there's no chance for thee. IF I hadn't thee to love I would love something else, To love, in itself is so lovely; And if that something failed me I 'd still something love, CARLSRUHE, May 19, 1856. INSCRIPTION FOR THE FRONT OF THE PEDESTAL OF A LATELY DECEASED POET'S STATUE. In this marble behold him, the wise and the good, He's gone from among us, but with us still live INSCRIPTION FOR THE BACK OF THE SAME. BECAUSE I was wiser and better than they, They hated and shunned or despised me while living, And, to show how rejoiced they were, when I was dead Collected subscriptions and sét up this statue. CARLSRUHE, March 22, 1856. IN A LADY'S ALBUM. THE author's volume 's a monarchic state; Its thoughts, serfs of one mighty potentate: The land of literary liberty, Where high and low and great and small agree CARLSRUHE, April 4, 1856. Written on the margin of a leaf of Goethe's Faust. ERE Mephistopheles thou took'st in hand, It 's pity, Goethe, that thou hadst not had A lesson or two from the old, blind puritan, Who would have rapped thee soundly o'er the knuckles And well thine éars boxed, hadst thou dared to tell him "How lovely these flowers, and how sweet the birds sing!" Thus said to me once Eleanore, As we walked in the garden, one fine morn in spring, "Where, where are the flowers? and what birds do you mean?" But she blushed, my own sweet Eleanore, For then for the first time she saw I didn't mind Birds or flowers when beside Eleanore. CARLSRUHE, May 20, 1856. BELIEVE him not, no matter how he swears; TO SELINA. THE months that with them violets bring, OH, the pink of all mill'ners is sweet Poesy! To deck the bare pélt out in robes of all hue, - Purple velvets, blond laces, silks green, red and blue From her own fancy's lóom all, all sparkling and new? CARLSRUHE, May 15, 1856. |