Like love and hope transfigured. 

His lyre rules o’er the deep. 
Naiads that were asleep 
Lend him their song-charmed ear. 

Early Literary Experiments 

And all the waves resound 
With song and lyre’s sweet sound 
And dance high in the air. 

But hear the sad refrains, 
The Sirens’ far-off strains 

Of sweet melodiousness. 
The poet to enthrall, 
The Goddesses shine all 

In sound and loveliness. 

“O youth, soar up and play, 

Rule o’er the listening sea; 
The goal you seek is high, 

Your breast swells rapturously. 

“Here, sumptuous water-halls 
Your song alone surprises, 
And as the great tide falls, 
Ev’n so your music rises. 

“Sportive waves bear it up 
And send it surging high. 

The eye, bright, full of hope, 
Encompasses the sky. 

“Enter our Spirit-Ring; 
Magic your heart shall gain, 
Hear the waves dance and sing, 

They sound like True Love’s pain. 

“Worlds came from the Ocean, 
Spirits were borne on the tide 
Which dared to cradle the High Ones, 
While the All was void. 

“As Heaven and star-glow 

Look downwards, ever glancing 
Into the waves below, 

Into the blue waves’ dancing — 

544 

Karl Marx 

“As droplets, shivering, shaking, 
Enfold the Worlds in pride, 

The spirits’ life, awaking, 
Emerges from the tide. 

“Seeking the All inspires your 
You’d burn in song away? 

The lyre’s sweet music stirs you? 
You’d blaze in Heaven’s ray? — 

“Then come down to us all, 
And tender us your hand; 
Your limbs shall Spirit be, 
You'll see the deep, deep Land.” 

They rise up from the sea, 
Hair weaving in roundelay, 
Heads resting on the air. 
Their eyes flash blazing fires, 
And, shooting sparks, their lyres 
Glow through the waters fair. 

The Youth yields to Delusion, 
His tears flow in profusion, 
His heart pounds in his breast. 
He cannot turn away, 
Held captive in Love’s sway, 
To burning passion lost. 

Deep thoughts stir in his soul, 
It fights to gain control, 

Soars higher, ever higher, 
Looks up with prideful bearing, 
In God’s own image daring, 

And this the Sirens hear: 

“In your cold depths below 
Nothing that’s High can go, 

Nor God burn deathlessly. 
You glitter but to ensnare, 
For me you have no care, 

Your songs are mockery. 

Early Literary Experiments 545 

“You lack the bosom’s beat, 
The heart’s life-giving heat, 
The soul’s high flight so free. 
The Gods in my breast rule, 
And I obey them all; 
I mean no treachery. 

“You shall not captivate 
Me, nor my love, nor hate, 

Nor yet my yearning’s glow. 
It shoots like lightning shafts 
That gentle power uplifts 

In melodies that flow.” 

The Sirens all sink down 
Before his blazing frown 
In weeping springs of light. 
They seek to follow him, 
But ah, the Flood so grim 
Engulfs them all from sight.. 

A PHILISTINE WONDERS 

“I don’t know how they quarrel with themselves the way 
they do. 

Just button up your coat, good sir, and they won’t steal 
from you.’ 

, 

MATHEMATICAL WISDOM 
I 

We have boiled everything down to signs, 

And Reasoning’s done on strict mathematical lines. 
If God’s a point, as cylinder he just won’t pass, 
You can’t stand on your head while sitting on your : 

Il 

If a’s the Beloved and b is the Lover, 
My shirt I'll wager ten times over 
That a and b when added up'll 
Constitute one Loving Couple. 

Ill 

Measure the World with lines about, 

You'll never drive its Spirit out. 

If feuds were settled by a and 8, 

The Courts would be swindled out of their fee. 

THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF THE WATER 
A Ballad 

1 

The waters rush with an eerie sound, 
The waves are swirling round and round. 
They seem to feel no pain at all, 
As they break and fall, 
Cold of heart, cold of mind, 
Rushing, rushing all the time. 

2 

But down in the depths where the waters rage 
Sits a mannikin, white with age. 
He dances about when the Moon appears, 
When little star through cloudlet peers. 
Eerily hopping and skipping, he’d try 
To drink the little streamlet dry. 

3 

Waves are his murderers, every one, 
They gnaw his ancient skeleton, 
It cuts through his marrow and limb like ice 
To see them gambol in this wise; 
His face is a grimace of sorrow and gloom 
Till sunshine stops the dance of the Moon. 

4 

The waters then rush with an eerie sound, 
The waves are swirling round and round. 
They seem to feel no pain at all, 
As they break and fall, 
Cold of heart, cold of mind, 
Rushing, rushing all the time. 

Early Literary Experiments 

TO THE MEDICAL STUDENTS 

Damned philistino-medico-student crew, 

The whole world’s just a bag of bones to you. 
When once you've cooled the blood with Hydrogen, 
And when you've felt the pulse’s throbbing, then 

You think, “I’ve done the most I’m able to. 
Man could be very comfortable, too. 

How clever of Almighty God to be 

So very well versed in Anatomy!” 

And flowers are all instruments to use, 

When they’ve been boiled down into herbal brews. 

MEDICAL STUDENT PSYCHOLOGY 

Who eats a supper of dumplings and noodles, 
Will suffer from—nightmares, oodles and oodles. 

MEDICAL STUDENT METAPHYSICS 

No Spirit ever has existed. 

Oxen have lived and never missed it. 

The Soul is idle fantasy; 
In the stomach it certainly can’t be found, 
And if one were able to run it to ground, 

Then almost any pill would set it free. 

Then Spirits would be seen 

Emerging in an endless stream.