A Singer stands in festive attire, 
Clasps to his bosom warm a lyre, 
And plucks the strings, enraptured. 

“How play you my tunes, how sing my refrains, 

How swell you, O Lyre, with soul that strains 
As if by your own fires captured?” 

“Singer, think you that I am cold 
To bosom’s light, to yearning soul, 
To images upwards striving? 
They shine as clear as the Land of Stars, 
They surge, they soar like streaming fires, 
They lead to a Loftier Living. 

“I knew with prescience profound 

When called by your Word’s sparkling sound, 
"Twas not your fingers touching. 

It was a breath from sweeter lips 

Uprising from the heart’s own depths, 
A subtler music teaching. 

“There shone a visage wondrous fair, 
Haloed in song, in golden hair, 
That flashed forth rarest lays. 
High beat her heart, eyes glowed sublime, 
You were no more, you sank in dream, 
And I must honour and praise. 

Karl Marx 

“Her image in me sank silently, 

Like flower-shine rose out of me, 
As melting into sound. 

But say, it falls, it soars again, 

And yet for you cloud-veiled remain 
The sun and stars all round.” 

“O wondrous Lyre of magic skill, 

Your joy’s like bubbling founts that well, 
Ringed round with May-wreaths fair. 

Her breath inspires, her eyes invite, 

Your tones vibrate, your light beams bright, 
And rolls with the dancing spheres. 

“One drinks, one sings of raptures blest, 
Then Love flees echoing from the breast, 
One’s spirits no more sound. 
Yours was the dream, yours was the life, 
You shine in her, afar I strive, 
You soar, I must bow down.” 

“Singer, though lulled by flower-dream, 
I too reach out to Heaven’s hem 
With golden stars to bind it. 
The music sounds, life is in tears, 
The music sounds, the sun shines clear, 
And distances are blended.” 

THE LAST JUDGMENT 
A Jest 

Ah! that life of all the dead, 
Hallelujahs that I hear, 

Make my hair stand on my head, 
And my soul is sick with fear. 

For, when everything is severed 
And the play of forces done, 

When our sufferings fade for ever, 
And the final goal is won, 

Early Literary Experiments 573 

God Eternal we must praise, 

Endless hallelujahs whine, 
Endless hymns of glory raise, 

Know no more delight or pain. 

Ha! I shudder on the stair 

Leading to perfection’s goal, 
And I shudder when I hear, 

Urging me, that death-bed call. 

There can only be one Heaven, 
That one’s fully occupied, 
We must share it with old women 
Whom the teeth of Time have gnawed. 

While their flesh lies underground 

With decay and stones o’ershovelled, 
Brightly hued, their souls hop round 

In a spider-dance enravelled. 

All so skinny, all so thin, 
So aethereal, so chaste, 

Never were their forms so lean, 
Even when most tightly laced. 

But I ruin the proceedings 
As my hymns of praise I holler. 
And the Lord God hears my screamings, 
And gets hot under the collar; 

Calls the highest Angel out, 
Gabriel, the tall and skinny, 

Who expels the noisy lout 
Without further ceremony. 

I just dreamed it all, you see, 

Thought I faced the Court Supreme. 
Good foik, don’t be cross with me, 

It was never sin to dream. 

TWO SINGERS ACCOMPANYING THEMSELVES 
ON THE HARP 

A Ballad 

“What brings you to this Castle here 
To breathe Song’s radiant aureole? 
Seek you a loving comrade dear 
For whom in longing yearns your soul?” 

“Know you him who soulful dwells therein, 
Ask you if he set my heart a-burning? 
Can you tell me if the sight of him 
Ever favoured mortals drawn by yearning? 

“Never have I seen that shine of his, 
Yet the gleam of precious stone 

Burning on that splendid edifice 
Surely needs must lure me on. 

“Truly, it might be my place of birth, 
Here might be my native land. 
Ah! ’twas chosen by the gentle South, | 

Turned towards the glow it stands. 

“Here my melody more free resounds, 
And my breast the higher swells. 

Sweet the golden Lyre’s music sounds, 
As in joy of grief it wells. 

“And I do not know that High Master, 

Him who strikes the heart-strings powerfully, 
Nor the heavenly spirits that the Castle 

Harbours in its womb so secretly. 

“And in vain is my desire’s hot burning, 
Not for me the fair gates opening. 

I lean on the columns, sadly yearning, 
Here Love’s tribute I must sing!” 

In despair her jet black hair she shakes, 
Bursts into a flood of tears, 

And the other kisses dry her cheeks, 
Clasps her to her bosom’s warming fires. 

Early Literary Experiments 

“I too am drawn by secret bonds 
To this divine and holy fane. 

I quested wandering through the lands, 
Was pierced, as if by lightning’s flame. 

“But why the burning dew so spill, 

The tears of bitter sorrow weep? 
We may enjoy the view at will, 

On flowery meadow dance and leap! 

“The heart may glow more full in us, 
And sorrow may more sweetly come. 

The looks may shine more luminous, 
Here the Most Beautiful’s soon won! 

“A humble cottage let us find 

Where we our songs of praise may sing, 
Where the sweet West may play around 

In spirits’ secret struggling.” 

Full many a day they lingered there, 

At eventide the strings were heard 
That held entranced with sad allure 

Full many a flower and many a bird. 

Once, as they both lay fast asleep, 

Arms clasped the gentle bodies round 
On bed of moss full soft and deep, 

A Demon wondrous tall was found. 

He bore them up on wings of gold; 
They were as bound in magic bonds, 
And where that cottage stood of old 
A wondrous melody resounds. 

EPIGRAMS 
I 

In its armchair, stupid and dumb, 
The German public watches it come. 
Hither and thither rumbles the storm, 

Heaven clouds over, more dark and forlorn. 

Lightning hisses, snakes out of sight, 
Feelings remain inviolate. 
But when the sun comes out in greeting, 
The winds soft sighing, the storm abating, 
It stirs itself, makes a fuss at last, 
And writes a book: The Commotion Is Past; 
Is seized with an urge for fantasy, 
Would plumb the whole thing thoroughly; 
Believes it’s extremely wrong of Heaven 
To play such jokes, though brilliant even, 
It should the All systematically treat; 
First rub the head and then the feet; 
Just like a baby it carries on 
Looking for things which are dead and gone; 
Should get the Present in proper perspective, 
Let Heaven and Earth go their ways respective; 
They’ve followed their courses as before, 
And the wave laps quiet on the rocky shore. 

II 

ON HEGEL 

] 

Since I have found the Highest of things and the Depths of them 
also, 
Rude am I as a God, cloaked by the dark like a God. 
Long have I searched and sailed on Thought’s deep billowing 
ocean; 
There I found me the Word: now I hold on to it fast. 

2 

Words I teach all mixed up into a devilish muddle, 
Thus, anyone may think just what he chooses to think; 
Never, at least, is he hemmed in by strict limitations. 
Bubbling out of the flood, plummeting down from the cliff, 
So are his Beloved’s words and thoughts that the Poet devises; 
He understands what he thinks, freely invents what he feels. 
Thus, each may for himself suck wisdom’s nourishing nectar; 
Now you know all, since I’ve said plenty of nothing to you! 

20* 

Early Literary Experiments 

3 

Kant and Fichte soar to heavens blue 
Seeking for some distant land, 

I but seek to grasp profound and true 
That which —in the street I find. 

4 

Forgive us epigrammatists 

For singing songs with nasty twists. 

In Hegel we’re all so completely submerged, 

But with his Aesthetics we’ve yet to be —— 
purged. 

III 

The Germans once actually stirred their stumps, 
With a People’s Victory turned up trumps. 

And when all that was over and done, 

On every corner, everyone 
Read: “Wonderful things are in store for you — 
Three legs for all instead of two!” 

This shook them badly, and in due course 

They were all smitten by deep remorse. 
“Too much has happened at once, it’s plain. 
We'll have to behave ourselves again. 

The rest it were better to print and bind, 

And buyers will not be hard to find.” 

IV 

Pull down the stars for them at night, 

They burn too pale or far too bright. 
The sun’s rays either scorch the eye 
Or shine from much too far away. 

V 

Of Schiller there’s reason to complain, 
Who couldn’t more humanly entertain. 
Endowed with an elevating mind, 
He didn’t stick to the daily grind. 
He played with Thunder and Lightning much, 
But totally lacked the common touch. 

Karl Marx 

Vi 

But Goethe’s taste was too nicely ordered; 

He’d rather see Venus than something sordid. 
Although he grasped things, as one should, from below, 
It was for the Highest he made us go. 

He wanted to make things so sublime 

That Soul-grip evaded him most of the time. 
Schiller was surely nearer the mark, 

You can read his ideas in letters stark. 
His thoughts are there in black and white, 
Though it’s hard to fathom the meaning aright. 

Vil 
ON A CERTAIN BALD-HEAD 

As lightning born of radiancy 
Sparkles from cloud-realms far away, 
Pallas Athena victorious 
Sprang from the thought-filled head of Zeus. 
Even so, in sportiveness unbounded, 
On to his head she’s likewise bounded, 
And what in depth he could never plumb 

Visibly shines on his cranium. 

VIll