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The future is as God ordaineth ;

He who the birds, and brooks, and sea, And earth, and heaven itself sustaineth

He hath provided too for me.

EICHENDORFF.-Der frohe Wandersmann.

THE MIDNIGHT WALK,

I WANDER With the Spirit of the Night;
Through wide and silent streets my footstep paces;
E'en now were heard the peals of laughter light,

And sobs of grief, within these lonely places.
Pleasure is sleeping like a folded flower,

The maddest toper's glass no more is creaming;

Fled with the sun, Sorrow has had her hour;
The world is weary-leave it, leave it dreaming!

How all my hate, my grudges, melt away

When, spent the storms of day, the earth reposes; The moon pours down her soft, consoling rayAy, though it were but over withered roses!

Light as a tone, and silent as a star,'

My soul pervades the space around me, seeming

To be released from earthly bound or bar,

That I may lose myself in others' dreaming.

Mute-like a spy-my shadow dogs me on;
I stand before a prison iron-grated:

O Fatherland, thy too devoted son

Right bitterly his love has expiated!

He sleeps; what recks he of oppression now? Dreams he of home-the rill beside it streaming? Dreams he perchance of laurels round his brow? O God of freedom, leave him in his dreaming!

I

pass the palace of a sceptred lord;

Behind the purple folds, the shadows thicken
On one in slumber clutching at a sword,
With mien of guilt, and features terror-stricken.

1 Leicht wie ein Ton, unhörer wie ein Stern.

Wan as his diadem, the despot quakes;

Escape and flight his frenzied brain is scheming; He springs to earth-beneath his feet it breaksO God of vengeance, leave him in his dreaming!

I mark in yonder hut-'tis scant, I deem-
Hunger and Innocence one bed partaking ;
Yet to the peasant God has given a dream,
To compensate awhile the pangs of waking :
From every grain that Morpheus may let fall
A seed-plot rises, with abundance teeming ;
The world can scarce contain the widening wall-
God of the poor, O leave the poor man dreaming!

By the last house, upon the bench of stone

I rest awhile, with tenderer emotion:

I love thee well, child, yet not thee alone;

Freedom divides with thee my heart's devotion.
Thy fancies flutter through a golden sky;

I see a people, roused, their rights redeeming ;

Thou dreamst of butterflies—of eagles I—
O God of love! O leave my maiden dreaming!

Thou Star, like Joy, emerging from a cloud,
Thou silent Night, in garments azure-tinted,
Hasten ye not to let the awakened crowd
Behold my face with sorrow's vigil printed!
On tears the earliest light of day is poured,
Freedom must vanish ere the sun is beaming,
Then Tyranny again unsheaths the sword-
O God of dreams, leave all of us our dreaming !

HERWEGH.-Der Gang um Mitternacht.1

1 Mr. Buchheim will, it is hoped, pardon my quoting the following passage from his note on this poem :- Herwegh is one of the most enthusiastic "poets of liberty." His Gedichte eines Lebendigen, in which the present poem first appeared, were published at a time (1841-43) when political life was quite stagnant on the Continent; and the gloom of despotism prevailed in Germany as well as in other countries. It was during this period that Herwegh's poems fell like a flash of lightning, arousing the youth of Germany to that enthusiasm which, effectively fanned by other poets and writers, gradually brought about her unity' (Deutsche Lyrik, p. 395).

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