r
Thenceforth together
Our paths should run, so long asunder?

"He came to meet me
In rain and thunder,
With guile to cheat me,--
My heart to plunder.
Was't mine he captured?
Or his I raptured?
Half-way both met, in bliss and wonder!

"He came to meet me
In rain and thunder:
Spring-blessings greet me
Spring-blossoms under.
What though he leave me?
No partings grieve me,--
No path can lead our hearts asunder!"

The Irish poet, James Clarence Mangan, (whose translations from the
German comprise both the best and the worst specimens I have yet found,)
has been successful in rendering one of Rueckert's ghazels. I am
specially tempted to quote it, on account of the curious general
resemblance (accidental, no doubt) which Poe's "Lenore" bears to it.

"I saw her once, a little while, and then no more:
'T was Eden's light on earth awhile, and then no more.
Amid the throng she passed along the meadow-floor;
Spring seemed to smile on earth awhile, and then no more,
But whence she came, which way she went, what garb she wore,
I noted not; I gazed awhile, and then no more.

"I saw her once, a little while, and then no more:
'T was Paradise on earth awhile, and then no more.
Ah! what avail my vigils pale, my magic lore?
She shone before mine eyes awhile, and then no more.
The shallop of my peace is wrecked on Beauty's shore;
Near Hope's fair isle it rode awhile, and then no more.

"I saw her once, a little while, and then no more:
Earth looked like Heaven a little while, and then no more.
Her presence thrilled and lighted to its inmost core
My desert breast a little while, and then no more.
So may, perchance, a meteor glance at midnight o'er
Some ruined pile a little while, and then no more.

"I saw her once, a little while and then no more:
The earth was Eden-land awhile, and then no more.
O, might I see but once again, as once before,
Through chance or wile, that shape awhile, and then no more!
Death soon would heal my grief: this heart, now sad and sore,
Would beat anew, a little while, and then no more!"

Here, nevertheless, something is sacrificed. The translation is by no
means literal, and lacks the crispness and freshness of Oriental
antithesis. Rueckert, I fear, will never be as fortunate as Hariri of
Bosrah.

When, in 1856, I again visited Germ