here may prove such an one in death
For Paradise or punishment. I hold
He juster were and would be kinglier kind
In sovereign mercy and a prodigal--
Not to few favored heads who, crowned with state,
Rule sceptered Infamies--of indulgence free
To all that burn luxuriant incense on
Shrines while they prayer him love's obedience.
Are all not children of the same weak mold?
Clay of His Adam-modeled clay made quick?
Endowed with the like hopes, loves, fears and hates,
Our mother's weaknesses? And these, forsooth,
These little crowns that lord it o'er His world,
Tricked up with imitative majesty,
God-countenanced arrogances, throned may still
Cry, 'crawl and worship, for we are as gods
Through God! great gods incarnate of his kind!'
--Omnipotent Wrong-representatives!
With might that blasts the world with wars and wrings
Groans from pale Nations with hell's tyranny.
So to my mind real monarch only he--
Your Satan cramped in Hell!--aye, by the fiend!
To pygmy Earth's frail tinsel majesties,
That ape a God in a sonorous Heaven.
Grant me the Devil in all mercy then,
For I will none of such! a fiend for friend
While Earth is of the earth; and afterward--
Nay! ransack not To-morrow till To-day,
If all that's joy engulf you when it is."
And laughed an oily laugh of easy jest
To bow out God and hand the Devil in.--
I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring,
Toward the close of April when the Harz,
Veined to their ruin-crested summits, pulsed
A fluid life of green and budded gold
Beneath pure breathing skies of boundless blue:
Where low-yoked oxen, yellow to the knees,
Along the fluted meadow, freshly ploughed,
Plodded and snuffed the fragrance of the soil,
The free bird sang exultant in the sun.
Triumphant Spring with hinted hopes of May
And jaunty June, her mouth a puckered rose.
Here at this very hostelery o' The Owl;
Mine host there sleek served cannikins of wine
Beneath that elm now touseled by that shrew,
Lean Winter. Well!--a lordly vintage that!
With tang of fires which had sucked out their soul
From feverish sun-vats, cooled it from the moon's;
From wine-skin bellies of the bursting grape
Trodden, in darkness of old cellars aged
Even to the tingling smack of olden earth.
Rich! I remember!--wine that spurred the blood--
Thou hast none such, I swear, nor wilt again!--
That brought the heart loud to the gener