Translations Of German Poetry In American Magazines 1741-1810 Part 27

Can the full triumph of ambition's hour, When tempests threaten, sooth your anxious care?

Or shall the tenant of yon lonely cot, That smiles with pity on your pageant state, Pleas'd with his poor but independent lot, Expose the wretchedness of being great?

Unknown to you, the houseless child of woe, The friendless pilgrim, or the hungry poor; Unleft the good ye carelessly bestow, The hand that feeds them, drives them from your door.

Here cruel charity no off'ring makes, That whilst it aids, insults the big distress, The heart that welcomes, ev'ry grief partakes, And only pities where it can't redress.

Such are the scenes, my dear Lord, such the hospitality I am now going to quit. I know not why I wished to jingle their virtues into rhyme, unless it was, that my prose began to run upon stilts, or that I mistook a momentary enthusiasm for a poetical inspiration. In fact, every thought and conception is so far raised above the common train of ideas, that the error is excusable, especially too when the imaginary poet sets out with

Sublimi seriens sidera vertice.

Adieu, Ever your's.

_Lady's Mag. and Repos._, I-253, May 1793, Phila.

A DUTCH PROVERB.

_Weekly Museum_, VII, Mar. 14, 1795, N. Y.

[Also in _Boston Mag._, III-81, Feb. 1786, Boston.]

A DUTCH PROVERB.

_Phila. Minerva_, I, May 16, 1795, Phila.

[Also in _Boston Mag._, III-81, Feb. 1786, Boston.]

VERSES BY THE LATE KING OF PRUSSIA.

_Rural Mag. or Vt. Repos._, I-494, Oct. 1795, Rutland.

[Same as _The Relaxation of War_ in _Amer. Mag. or Mo. Chron._, I-440, June 1758, Phila.]

For the Weekly Museum.

THE GOTHIC CASTLE.

"The Days of Chivalry are gone."

Burke's Letter on the French Revolution.

See! now the landscape fades away, As westward flies the orb of day: See the solemn night appear, With silence her sedate compeer.

Hark! the surgy sh.o.r.e resounds, As from the rocks the wave rebounds: Rocks, on whose o'er-hanging brows, The ragged surf-fed samphire grows.

Lo! the beacon's distant rays O'er the waste of water plays, Friendly to the port-bound bark, On his watch, the seaman's mark.

Mark! yon dreary Gothic pile, --Where murder oft did glut and smile,-- Dungeons dire of vanquish'd hosts, --Hark! the screams of wandering ghosts!--

Now a double gloom is spread O'er each turret's murky head, While from th' Owlet's dismal cry Intruding joys affrighted fly.

Ye vengeful walls for ruin built!

Scenes accurs'd of h.e.l.l-born guilt!

Direful were your fierce alarms-- Hist! the sentry calls--"To arms!"

How many barons here were slain, In coats of armour lock'd in vain!-- How many feudal va.s.sals dy'd, Ebbing here life's crimson tide!

What secret woes lay close immur'd!

What anguish wretches erst endur'd!

When in your sable cells confin'd Oppression's chosen victims pin'd.

How sullen stands yon rugged tow'r!

Seems it not on the cot to low'r?

As it looks, with proud disdain, O'er the wide-extended plain.

Here the feudal times I trace; The lordling's power--the poor's disgrace-- Here while it moulders, all may see "A Monument of Chivalry."

Aug. 13, 1796.

ORLANDO.

_Weekly Museum_, IX, Aug. 13, 1796, N. Y.

PEASANT OF THE ALPS.

_Phila. Minerva_, III, Aug. 19, 1797, Phila.

[Also in _N. Y. Mag. or Lit. Repos._, III-443, July 1792, N. Y.]

BY THE LATE KING OF PRUSSIA.

_Rural Mag._, I, July 21, 1798, Newark.

[Same as _The Relaxation of War_ in _Amer. Mag. or Mo. Chron._, I-440, June 1758, Phila.]

THE WATER-KING.

A Danish Ballad. By the Author of Alonzo the Brave.

[The poem follows.]

Since writing these stanzas, I have met with two old Scotch ballads which have some resemblance with "The Water King"; one is called "May Colvin," and relates the story of a king's daughter who was beguiled from her father's house by a false Sir John; the other, int.i.tled "Clerk Colvil," treats of a young man who fell into the snares of a false mermaid; the latter, indeed, bears a still stranger resemblance to the Danish tradition of "The Erl-King's Daughter." The fragment of "The Water King" may be found in "Herder's Volkslieder."