Chapter X: Part III: Continental Poetry

Ever since the time of Virgil, whose sixth Æneid (verses 724-) contains a sublime version of reincarnation, and of Ovid, whose Metamorphoses beautifully present the old Greek mythologies of metempsychosis, this theme has attracted many European poets beside those of England. While the Latin poets obtained their inspiration from the East, through Pythagoras and Plato, the Northern singers seem to express it independently, unless it came to them with the Teutonic migration from the Aryan cradle of the race, and shifted its form with all their people’s wanderings so that it has lost all traces of connection with its Indian source. The old Norse legends teem with many guises of soul-journeying. In sublime and lovely stories, ballads, and epics, these vikings and their kindred perpetuated their belief that the human individuality travels through a great series of embodiments, which physically reveal the spiritual character. The Icelandic Sagas also delight in these fables of transmigration, and still fire the heart of Scandinavia and Denmark. It permeated the Welsh triads, and among the early Saxons this thought animated their Druid ceremonies and their noblest literature. The scriptures of those magnificent races whom Tacitus found in the German forests, whose intrepid manliness conquered the mistress of the world, and from whom are descended the modern ruling race, were inspired with this same doctrine. The treasures of these ancient writings are buried away from our sight, but a suggestion of their grandeur is found in the heroic qualities of the nations who were bred upon them. A beautiful German version of Giordano Bruno’s Pythagorean Latin verses on the relation of the soul to the body is contained in Professor Carrière’s Weltanschauung (p. 452). Björnsen has written a superb Danish poem on transmigration called “Salme,” but it has never been translated. The following selections are representative of the chief branches of Continental Europeans. Boyesen, although an American citizen, is really a modernized Norwegian. Goethe stands for the Teutonic race, and Schiller keeps him good company. Victor Hugo and Béranger speak for France, and Campanella represents Italy.

TRANSMIGRATION.

BY HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN.

My spirit wrestles in anguish
With fancies that will not depart;
A ghost who borrowed my semblance
Has hid in the depth of my heart.

A dim, resistless possession
Impels me forever to do
The phantom deeds of this phantom
That lived ages ago.

The thoughts that I think seem hoary
And laden with dust and gloom;
My voice sounds strange, as if echoed
From centuries long in the tomb.

Methinks that e’en through my laughter
Oft trembles a strain of dread;
A shivering ghost of laughter
That is loth to rise from the dead.

My tear has its fount in dead ages,
And choked with their dust is my sigh;
I weep for the pale, dead sorrows
Of the wraith that once was I.

Ah, Earth! thou art old and weary,
With weight of centuries bent;
Thy pristine creative gladness
In youthful æons was spent.

Perchance, in the distant ages,
My soul, from Nirvana’s frost,
Will gather its scattered life-germs
And quicken the life I lost.

And then, like a song forgotten
That haunts, yet eludes the ear,
Or cry that chills the darkness
With a vague, swift breath of fear,

A faint remembrance shall visit
That sun of earth and sky
In whom the flame shall rekindle
Of the soul which once was I.

From Victor Hugo’s poem, “À celle qui est voilée.”

“TO THE INVISIBLE ONE.”

I am the drift of a thousand tides,
The captive of destiny;
The weight of all darkness upon me abides,
But it cannot bury me.

My spirit endures like a rocky isle
Amid the ocean of fate,
The thunderstorm is my domicile,
The hurricane is my mate.

I am the fugitive who far
From home has taken flight;
Along with the owl and evening star
I moan the song of night.

Art thou not, too, like unto me
A torch to light earth’s gloom,
A soul, therefore a mystery,
A wanderer bound to roam?

Seek for me in the sea bird’s home,
Descend to my release!
My depths of cavernous shadows dumb
Illume, angel of peace!

As night brings forth the rosy morn,
Perhaps ’tis heaven’s law
That from thy mystic smile is born
A glory I ne’er saw.

In this dark world where now I stay
I scarce can see myself;
Thy radiant soul shines on my way
As my fair guiding elf.

With loving tones and beckoning hand
Thou say’st, “Beyond the night
I catch a glimpse upon the strand
Of thy mansion gleaming bright.”

Before I came upon this earth
I know I lived in gladness
For ages as an angel. Birth
Has caused my present sadness.

My soul was once a heavenly dove.
Do thou, in heaven’s domains,
Let fall a pinion from above
Upon this bird’s remains!

Yes, ’tis my dire misfortune now
To hang between two ties,
To hold within my furrowed brow
The earth’s clay, and the skies.

Alas the pain of being man,
Of dreaming o’er my fall,
Of finding heaven within my span,
Yet being but a pall;

Of toiling like a galley slave,
Of carrying the load
Of human burdens, while I rave
To fly unto my God;

Of trailing garments black with rust,
I, son of heaven above!
Of being only graveyard dust,
E’en though my name is—Love.

THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.
(LA MÉTEMPSYCOSE.)

BY BÉRANGER.

In philosophic mood, last night, as idly I was lying,
That souls may transmigrate, methought there could be no denying:

So, just to know to what I owe propensities so strong,
I drew my soul into a chat—our gossip lasted long.
“A votive offering,” she observed, “well might I claim from thee;
For thou in being hadst remained a cipher, but for me:
Yet not a virgin soul was I when first in thee enshrined.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find!

“Yes,” she continued, “yes, of old—I recollect it now—
In humble ivy was I wreathed round many a joyous brow.
More subtle next the essence was that I essayed to warm,
A bird’s, that could salute the skies, a little bird’s my form:
Where thickets made a pleasant shade, where shepherdesses strolled,
I fluttered round, hopped on the ground, my simple lays I trolled;
My pinions grew whilst still I flew in freedom on the wind.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find!

“Médor, my name, I next became a dog of wondrous tact,
The guardian of a poor blind man, his sole support in fact;
The trick of holding in my mouth a wooden bowl I knew—
I led my master through the streets, and begged his living too.
Devoted to the poor, to please the wealthy was my care,
Gleaning, as sustenance for one, what others well could spare;
Thus good I did, since to good deeds so many I inclined.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find!

“Next, to breathe life into her charms, in a young girl I dwelt;
There, in soft prison, snugly housed, what happiness I felt!
Till to my hiding-place a swarm of Cupids entrance gained,
And after pillaging it well, in garrison remained.
Like old campaigners, there the rogues all sorts of mischief did:
And night and day, whilst still I lay in little corner hid,
How oft I saw the house on fire I scarce can call to mind.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find.

“Some light on thy propensities may now upon thee break;
But prithee hark! one more remark I still,” says she, “would make.
’Tis this—that having dared one day with Heaven to make too free,
God for my punishment resolved to shut me up in thee:
And what with sittings up at night, with work and woman’s art,
Tears and despair—for I forbear some secrets to impart—
A poet is a very hell for soul thereto consigned!”
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find.

THE SONG OF THE EARTH SPIRITS.
IN GOETHE’S “FAUST.”

The soul of man
Is like the water:
From heaven it cometh,
To heaven it mounteth,
And thence at once
It must back to earth,
Forever changing.

THE SECRET OF REMINISCENCE.

FROM SCHILLER.

What unveils to me the yearning glow
Fix’d forever to thy lips to grow?
What the longing wish thy breath to drink,—
In thy Being blest, in death to sink
When thy look steals o’er me?

As when Slaves without resistance yield
To the Victor in the battle-field,
So my Senses in the moment fly
O’er the bridge of Life tumultuously
When thou stand’st before me!

Speak! Why should they from their Master roam?
Do my Senses yonder seek their home?
Or do sever’d brethren meet again,
Casting off the Body’s heavy chain,
Where thy foot hath lighted?

Were our Beings once together twin’d?
Was it therefore that our bosoms pin’d?
Were we in the light of suns now dead,
In the days of rapture long since fled,
Into One united?

Aye, we were so!—thou wert link’d with me
In Æone that has ceas’d to be;
On the mournful page of vanish’d time,
By my Muse were read these words sublime:
Nought thy love can sever!

And in Being closely twin’d and fair,
I too wondering saw it written there,—
We were then a Life, a Deity,—
And the world seem’d order’d then to lie
’Neath our sway forever.

And, to meet us, nectar-fountains still
Pour’d forever forth their blissful rill;
Forcibly we broke the seal of Things,
And to Truth’s bright sunny hills our wings
Joyously were soaring.

Laura, weep!—this Deity hath flown,—
Thou and I his ruins are alone;
By a thirst unquenchable we’re driven
Our lost Being to embrace;—tow’rd Heaven
Turns our gaze imploring.

Therefore, Laura, is this yearning glow
Fix’d forever to thy lips to grow,
And the longing wish thy breath to drink,
In thy Being blest, in death to sink
When thy look steals o’er me!

And as Slaves without resistance yield
To the Victor in the battle-field,
Therefore do my ravish’d Senses fly
O’er the bridge of Life tumultuously,
When thou stand’st before me!

Therefore do they from their Master roam!
Therefore do my Senses seek their home!
Casting off the Body’s heavy chain,
Those long-sever’d brethren kiss again,
Hush’d is all their sighing!

And thou, too—when on me fell thine eye,
What disclos’d thy cheek’s deep-purple dye?
Tow’rd each other, like relations dear,
As an exile to his home draws near,
Were we not then flying?

A SONNET ON CAUCASUS.

BY T. CAMPANELLA.

I fear that by my death the human race
Would gain no vantage. Thus I do not die.
So wide is this vast cage of misery
That flight and change lead to no happier place.
Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case:
All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony:
Go where we will, we feel; and this my cry
I may forget like many an old disgrace.
Who knows what doom is mine? The Omnipotent
Keeps silence; nay, I know not whether strife
Or peace was with me in some earlier life.
Philip in a worse prison we hath pent
These three days past—but not without God’s will.
Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.