| |
| IN little German Weimar, | |
| With soft green hills enfolded, | |
| Where shady Ilm-brook wanders, | |
| A great man lived and wrote; | |
| In life and art and nature | 5 |
| He conned their “open secret,” | |
| Of men and hours and fortunes | |
| He reverently took note. | |
| Upon a verge of Europe, | |
| Facing the silent sunsets, | 10 |
| And loud Atlantic billows, | |
| For me, too, rose his thought, | |
| Turned to a shape of stars on high | |
| Within the spiritual sky | |
| Of many an upward-gazing eye. | 15 |
| |
| And now this new October, | |
| Within a holy garden, | |
| Mid flowers and trees and crosses, | |
| When dusk begins to fall,— | |
| Where linden leaves are paling, | 20 |
| And poplar leaves are gilded, | |
| And crimson is the wild-vine | |
| That hangs across the wall, | |
| I see the little temple | |
| Wherein, with dust of princes, | 25 |
| The body lies of Goethe, | |
| And may not move at all. | |
| He marked all changes of the year; | |
| He loved to live; he did not fear | |
| The never-broken silence here. | 30 |
| |
| Slow foots the gray old sexton, | |
| The ducal town’s dead-watcher, | |
| Attending day and night time. | |
| A bell that never rings; | |
| The corpse upon the pallet, | 35 |
| A thread to every finger,— | |
| The slightest touch would sound it, | |
| But silence broods and clings. | |
| Beside the room of stillness, | |
| While yet his couch is warmer, | 40 |
| This old man hath his biding, | |
| Therefrom the key he brings. | |
| For mighty mortals, in his day, | |
| He hath unlocked the house of clay,— | |
| For them, as we are wont to say. | 45 |
| |
| By yellow leafy midwalk | |
| Slow foots that aged sexton; | |
| “Ja wohl! I have seen Goethe, | |
| And spoken too with him.” | |
| The lamp with cord he lowers, | 50 |
| And I, by steps descending, | |
| Behold through grated doorway | |
| A chamber chill and dim,— | |
| Gaze on a dark red coffer: | |
| Full fourscore years were counted, | 55 |
| When that grand head lay useless, | |
| And each heroic limb. | |
| Schiller’s dust is close beside, | |
| And Carl August ’s not far,—denied | |
| His chosen place by princely pride. | 60 |
| |
| The day had gloomed and drizzled, | |
| But cleared itself in parting, | |
| The hills were soft and hazy, | |
| Fine colors streaked the west | |
| (Above that distant ocean), | 65 |
| And Weimar stood before me, | |
| A dream of half my lifetime, | |
| A vision for the rest: | |
| The house that fronts the fountain, | |
| The cottage at the woodside,— | 70 |
| Long since I surely knew them, | |
| But still, to see was best. | |
| Town and park for eyes and feet: | |
| But all the inhabitants I greet | |
| Are ghosts, in every walk and street. | 75 |
| |
