1845.]

333

And snorted so

A Parable.

for very dread
His leader dropped the rein and fled.
He ran, till, in a sheltered nook
Beside the way, he spied a brook.
Half crazed, he hears the beast behind
Madly snuff up the burning wind.
He crept into the fountain's nook -
Plunged not-but still hung o'er the brook ;
When lo! a bramble came to view,
That from the fountain's waters grew.
Thereto the man did straightway cling,
Close-crouching, coldly shuddering.
When he looked up, he saw with dread
Peer down that frightful camel's head,
That still more near and frightful grew;
And when below he bent his view,
Down in the fountain's depths he saw
A dragon with extended jaw,
That lay there, waiting for his blood,
When he should drop into the flood;-
For lo! thus trembling 'twixt the two,
A third wo met the wretch's view.
Where in the cavern's crevice clung
The bush's root, on which he hung,
He saw of mice a busy pair,

One black, one white, close nibbling there.

He saw, the black one and the white

Alternately the root did bite.

They gnawed, they tugged, with snout and foot,

They raked the earth from round the root;

And as the mould down-rattling fell,

The dragon looked up from the well,

To see how soon the bush would fall
Into the water, load and all.

The man, in terror and despair,
Beset, besieged, beleaguered there,
In vain from this most dread suspense
Sought and besought deliverance.
But as he strains his eager eyes,
Nodding above his head he spies
A twig, with blackberries thick-hung, -
Part of the vine to which he clung.

No more he saw the camel's head,
So hideous nor the dragon dread -
Nor yet the mice's knavery,

When once the berries met his eye.
The beast o'erhead might snort and blow,
The dragon lurk and gloat below,

And at his side the mice might gnaw,

The blackberries were all he saw.

They pleased his eyes- he thought them sweet—

Berry on berry did he eat;

So great the pleasure while he ate,

It made him all his fear forget.

Ask'st thou, what foolish man is he,

Forgets such fear so easily?

Know, then, O friend, that man art thou;
For thou shalt hear the moral now.

The dragon down beneath the wave
Is Death's wide-gaping maw-the grave.
The camel, threatening overhead,

Is Life's distress and doubt and dread.
"Twixt Life and Death aye hovering,
Thou dost to Earth's frail thorn-bush cling.
The two that gnaw incessantly

The root that bears the twigs and thee,

To bring thee down to Death's dark might-
The mice's names are Day and Night.

-

The black one gnaws, concealed from sight,
From eventide till morning-light:
From morning-light till eventide

The white one gnaws, the root beside.
Yet, in this wild and weary waste,
The berry, Pleasure, tempts thy taste,
Till, the huge camel, Life's distress,
The dragon, Death, in the abyss,
The busy nibblers, Day and Night,
Forgotten in thy strange delight,

-

Of death's dark flood thou dost not think,
But of the berries on its brink.

C. T. B.

From the Persian: Translated from the German of Rückert.

WHEN Alexander died, he gave command,
They from his coffin should let hang his hand;
That all men who had seen him formerly,
Exulting in the pomp of royalty,

Might now see that with empty hands, alone,
He too the universal road had gone,
And that, of all his treasures, nothing, save
That empty hand, went with him to the

grave.

C. T. B.

V. AL-SIRAT.

From the German of Friedrich Rückert.

"TWIXT Time and Eternity

Stands the Bridge of Doom;

Filling with fierce radiancy

The dread chasm's gloom.

Know'st thou well, how sharp and fine

That bridge arches there?

Sharp as any sword its line,

Fine as any hair.

Shall the foot of man be set

On a bridge so thin,
Where no room a fly could get
To find footing in?

He that does not firmly dare
Trust himself on this,

Must not hope beyond to share
Eden's dewy bliss.

When the wicked o'er it goes,
Stands the bridge all sparkling;
And his mind bewildered grows,
And his eye swims darkling.

Wakening, giddying, then comes in,
With a deadly fright,
Memory of all his sin,

Rushing on his sight.

Underneath him gapes the chasm; -
Conscience, desperate grown,
Drives him with its maddening spasm
To plunge headlong down.

But when forward steps the just,

He is safe e'en here;
Round him gathers holy trust,
And repels his fear.

Hope is lifting up his brow,
Love is giving wings;
Faith is smiling, as he now
On so happy springs.

Each good deed is mist, that wide,
Golden borders gets;

And for him the bridge, each side,
Shines with parapets.

Onward still his footsteps fare,
And the bridge is passed,

As 't were built of stones hewn square,
Or of iron cast.

Freimund!* at that pass, thy lays

Thus around thee sweep

Mistful, that thou may'st not gaze
Down the dizzy deep.

The poetical name which Rückert usually applies to himself.

1845.]

Speculative and Practical Wisdom.

337

ART. IV. -SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL WISDOM.

THE time is one of great speculative activity. For a long period man has been accumulating a vast store of practical experience and of ingenious supposition. He has now compacted from his loose materials the definite sciences, and reduced them to a form which will not probably be radically altered by future discoveries; though it is hard to say what new principles of physical science the future may develop. A disposition is apparent in the public mind to reduce the less accurate sciences to some tolerable degree of precision. From the golden dreams of Plato down to Kant and Cousin and Fichte, all systems are ransacked, criticised and compared; that modern eclecticism may discover, or daring speculation make a road, by which our intellect may escape from wrangling and incertitude, to some simple, self-approving, daylight truth. Worn out with endless jars and disgusted by continual failure, sober common sense longs for a relief from speculation. The eagerness of the search after the means of its attainment is leading everywhere to intense thought, and in not a few cases, to great extravagance. The result as yet is but little more than giving a new shape to confusion, and multiplying unsettled questions. There are few points of agreement between the various theories, except in the great leading principles, the inheritance as it were of humanity, -principles so based upon the clearest perceptions, or so plainly deducible from argument, as to claim universal faith. But beyond these great axioms all is, and ever has been, confusion and disagreement; characterized chiefly, either by a blind faith in partial systems, or a restless skepticism as to all systems. It is evident that the human mind asks earnestly for answers to questions forced upon it by its temporal wants and its spiritual yearnings; and that it has not yet found these answers in the schemes of theorists, however satisfactory those schemes may be to their originators. Perhaps no unequivocal reply ever will be obtained. But the queries will forever be put, and never cease to be the great subjects of human inquiry.

The two extremes of ethical science are now represented by materialism, naturalism, or utilitarianism on one hand, and transcendentalism, spiritualism, or mysticism on the VOL XXXIX. -4TH S. VOL. IV. NO. III.

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