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Show Heine Before the Venus of Milo. In one of the prefaces to his poems Heine relates how, in 1848, he dragged himself into the Louvre to take farewell of our dear Lady of Milo. 'I lay," he said, "for a long time at her feet, weeping weep-ing so bitterly that a stone must have had pity on. me. And ,though the goddess looked down on me with compassion, it was a compassion without comfort, as if she would say, ' See'st thou not that I have no arms, and so cannot give thee help?'" - - Once more I come before mine eyelids fail And drop between me and the lights I see. Once more I come to take my farewell look Of her, who like a glory, led my youth, And gave a shape and color to its dreams, But once again before I turn away In to my living grave to die to die. O perfect form of perfect woman, clad In that sweet light not born of earth, but drawn From those high realms that bend above the gods, , Whose sun has lent the softest of its light To cling forever round this splendid form That cares not for the worship nor the love Of pilgrims drawn by unseen links to lay . Can ever mingle with il; at thy feet! Thou wert to nte as sunshine to the dayj The presence by whose side I knelt and saw The shadowy curtains of the land of dreams Lift, as a morning mist takes to the hills. And thine the voice that, soft as April rain, Bade me rise up and enter. But amid Those forms that haunt the regions of our sleep, Or look in on our day-dreams in the light, When, without sleeping, we dream purest dreams, Thou wert the fairest of them all, and rose Perfect in all thy glorious womanhood. Yet so apart that all the meaner air Made circles ronnd thee until the inner light Took softer fire from thee,, and crowned thy brow - - With beauty which the gods alone possess Who dwell beyond the shining of the stars. That haunting sense of beauty which the gods Bestow on some rash mortal whose rash foot Strikes on the threshold of their calm, was mine. To touch my heart as with a sudden fire Snatched from their own pure altars. As I stood In that high wonderland of dreams, I heard Footsteps that were like music, voices clear As the melodious murmur of a stream Half-hushed by moonlight. As they sang, I knew My worship was an echo of their own ; For in it, like the yearning of a song, Rose that most passionate cry for fairest forms, " Such as forever haunt and wander through The dream of some Endymion, as he lies -Upon the Latmian hill of early love", And thine was still the shape to which they sang. Thou knowest my worship. Yea! for when I fought In the keen ranks of thought, and kept my place Amid the heavy tramp of those who knew No higher worship than their own desires, I still was true to all my love for thee. . . Alex. Anderson in Contemporary Beview. |