| |
| IN the same hour the breath of life receiving, | |
| They came together and were beautiful; | |
| But, as they slumbered in their mother’s lap, | |
| How mournful was their beauty! She would sit, | |
| And look and weep, and look and weep again; | 5 |
| For Nature had but half her work achieved, | |
| Denying, like a step-dame, to the babes | |
| Her noblest gifts; denying speech to one, | |
And to the other—reason.
But at length | |
| (Seven years gone by, seven melancholy years) | 10 |
| Another came, as fair and fairer still; | |
| And then, how anxiously the mother watched | |
| Till reason dawned and speech declared itself! | |
| Reason and speech were his; and down she knelt, | |
| Clasping her hands in silent ecstasy. | 15 |
| |
| On the hillside, where still their cottage stands | |
| (’T is near the upper falls in Lauterbrunn; | |
| For there I sheltered now, their frugal hearth | |
| Blazing with mountain-pine when I appeared, | |
| And there, as round they sate, I heard their story), | 20 |
| On the hillside, among the cataracts, | |
| In happy ignorance the children played; | |
| Alike unconscious, through their cloudless day, | |
| Of what they had and had not; everywhere | |
| Gathering rock-flowers; or, with their utmost might, | 25 |
| Loosening the fragment from the precipice, | |
| And, as it tumbled, listening for the plunge; | |
| Yet, as by instinct, at the customed hour, | |
| Returning; the two eldest, step by step, | |
| Lifting along, and with the tenderest care, | 30 |
Their infant brother.
Once the hour was past; | |
| And, when she sought, she sought and could not find; | |
| And when she found,—where was the little one? | |
| Alas, they answered not; yet still she asked, | |
Still in her grief forgetting.
With a scream, | 35 |
| Such as an eagle sends forth when he soars, | |
| A scream that through the wild scatters dismay, | |
| The idiot-boy looked up into the sky, | |
| And leaped and laughed aloud and leaped again; | |
| As if he wished to follow in its flight | 40 |
| Something just gone, and gone from earth to heaven; | |
| While he, whose every gesture, every look, | |
| Went to the heart, for from the heart it came, | |
| He who nor spoke nor heard,—all things to him, | |
| Day after day, as silent as the grave | 45 |
| (To him unknown the melody of birds, | |
| Of waters, and the voice that should have soothed | |
| His infant sorrows, singing him to sleep), | |
| Fled to her mantle as for refuge there, | |
| And, as at once o’ercome with fear and grief, | 50 |
| Covered his head and wept. A dreadful thought | |
| Flashed through her brain. “Has not some bird of prey, | |
| Thirsting to dip his beak in innocent blood— | |
| It must, it must be so!” And so it was. | |
| |
| There was an eagle that had long acquired | 55 |
| Absolute sway, the lord of a domain | |
| Savage, sublime; nor from the hills alone | |
| Gathering large tribute, but from every vale; | |
| Making the ewe, whene’er he deigned to stoop, | |
| Bleat for the lamb. Great was the recompense | 60 |
| Assured to him who laid the tyrant low; | |
| And near his nest in that eventful hour, | |
| Calmly and patiently, a hunter stood,— | |
| A hunter, as it chanced, of old renown, | |
And, as it chanced, their father.
In the south | 65 |
| A speck appeared, enlarging; and erelong, | |
| As on his journey to the golden sun, | |
| Upward he came, the felon in his flight, | |
| Ascending through the congregated clouds, | |
| That, like a dark and troubled sea, obscured | 70 |
| The world beneath. “But what is in his grasp? | |
| Ha! ’t is a child,—and may it not be ours? | |
| I dare not, cannot; and yet why forbear, | |
| When, if it lives, a cruel death awaits it? | |
| May He who winged the shaft when Tell stood forth, | 75 |
| And shot the apple from the youngling’s head, | |
| Grant me the strength, the courage!” As he spoke, | |
| He aimed, he fired; and at his feet they fell, | |
| The eagle and the child,—the child unhurt, | |
| Though, such the grasp, not even in death relinquished. | 80 |
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