8 Frederica
1
O leave Berlin, with its thick-lying sand,
Weak tea, and men who seem so much to know
That they both God, themselves, and all below
With Hegel’s reason only understand.
O come to India, to the sunny land
Where flowers ambrosial their sweet fragrance throw
Where pilgrim troops on tow’rd the Ganges go
With reverence, in white robes, a festal band.
There, where the palm-trees wave, the billows smile,
And on the sacred bank the lotos-tree
Soars up to Indra’s castle blue,—yes there,
There will I kneel to thee in trusting style,
And press against thy foot, and say to thee:
“Madam, thou art the fairest of the fair!”
2
The Ganges roars; amid the foliage see
The sharp eyes of the antelope, who springs
Disdainfully along; their colour’d wings
The peacocks as they move, show haughtily.
Deep from the bosom of the sunny lea
Rises a newborn race of flowers, sweet things;
With yearning-madden’d voice Cocila sings—
Yes, thou art fair, no woman’s like to thee!
God Cama9 lurks in all thy features fair,
He dwells within thy bosom’s tents so white,
And breathes to thee the sweetest songs he knows.
Upon thy lips Vassant10 has made his lair,
I find within thine eyes new worlds of light,
In my own world no more I find repose.
3
The Ganges roars; the mighty Ganges swells,
The Himalaya glows in evening’s light,
And from the banyan-forest’s gloomy night
The elephantine herd breaks forth and yells.
O for a type to show how she excels!
A typo of thee, so lovely to the sight,
Thee the incomparable, good and bright,
So that sweet rapture in my bosom dwells.
In vain thou see’st me seek for types, and prate,—
See’st me with feelings struggle, and with rhyme,
And, ah, thou smilest at my pangs of love!
But smile! For when thou smil’st, Gandarvas straight
Seize on the sweet guitar, and all the time
Sing in the golden sunny halls above.