Körner and His Sister.
[“Charles Theodore Körner, the celebrated young German poet and soldier, was killed in a skirmish with a detachment of French troops on the 20th of August 1813, a few hours after the composition of his popular piece, The Sword-Song. He was buried at the village of Wöbbelin in Mecklenburg, under a beautiful oak, in a recess of which he had frequently deposited verses composed by him while campaigning in its vicinity. The monument erected to his memory is of cast-iron; and the upper part is wrought into a lyre and sword, a favourite emblem of Körner’s, from which one of his works had been entitled. Near the grave of the poet is that of his only sister, who died of grief for his loss, having only survived him long enough to complete his portrait and a drawing of his burial-place. Over the gate of the cemetery is engraved one of his own lines:—
‘Vergiss die treuen Todten nicht.’
(Forget not the faithful dead.)”
—See Richardson’s Translation of Körner’s Life and Works, and Downe’s Letters from Mecklenburg.]
Green wave the oak for ever o’er thy rest,
Thou that beneath its crowning foliage sleepest,
And, in the stillness of thy country’s breast,
Thy place of memory as an altar keepest;
Brightly thy spirit o’er her hills was pour’d,
Thou of the Lyre and Sword!
Rest, bard! rest, soldier! By the father’s hand
Here shall the child of after years be led,
With his wreath-offering silently to stand
In the hush’d presence of the glorious dead—
Soldier and bard! for thou thy path hast trod
With freedom and with God.
The oak waved proudly o’er thy burial rite,
On thy crown’d bier to slumber warriors bore thee,
And with true hearts thy brethren of the fight
Wept as they veil’d their drooping banners o’er thee;
And the deep guns with rolling peal gave token
That Lyre and Sword were broken.
Thou hast a hero’s tomb: a lowlier bed
Is hers, the gentle girl beside thee lying—
The gentle girl that bow’d her fair young head
When thou wert gone, in silent sorrow dying.
Brother, true friend! the tender and the brave!—
She pined to share thy grave.
Fame was thy gift from others;—but for her,
To whom the wide world held that only spot,
She loved thee!—lovely in your lives ye were,
And in your early deaths divided not.
Thou hast thine oak, thy trophy,—what hath she?
Her own bless’d place by thee!
It was thy spirit, brother! which had made
The bright earth glorious to her youthful eye,
Since first in childhood midst the vines ye play’d,
And sent glad singing through the free blue sky.
Ye were but two—and when that spirit pass’d,
Woe to the one, the last!
Woe, yet not long! She linger’d but to trace
Thine image from the image in her breast—
Once, once again to see that buried face
But smile upon her, ere she went to rest.
Too sad a smile! its living light was o’er—
It answer’d hers no more.
The earth grew silent when thy voice departed,
The home too lonely whence thy step had fled;
What then was left for her the faithful-hearted?
Death, death, to still the yearning for the dead!
Softly she perish’d: be the Flower deplored
Here with the Lyre and Sword!
Have ye not met ere now?—so let those trust
That meet for moments but to part for years—
That weep, watch, pray, to hold back dust from dust—
That love, where love is but a fount of tears.
Brother! sweet sister! peace around ye dwell:
Lyre, Sword, and Flower, farewell![355]
[355] The following lines, addressed to the author of the above, by the venerable father of Körner, who, with the mother, survived the “Lyre, Sword, and Flower,” here commemorated, may not be uninteresting to the German reader:—
“Wohllaut tont aus der Ferne von freundlichen Luften getragen,
Schmeichelt mit lindernder Kraft sich in der Trauernden Ohr,
Starkt den erhebenden Glauben an solcher seelen Verwandschaft,
Die zum Tempel die brust nur fur das Wurdige weihn.
Aus dem Lande zu dem sich stets der gefeyerte Jungling
Hingezogen gefuhlt, wird ihm ein glazender Lohn.
Heil dem Brittischen Volke, wenn ihm das Deutsche nicht fremd ist!
Uber Lander und Meer reichen sich beyde die Hand.”
Theodor Körner’s Vater.