But I will confess that I did not grieve too long for her. Yes, I have even fancied that Fate had been kind in refusing to unite us. I consoled myself with the thought that I could not have been happy with such a wife. I was young, and the future--this short, fleeting life--seemed endless to me. Why should not that be again which once had been so sweet, and even better and more beautiful? I have known other women, but the feeling which Assja awakened in me--that deep and ardent tenderness--has never repeated itself. No! No eyes could compensate me for the loss of those that once were lifted, with such love, to mine. No heart has ever rested on my breast which could make my own beat with such delicious anguish! Condemned to the solitary existence of a man without a family tie, I bring my life to its gloomy end; but I guard still, as a sacred relic, her letters and the dried geranium sprig which she once tossed me from the window. There clings a faint fragrance to it even yet; but the hand that gave it, the hand that it was only once vouchsafed to me to kiss, has mouldered, perhaps, for many a year in the grave. And I--what has become of me? What remains to me of myself--of those happy and painful days--of those winged hopes and desires? So the slight fragrance of a feeble weed outlasts all the joys and all the sorrows of a man. Nay, it outlasts the man himself! TO BEETHOVEN. Clasped in a too strict calyxing Lay Music's bud o'er-long unblown, Till thou, Beethoven, breathed her spring: Then blushed the perfect rose of tone. O loving Soul, thy song hath taught All full-grown passion fast to flee Where science drives all full-grown thought-- To unity, to unity. For he whose ear with grave delight Brings brave revealings from thine art Oft hears thee calling through the night: _In Love's large tune all tones have part._ Thy music hushes motherwise, And motherwise to stillness sings The slanders told by sickly eyes On nature's healthy course of things. It soothes my accusations sour 'Gainst frets that fray the restless soul: The stain of death; the pain of power; The lack of love 'twixt part and whole; The yea-nay of Free-will and Fate, Whereof both cannot be, yet are; The praise a poet wins too late Who starves from earth into a star; The lies that serve great parties well, While truths but give their Christs a cross The loves that send warm souls to hell, While cold-blood neuters live on loss; Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace On Jesus, Judas, pours alike; Th' indifferent frown on nature's face When luminous lightnings blindly strike; The sailor praying on his knees Along with him that's cursing God-- Whose wives and babes may starve or freeze, Yet Nature will not stir a clod.