Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.
The Frontier Guard
By Count Anton Alexander von Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) (1806–1876)T
Keeps guard in quarantine;
Across the stream, in paths of flowers,
The Turkish maid is seen.
Like death’s dark river, rolls,
Whose waters earth and heaven divide,
Mortals and blessed souls.
To those who linger here,
Like memory’s lost or hope’s unwon
And unborn joys appear.
So far from him they seem,
As if Heaven’s bowers, in long-gone hours,
Had shown them in his dream.
Yon groves of balm and spice
Are in his eyes as if they hung
On trees of Paradise.
The pleasant river-shore,
Seems like a gentle ghost to glide,—
A shape of earth no more.
In liquid beauty gleam,
As when, mild-glimmering from the skies,
The stars through cloud-fleece beam.
With such a yearning love,
As draws by night, in full moonlight,
The wanderer’s soul above.
To that far spirit-land,—
But other images, alas!
Quite earthly, are at hand.
He hears them brushing by;
Bright gleams the steel, and from the heel
Dust-clouds—hoof-lightnings—fly.
The Aga’s smoke-pipe-cup
See, like a musket-barrel, pour
Its peaceful salvos up!
His musket on the shore
So heavily, the welkin sounds
With hollow ring and roar!
Must haunt this lazy shore,
Dead as a boundary tree, to play
Nurse at a pest-house door!
For wagon and for horse!
Come, Commissary, boats for the ferry,
Over with all the force!
The fight our sires begun,
Yonder, by our good Christian sword,
Must be fought out and won!
Sir Captain, what disgrace!
Up, plant the holy cross, there, high,
Far worthier of the place!
Shrouds many a lovely brow,
That prays, within the Church’s pale
And at her font, to bow!”
Who would have dreamed, awake,
An unbelieving Turkish maid
Could such good Christians make!