THE FORTUNE-FAVOURED. [10]

[Footnote 10:  The first verses in the original of this poem are placed as a motto on Goethe’s statue at Weimar.]

  Ah! happy He, upon whose birth each god
  Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
  Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
  Of eloquent Hermes kindles—­to whose eyes,
  Scarce waken’d yet, Apollo steals in light,
  While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might. 
  Godlike the lot ordain’d for him to share,
  He wins the garland ere be runs the race;
  He learns life’s wisdom ere he knows life’s care,
  And, without labour vanquish’d, smiles the Grace. 
  Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
  Self-shapes its objects and subdues the Fates—­
  Virtue subdues the Fates, but cannot bind
  The fickle Happiness, whose smile awaits
  Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
  What the Grace showers not from her own free urn!

  From aught unworthy, the determined will
  Can guard the watchful spirit—­there it ends. 
  The all that’s glorious from the heaven descends;
  As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
  Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!—­Above
  Favour rules Jove, as it below rules Love! 
  The Immortals have their bias!—­Kindly they
  See the bright locks of youth enamour’d play,
  And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way. 
  It is not they who boast the best to see,
  Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
  The stately light of their divinity
  Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind;—­
  And their choice spirit found its calm recess
  In the pure childhood of a simple mind. 
  Unask’d they come—­delighted to delude
  The expectation of our baffled Pride;
  No law can call their free steps to our side. 
  Him whom He loves, the Sire of men and gods,
  (Selected from the marvelling multitude,)
  Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
  And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down
  The minstrel’s laurel or the monarch’s crown.

  Before the fortune-favour’d son of earth,
  Apollo walks—­and, with his jocund mirth,
  The heart-enthralling Smiler of the skies. 
  For him grey Neptune smooths the pliant wave—­
  Harmless the waters for the ship that bore
  The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore! 
  Charm’d, at his feet the crouching lion lies,
  To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;
  His soul is born a sovereign o’er the strife—­
  The lord of all the Beautful of Life;
  Where’er his presence in its calm has trod,
  It charms—­it sways as some diviner god.