TO BETTINE,

Bettine, friend of Goethe,

Hadst thou the second sight —

Upturning worship and delight

With such a loving duty

To his grand face, as women will,

The childhood‘ neath thine eyelids still?

— Before his shrine to doom thee,

Using the same child's smile

That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile

For the first time, won from thee

Ere star and flower grew dim and dead

Save at his feet and o'er his head?

— Digging thine heart and throwing

Away its childhood's gold,

That so its woman-depth might hold

His spirit's overflowing?

( For surging souls, no worlds can bound,

Their channel in the heart have found. )

O child, to change appointed,

Thou hadst not second sight!

What eyes the future view aright

Unless by tears anointed?

Yea, only tears themselves can show

The burning ones that have to flow.

O woman, deeply loving,

Thou hadst not second sight!

The star is very high and bright,

And none can see it moving.

Love looks around, below, above,

Yet all his prophecy is — love.

The bird thy childhood's playing

Sent onward o'er the sea,

Thy dove of hope came back to thee

Without a leaf: art laying

Its wet cold wing no sun can dry,

Still in thy bosom secretly?

Our Goethe's friend, Bettine,

I have the second sight!

The stone upon his grave is white,

The funeral stone between ye;

And in thy mirror thou hast viewed

Some change as hardly understood.

Where's childhood? where is Goethe?

The tears are in thine eyes.

Nay, thou shalt yet reorganize

Thy maidenhood of beauty

In his own glory, which is smooth

Of wrinkles and sublime in youth.

The poet's arms have wound thee,

He breathes upon thy brow,

He lifts thee upward in the glow

Of his great genius round thee,—

The childlike poet undefiled

Preserving evermore THE CHILD.