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April, 1844
Translated by A. L. Wister
YES, Germany is Hamlet! Lo! | |
| Upon her ramparts every night | |
| There stalks in silence, grim and slow, | |
| Her buried Freedom’s steel-clad sprite, | |
| Beckoning the warders watching there, | 5 |
| And to the shrinking doubter saying: | |
| “They ’ve dropt fell poison in mine ear, | |
| Draw thou the sword! no more delaying!” | |
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| He listens, and his blood runs cold; | |
| The horrid truth, at length laid bare, | 10 |
| Drives him to be the avenger bold,— | |
| But will he ever really dare? | |
| He ponders, dreams, but at his need | |
| No counsel comes, firm purpose granting, | |
| Still for the prompt, courageous deed | 15 |
| The prompt, courageous soul is wanting. | |
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| It comes from loitering overmuch, | |
| Lounging, and reading,—tired to death; | |
| Sloth holds him in its iron clutch, | |
| He ’s grown too “fat and scant of breath.” | 20 |
| His learning gives him little aid, | |
| His boldest act is only thinking; | |
| Too long in Wittenberg he stayed | |
| Attending lectures,—maybe, drinking. | |
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| And so his resolution fails, | 25 |
| Madness he feigns, thus gaining time, | |
| Soliloquizes too, and rails, | |
| And curses “time” and “spite” in rhyme. | |
| A pantomime must help him, too, | |
| And when he does fight, somewhat later, | 30 |
| Why, then, Polonius Kotzebue | |
| Receives the stab, and not the traitor. | |
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| So he endures, thus dreamily, | |
| With secret self-contempt, his pain: | |
| He lets them send him o’er the sea, | 35 |
| And, sharp in speech, comes home again; | |
| Jeers right and left,—his hints are dark,— | |
| Talks of a “king of shreds and patches,” | |
| But for a deed? God save the mark! | |
| No deed from all his talk he hatches. | 40 |
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| At last he gets the courage lacked, | |
| He grasps the sword to keep his vow,— | |
| But ah! ’t is in the final Act, | |
| And only serves to lay him low. | |
| With those his hate has overcome, | 45 |
| Scourging at last their black demerits, | |
| He dies,—and then with tuck of drum | |
| Comes Fortinbras, and all inherits. | |
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| Thank God! we ’ve not yet come to this, | |
| The first four acts have been played through; | 50 |
| See, lest the parallel there is | |
| Be in the Fifth Act borne out too. | |
| Early and late we hope, and pray: | |
| O hero, come,—no more delaying,— | |
| Gird up your loins, act while you may, | 55 |
| The spectre’s solemn call obeying. | |
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| O, seize the moment, strike to-day, | |
| There still is time,—fulfil your part | |
| Ere with his poisoned rapier’s play | |
| A French Laertes find your heart. | 60 |
| Let not a Northern army clutch | |
| Your rightful heritage beforehand. | |
| Beware! And yet I doubt me much | |
| If next the foe will come from Norland. | |
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| Resolve, and put fresh courage on! | 65 |
| Enter the lists, make good your boast! | |
| Think on the oath that you have sworn; | |
| Avenge, avenge your father’s ghost! | |
| Why thus forever dilly-dally? | |
| Yet—dare I scold?—a poor old dreamer,— | 70 |
| I ’m, after all, “a piece of thee,” | |
| Thou ever-loitering, lingering schemer! | |
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