The Meeting of the Brothers

The voices of two forest boys,
In years when hearts entwine,
Had fill’d with childhood’s merry noise
A valley of the Rhine:
To rock and stream that sound was known,
Gladsome as hunter’s bugle-tone.

The sunny laughter of their eyes,
There had each vineyard seen;
Up every cliff whence eagles rise,
Their bounding step had been:
Ay! their bright youth a glory threw
O’er the wild place wherein they grew.

But this, as day-spring’s flush, was brief
As early bloom or dew;
Alas! ’tis but the wither’d leaf
That wears th’ enduring hue!
Those rocks along the Rhine’s fair shore
Might girdle in their world no more.

For now on manhood’s verge they stood,
And heard life’s thrilling call,
As if a silver clarion woo’d
To some high festival;
And parted as young brothers part,
With love in each unsullied heart.

They parted. Soon the paths divide
Wherein our steps were one,
Like river branches, far and wide,
Dissevering as they run;
And making strangers in their course,
Of waves that had the same bright source.

Met they no more? Once more they met,
Those kindred hearts and true!
’Twas on a field of death, where yet
The battle-thunders flew,
Though the fierce day was wellnigh past,
And the red sunset smiled its last.

But as the combat closed, they found
For tender thoughts a space,
And e’en upon that bloody ground
Room for one bright embrace,
And pour’d forth on each other’s neck
Such tears as warriors need not check.

The mists o’er boyhood’s memory spread
All melted with those tears,
The faces of the holy dead
Rose as in vanish’d years;
The Rhine, the Rhine, the ever-blest,
Lifted its voice in each full breast!

Oh! was it then a time to die?
It was!--that not in vain
The soul of childhood’s purity
And peace might turn again.
A ball swept forth--’twas guided well--
Heart unto heart those brothers fell!

Happy, yes, happy thus to go!
Bearing from earth away
Affections, gifted ne’er to know
A shadow--a decay--
A passing touch of change or chill,
A breath of aught whose breath can kill.

And they, between whose sever’d souls,
Once in close union tied,
A gulf is set, a current rolls
For ever to divide;
Well may they envy such a lot,
Whose hearts yearn on--but mingle not.