The Student of Prague

WHAT riotous din is ringing?

What wassailers throng the house?
The Student of Prague is singing

The praise of his wild carouse.

i This ballad is founded on fact. In a note at the end of M. Klauer's volume we
have the genuine history of the hero, given in a narrative transcribed from Feszler
and Fischer's Eunomia, for July, 1805. The student was the son of a Pomeranian
country clergyman, and was sent to Prague for the completion of "his education.
There his youth, temperament, and freedom from restraint soon led him into ex-
cesses, which increased until he became a confirmed libertine. He ceased to cor-
respond with his kindred; and his father, preyed on by anxiety and grief, at length
fell mortally ill. His mother now wrote to him, adjuring him to return and receive
the dying benediction of the parent who had reared him in the love and fear of
GOD; but in vain; the student, considering her story an invention to wile him
home, refused to attach credit to it, and pursued his career of dissipation at Prague.
Time wheeled on; at last, one night, as the student lay in bed, he was startled by a
rustling sound nigh him, and in the same moment a gentle current of air passed
over his face. Turning round with an involuntary shudder, he beheld a phantom

With bloodshot eyes and glowing,

He shouts like one possessed,
His goblet overflowing,

His head on his leman's breast.

As pallid as alabaster,

The servant ventures in:
'"Tis midnight, O, my master!

Cease now, at least, from sin!" —
"A vaunt, thou croaking booby!

I brook no babble from thee;
As long as the wine looks ruby

Bight jovial I swear to be!"

He drinks from his goblet faster;
Within lies a coiled worm:

leaning over the bed-side, and contemplating him with looks of the tenderest pity.
It was the apparition of his dying father! Terror mastered him at the sight; he
seized a sword that hung against the wall, and made a thrust at the spectre, which
immediately disappeared. The student was now seriously alarmed, as all his de-
pendence was upon his father, and next day he set out for Pomerania. But before
he had accomplished more than half his journey homeward, a black letter met him,
find, opening it, he found that it announced the death of his father, After a num-
ber of preliminary details, the following account was given of the last moments of
the deceased.—" The desire of the sick man to see his child once more, the father's
anguish at the thought of his son's depravity and obduracy augmented hourly.
On the last evening of his life never a minute elapsed that he did not enquire, on
the occasion .of the slightest noise or movement near him, ' Has he come yet? Is
he there?'— and when answered, ' Alas, no P he would break forth into piteous lam-
entations over the wretched state of his lost son. Midnight came, passed; he grew
fainter and fainter. At one o'clock he had sunk into a state of strange calmness.
It was thought that he slept. His family surrounded his bed. On a sudden a
trembling came over him; he turned himself round, and lifting his eyes to his
daughter, who was affectionately watching by him, he exclaimed in a hollow voice,
' All is over! My reprobate son has just struck at me with his sword !' Speech
and consciousness then deserted him. Towards the dawning of day he gave up the
ghost." M. Klauer's narrative, of which this is an abstract, closes here: the bal-
lad, it will be perceived, carries the story further, but whether according to the
strict truth or not, we cannot p.erend to say.

"GOD givres thee a sign, my master!

It saith, Repent! Reform!" —
"Truce, dolt, to thy coffin-faces!

Go, preach to the fools that will hear;
Thus locked in my Ionian's embraces,

What accident have I to fear?"

He plays with her night-black tresses;

She breaks from his arms by force;
Her hand on her heart she presses;

She shrieks, and drops down a corse!
Then steps the servant past her,

And falls upon his knee:
"GOD shews thee a sign, O, master,

A fearful sign to thee!" —

"Away, thou hound, to the devil!

Red gold have I still in store
To win me wherewith to revel,

And fairer lemans a score.
So long as my dotard father

Takes care of this purse of mine,
So long, by hell, will I gather

The roses of Love and wine."

The servant, shuddering, fetches

Away the accusing Dead:
And the wild young Student stretches

His wasted limbs in bed.
The lurid lamp is shooting

A bluer glare anon;
The owls without are hooting;

The hollow bell tolls " One!"

"When lo! a charnel vapour

Pervades the Student's room:
Then dies the darkening taper;

And, shimmering through the gloom,
A Shadow with look of sorrow

Bends over the reckless boy,
TV ho dreams of new pleasures to-morrow,

And laughs his libertine joy.

The Pitying Phantom raises

Its warning hand on high;
The Student starts; he gazes;

He grasps his bed-sword nigh;
He strikes at what resembles

His father's features pale;
And the stricken Phantom trembles,

And vanishes with a wail.

The wintry morn is dawning

In ashy-grey and red;
The servant undraws the awning

That screens his master's bed;
And a black-edged letter, weeping,

He gives the startled youth ;l
And the Student's flesh is creeping,

For he fears the dreadful truth.

"From thy mother, broken-hearted,
And widowed now by thee —

Thy father lias departed
This life in agony.

Whole nights I saw him languish;

And still he called in wild
And ceaseless tones of anguish

For thee, his ruined child.

"At last he lay as tranced;

His struggles appeared to cease,
And I fondly hoped and fancied

His spirit was now at peace;
But soon I heard him crying,

'He strikes me with his sword!'
And his bitter curse in dying

On his hardened son was poured."

The parricide Student ponders,

But word he utters not;
He leaves the house and wanders

To a lone and desolate spot.
With scissors he there divests his

Proud head of its clustering hair,
And low on his hands he rests his

Shorn skull and temples bare.

And now what chant funereal,

What feasters fill the house?
Their chant is a dirge of burial,

Their feast a death-carouse.
They drain the funeral-bowl off,

And chorus in accents vague
A hymn to the rest of the soul of

The penitent Student of Prague.