"My Redeemer and my Lord, I beseech thee, I entreat thee, Guide me in each act and word, That hereafter I may meet thee, Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning, With my lamp well trimmed and burning!
Interceding, With those bleeding Wounds upon thy hands and side, For all who have lived and erred Thou hast suffered, thou hast died, Scourged, and mocked, and crucified, And in the grave hast thou been buried!
If my feeble prayer can reach thee, O my Saviour, I beseech thee, Even as thou hast died for me, More sincerely Let me follow where thou leadest, Let me, bleeding as thou bleedest, Die, if dying I may give Life to one who asks to live, And more nearly, Dying thus, resemble thee!"
Sweet, virginal thoughts--not such as poor Margaret, in the intense anguish of her soul, poured forth at the shrine of the Mater Dolorosa! Still, by close adherence to form, even though the situations are changed, Longfellow provokes comparison--in this instance not wisely, for Margaret's prayer might wring tears from a heart of stone.
If, however, we go on in this way, looking alternately towards Goethe and Longfellow, we shall never reach the poem. Therefore we return the _Faust_ to its proper place on our book-shelves, solemnly vowing not to allude, to it again in the course of the present article, or to repeat the name of Goethe, under the penalty of reviewing--which, according to our scrupulous notions, implies reading--even at this late period of time, Lord John Russell's tragedy of _Don Carlos_.
The story of _The Golden Legend_ is not very intelligible, and has received by far too little consideration from the author. Whether it be taken or not from the venerable tome printed by our typographical Father Caxton, we cannot say; because we are unable, from its scarcity, to lay our hands upon the old book bearing that name. As Mr Longfellow gives it to us, it would appear that a certain Prince Henry of Hoheneck, on the Rhine--not a very young gentleman, but one who has attained nearly the middle period of existence--is afflicted with some disease, nearly corresponding to that doubtful malady the vapours. He does not know what is the matter with him; and, what is worse, none of the doctors, either allopathic or homoeopathic, whom he has consulted, can enlighten him on the subject. He describes his symptoms thus:--