The Basalt

    Mag der basaltene Mohrenstein
    Zum Schreck es erzählen im Lande,
    Wie er gebrodelt in Flammenschein
    Und geschwärzt entstiegen dem Brande:
    Brenn's drunten noch Jahr aus Jahr ein
    Beim Wein soll uns nicht bange sein,
    Nein, nein!
    Soll uns nicht bange sein!

                F. v. Kobell. Urzeit der Erde, p. 33.


    Es war der Basalt ein jüngerer Sohn
    Aus altvulcanischem Hause,
    Er lebte lang verkannt und gedrückt
    In erdtief verborgener Clause.

Sir basalt was a younger son
    Of that oldest race, the Vulcanian,
And he lived for ages oppressed and unknown
    In a cavern deep subterranean.

So they goaded and jeered the lover forlorn, -
    'Art thou yearning for rainy weather?
You will get but a mitten, and the scorn
    Of all the formations together.

'Uncle Rocksalt said to the Lime and smiled,
    And the billows sneer it higher,
"How can the Ocean's third-born child
    Be a bride to this scum of Fire?"'

What happened next was never known;
    But at once into madness crashing,
In a fiery blaze he was upwards thrown,
    His wild veins glaring and flashing.

Loud raving he sprang to the air in haste,
    And scorching all, fast hurried;
Bursting the strata's mountain waste
    Beneath which he long was buried.

And she whom he once had worshipped, broke,
    And was crushed as a mere obstruction;
He laughed in scorn, and whirling in smoke,
    Stormed on to fresh destruction.

And blow on blow - a terrible roar
    Of thousands of storms wild crashing;
The earth burst open and trembled all o'er.
    With a shaking and breaking and dashing.

Till in majesty the fiery flood
    Flew up from the rifts in fountains,
And scattered with ruins land and flood
    Bowed down to the columned mountains.

There he stood and gazed on the blue air free,
    And the sun with its sweet attraction,
Then heavily sighed - it blew cool from the sea -
    And he sank in petrifaction.

Yet still in the rock may be heard in rhyme
    A wondrous tuning and ringing,
As though he would from his youthful time
    A song of love be singing.

And a gold yellow drop of natrolite
    From the dark stone oft comes peeping;
Those are the tears which Sir Basált
    For his crushed love ever is weeping.

Translated From The German Of Joseph Victor Scheffel By Charles G. Leland.