Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes On village windows That glimmer red.
The snow recommences;
The buried fences Mark no longer The road o'er the plain;While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes A funeral train.
The bell is pealing, And every feeling Within me responds To the dismal knell;Shadows are trailing, My heart is bewailing And tolling within Like a funeral bell.
TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK
Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, While the sullen gales of autumn Shake the windows.
The ungrateful world Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, First I met thee.
There are marks of age, There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely, At the alehouse.
Soiled and dull thou art;
Yellow are thy time-worn pages, As the russet, rain-molested Leaves of autumn.
Thou art stained with wine Scattered from hilarious goblets, As the leaves with the libations Of Olympus.
Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When in dreamy youth I wandered By the Baltic,--When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Shouted from suburban taverns In the twilight.
Thou recallest bards, Who in solitary chambers, And with hearts by passion wasted, Wrote thy pages.
Thou recallest homes Where thy songs of love and friendship Made the gloomy Northern winter Bright as summer.
Once some ancient Scald, In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, Chanted staves of these old ballads To the Vikings.
Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet Yorick and his boon companions Sang these ditties.
Once Prince Frederick's Guard Sang them in their smoky barracks;--Suddenly the English cannon Joined the chorus!
Peasants in the field, Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them.
Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside Art thou welcome.
And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, So thy twittering songs shall nestle In my bosom,--Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices Youth and travel.
WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID
Vogelweid the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister, Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures, Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide Daily on his place of rest;Saying, "From these wandering minstrels I have learned the art of song;Let me now repay the lessons They have taught so well and long."Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire, On his tomb the birds were feasted By the children of the choir.
Day by day, o'er tower and turret, In foul weather and in fair, Day by day, in vaster numbers, Flocked the poets of the air.
On the tree whose heavy branches Overshadowed all the place, On the pavement, on the tombstone, On the poet's sculptured face,On the cross-bars of each window, On the lintel of each door, They renewed the War of Wartburg, Which the bard had fought before.
There they sang their merry carols, Sang their lauds on every side;And the name their voices uttered Was the name of Vogelweid.
Till at length the portly abbot Murmured, "Why this waste of food?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our tasting brotherhood."Then in vain o'er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, When the minster bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests.
Then in vain, with cries discordant, Clamorous round the Gothic spire, Screamed the feathered Minnesingers For the children of the choir.
Time has long effaced the inscriptions On the cloister's funeral stones, And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet's bones.
But around the vast cathedral, By sweet echoes multiplied, Still the birds repeat the legend, And the name of Vogelweid.
DRINKING SONG
INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER
Come, old friend! sit down and listen!
From the pitcher, placed between us, How the waters laugh and glisten In the head of old Silenus!
Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Led by his inebriate Satyrs;On his breast his head is sunken, Vacantly he leers and chatters.
Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal As the forehead of Apollo, And possessing youth eternal.
Round about him, fair Bacchantes, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's Vineyards, sing delirious verses.
Thus he won, through all the nations, Bloodless victories, and the farmer Bore, as trophies and oblations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armor.
Judged by no o'erzealous rigor, Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigor, And Silenus of excesses.
These are ancient ethnic revels, Of a faith long since forsaken;Now the Satyrs, changed to devils, Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.
Now to rivulets from the mountains Point the rods of fortune-tellers;Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,--
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
Claudius, though he sang of flagons And huge tankards filled with Rhenish, From that fiery blood of dragons Never would his own replenish.
Even Redi, though he chaunted Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, Never drank the wine he vaunted In his dithyrambic sallies.
Then with water fill the pitcher Wreathed about with classic fables;Ne'er Falernian threw a richer Light upon Lucullus' tables.
Come, old friend, sit down and listen As it passes thus between us, How its wavelets laugh and glisten In the head of old Silenus!
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS
L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux:
"Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"--JACQUES BRIDAINE.
Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all,--"Forever--never!