In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,

Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.

Here, when art was still religion, with a simple reverent heart,

Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,

Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies,

Dead he is not-but departed-for the artist never dies:

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair

That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air.

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,

Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains;

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,

Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle wove he too the mystic rhyme,

And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime,

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom

In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet laureate of the gentle craft,

Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.

But his house is now an alehouse, with a nicely sanded floor,

And a garland in the window, and his face above the door,

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,

As the old man gray and dovelike, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,

Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy

eye

Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard,

But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,

As he paced thy streets and courtyards, sang in thought his careless lay;

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,

The nobility of labor,-the long pedigree of toil. -Henry W. Longfellow.

FT have I seen, at some cathedral door,

OF

A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;

Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street

Become an undistinguishable roar. So, as I enter here from day to day,

And leave my burden at this minster gate, Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time disconsolate

To inarticulate murmurs dies away,

While the eternal ages watch and wait.

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, And vast the minster seems a cross of flowers!

But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,

What exultations trampling on despair,
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,

Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This medieval miracle of song!

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom

Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!

And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine. The air is filled with some unknown perfume; The congregation of the dead make room

For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine; Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's grove of pine The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. From the confessionals I hear arise

Rehearsals of forgotton tragedies,

And lamentations from the crypts below; And then a voice celestial, that begins

With the pathetic words, "Although your sins As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."

I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of saints and holy men who died,
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;

And Beatrice again at Dante's side

No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise. And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love, And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;

And the melodious bells among the spires

O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above Proclaim the elevation of the Host!

O star of morning and of liberty!

O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,

The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

C

LEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,

With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer sp ing.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, [moved.
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so

It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

He is an evening reveler, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill; At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into a voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy; for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instill, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. -Lord Byron.

Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple on the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue),
O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see
The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers colored fans, whose winds did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

H

WEAVEN'S verge extreme

Reverberates the bomb's descending star

And sounds that mingled laugh, and shout, and scream,
To freeze the blood, in one discordant jar,

Rung to the pealing thunderbolts of war.
Whoop after whoop with rack the ear assailed,
As if unearthly friends had burst their bar;
While rapidly the marksman's shot prevailed,
And aye, as if for death, some lonely trumpet wailed.

They looked up to the hills, where fire o'er hung
The bandit groups in one Vesuvian glare;

Or swept, far seen, the tower, whose clock unrung,

Told elgible that midnight of despair.

She faints-she falters-the heroic fair,

As he the sword and plume in haste arrayed,

One short embrace-he clasped his dearest care;
But hark! what nearer war-drum shakes the glade!
Joy, joy! Columbia's friends are trampling through the

shade!

They came of every race, the mingled swarm,
Far rung the groves and gleamed the midnight grass
With flambeau, javelin, and naked arm;

As warriors wheeled their culverins of brass,
Sprung from the woods, a bold athletic mass,
Whom virtue fires, and liberty combines;
And first the wild Moravian yagers pass,

His plumed host the dark Iberian joins;

And Scotia's sword beneath the Highland thistle shines.

And in the buskined hunters of the deer

To Albert's home with shout and cymbal throng,

Roused by their warlike pomp, and mirth, and cheer,
Old Outalissi woke his battle-song,

And, beating with his war-club cadence strong,
Tells how his deep-stung indignation smarts;
Of them that wrapt his house in flames, erelong
To whet a dagger on their stony hearts,

And smile avenged ere yet his eagle spirit parts.

Calm, opposite the Christain father rose;
Pale on his venerable brow its rays
Of martyr-light the conflagration throws;
One hand upon his lovely child he lays,

And one the uncovered crowd to silence sways;
While, though the battle-flash is faster driven
Unawed, with eye unstartled by the blaze,

He for his bleeding country prays to Heaven,

Prays that the men of blood themselves may be forgiven.

Short time is now for gratulating speech:
And yet, beloved Gertrude, ere began

Thy country's flight yon distant towers to reach,
Looked not on thee the rudest partisan

With brow reiaxed to love? And murmurs ran,
As round and round their willing ranks they drew,
From beauty's sight to shield the hostile van.
Grateful on them a placid look she threw,
Nor wept, but as she bade her mother's grave adieu!

Past was the flight and welcome seemed the tower,
That like a giant standard bearer frowned
Defiance on the roving Indian power.
Beneath each bold and promontory mound
With embrazure embossee and armor crowned,
And arrowy frize, and wedged ravelin,
Wove like a diadem its tracery round
The lofty summit of that mountain green;

Here stood secure the group, and eyed a distant scene.

A scene of death! where fires beneath the sun,
And blended arms, and white pavilions glow;
And for the business of destruction done,
Its requiem the war-horn seemed to blow:
There, sad spectatress of her country's woe,
The lovely Gertrude, safe from present harm,
Had laid her cheek, and clasped her hands of snow
On Waldegrave's shoulder, half within his arm
Enclosed, that felt her heart, and hushed its wild
alarm!

But short that contemplation-sad and short The pause to bid each much-loved scene adieu! Beneath the very shadow of the fort,

I

CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide:

All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling, And startling around me the echoes replied

On the right, Striden Edge round the Red Tarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had
died.

Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain heather,

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay; Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, The much-loved remains of her master defended, And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?

How many long days and long nights didst thou num

ber

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart? And, O, was it meet that-no requiem read o'er him, No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before himUnhonored the Pilgrim from life should depart?

With 'scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall: Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;

In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming; Far down the long isle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, When, bewildered, he drops from some cliff huge in

stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, The obsequies sang by the gray plover flying, With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam. -Sir Walter Scott.

'HE castled crag of Drachenfels

THE castle cago wide and winding Rhine,

Whose breast of waters broadly swells

Between the banks which bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossomed trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scattered cities crowning these,

Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strewed a scene, which I should see
With double joy, wert thou with me.

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;

Above, the frequent feudal towers Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, And many a rock which steeply lowers, And noble arch in proud decay,

Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers; But one thing want these banks of Rhine,Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

I send the lilies given to me,

Though long before thy hand they touch

I know that they must withered be,—
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherished them as dear,
Because they yet may meet thine eye,