Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables like the rooks that round them throng:
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hard through every clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;
On the square the oriel window, where in old he roic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;
And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;
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.
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 ale-house, 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 dove-like, with his great beard white and long.
Ana at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.
Dans les moments de la vie où la réflexion devient plus calme et plus profonde, où l'intérêt et l'avarice parlent moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de maladie, et de péril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de possèler des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agréable à Dieu, qui avait créé tous les hommes à son image.
THIERRY, Conquête de l'Angleterre.
IN his chamber, weak and dying, Was the Norman baron lying; Loud, without, the tempest thundered And the castle-tarret shook.
In this fight was Death the gainer, Spite of vassal and retainer, And the lands his sires had plundered, Written in the Doomsday Book.
By his bed a monk was seated, Who in humble voice repeated Many a prayer and pater-noster, From the missal on his knee;
And, amid the tempest pealing, Sounds of bells came faintly stealing, Bells, that from the neighboring kloster Rang for the Nativity.
In the hall, the serf and vassal
Held, that night, their Christmas wassail; Many a carol, old and saintly,
Sang the minstrels and the waits;
And so loud these Saxon gleemen' Sang to slaves the songs of freemen, That the storm was heard but family, Knocking at the castle-gates.
Till at length the lays they chanted Reached the chamber terror-haunted, Where the monk, with accents holy,
Whispered at the baron's ear.
Tears upon his eyelids glistened, As he paused awhile and listened, And the dying baron slowly
Turned his weary head to hear. "Wassail for the kingly stranger Born and cradled in a manger! King, like David, priest, like Aaron, Christ is born to set us free!"
And the lightning showed the sainted Figures on the casement painted, And exclaimed the shuddering baron, "Miserere, Domine!"
In that hour of deep contrition He beheld, with clearer vision, Through all outward show and fashion, Justice, the Avenger, rise.
All the pomp of earth had vanished, Falsehood and deceit were banished, Reason spake more loud than passion, And the truth wore no disguise.
Every vassal of his banner, Every serf born to his manor,
All those wronged and wretched creatures, By his hand were freed again.
And, as on the sacred missal He recorded their dismissal, Death relaxel his iron features,
And the monk replied, "Amen!"
Many centuries have been numbered Since in death the baron slumbered By the convent's sculptured portal,
Mingling with the common dust:
Bu the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages, Brighter grows and gleams immortal, Unconsumed by moth or rust.
How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs !
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks;
He can feel the cool
Breath of each little pool;
Far down in the deep-sunken wells Of darksome mines,
In some obscure and sunless place, Beneath huge Chimborazo's base, Or Potosí's o'erhanging pines! And thus for thee, O little child, Through many a danger and escape, The tall ships passed the stormy cape; For thee in foreign lands remote, Beneath a burning, tropic clime,
The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat, Himself as swift and wild,
In falling, clutched the frail arbute, The fibres of whose shallow root, Uplifted from the soil, betrayed The silver veins beneath it laid,
The buried treasures of the miser, Time.
But, lo! thy door is left ajar! Thou hearest footsteps from afar! And, at the sound,
Thou turnest round
With quick and questioning eyes, Like one, who, in a foreign land, Beholds on every hand
Some source of wonder and surprise! And, restlessly, impatiently,
Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free. The four walls of thy nursery
Are now like prison walls to thee. No more thy mother's smiles,
No more the painted tiles,
Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, That won thy little, beating heart before; Thou strugglest for the open door.
Through these once solitary halls
Thy pattering footstep falls.
The sound of thy merry voice,
Makes the old walls
Jubilant, and they rejoice
With the joy of thy young heart,
O'er the light of whose gladness
No shadows of sadness
From the sombre background of memory start.
Once, ah, once, within these walls, One whom memory oft recalls, The Father of his Country, dwelt. And yonder meadows broad and damp The fires of the besieging camp Encircled with a burning belt. Up and down these echoing stairs, Heavy with the weight of cares, Sounded his majestic tread; Yes, within this very room Sat he in those hours of gloom, Weary both in heart and head."
But what are these grave thoughts to thee? Out, out into the open air!
Thy only dream is liberty,
Thou carest little how or where.
I see thee eager at thy play,
Now shouting to the apples on the tree, With cheeks as round and red as they ; And now among the yellow stalks, Among the flowering shrubs and plants, As restless as the bee.
Along the garden walks,
The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace; And see at every turn how they efface Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, That rise like golden domes
Above the cavernous and secret homes
Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants. Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, Who, with thy dreadful reign, Dost persecute and overwhelm
These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm!
What! tired already! with those suppliant looks, And voice more beautiful than a poet's books, Or murmuring sound of water as it flows, Thou comest back to parley with repose! This rustic seat in the old apple-tree, With its o'erhanging golden canopy Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues, And shining with the argent light of dews, Shall for a season be our place of rest. Beneath us, like an oriole's pende it nest, From which the laughing birds have taken wing, By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing. Dream-like the waters of the river gleam; A sailless vessel drops adown the stream, And like it, to a sea as wide and deep, Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.
O child! O new-born denizen Of life's great city! on thy head The glory of the morn is shed, Like a celestial benison !
Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand
Taou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand,
As at the touch of Fate!
Into those realms of love and hate,
Into that darkness blank and drear, By some prophetic feeling taught.
I launch the bold, adventurous thought, Freighted with hope and fear; As upon subterranean streams, In caverns unexplored and dark, Men sometimes launch a fragile bark, Laden with flickering fire,
And watch its swift-receding beams, Unt 1 at length they disappear, And in the distant dark expire.
By what astrology of fear or hope Dare I to cast thy horoscope! Like the new moon thy life appears; A little strip of silver light, And widening outward into night The shadowy disk of future years;
And yet upon its outer rim,
A luminous circle, faint and dim, And scarcely visible to us here, Rounds and completes the perfect sphere; A prophecy and intimation,
A pale and feeble adumbration,
Of the great world of light, that lies Behind all human destinies.
Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, Should be to wet the dusty soil With the hot tears and sweat of toil,- To struggle with imperious thought, Until the overburdened brain, Weary with labor, faint with pain, Like a jarred pendulum, retain Only its motion, not its power,- Remember, in that perilous hour, When most afflicted and oppressed, From labor there shall come forth rest.
And if a more auspicious fate On thy advancing steps await, Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along Of the great army of the poor, O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor. Nor to thyself the task shall be Without reward; for thou shalt learn The wisdom early to discern True beauty in utility;
As great Pythagoras of yore, Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote Tae anvils with a different note, Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue, The secret of the sounding wire, And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. Thy destiny remains untold; For, like Acestes' shaft of old, The swift thought kindles as it flies, And burns to ashes in the skies.
THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.
I SAW, as in a dream sublime,
The balance in the hand of Time.
O'er East and West its beam impended; And day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight, While, opposite, the scale of night Silently with the stars ascended.
Like the astrologers of eld, In that bright vision I beheld Greater and deeper mysteries. I saw, with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great Eolian lyre, Rising through all its sevenfold bars, From earth unto the fixed stars. And through the dewy atmosphere, Not only could I see, but hear, Its wondrous and harmonious strings, In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings,
Where, chanting through his beard of snows, Majestic, mourufal, Saturn goes, And down the sunless realms of space Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch This music sounded 1.ke a march, And with its chorus seemed to be Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast!
His sword hung gleaming by his side, And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God, Unharmed with naked feet she trod Upon the hot and burning stars, As on the glowing coals and bars, That were to prove Lo strength, and try Her holiness and her purity.
Thus moving on, with silent pace, And triumph in her sweet, pale face, She reached the station of Orion. Aghast he stood in strange alarm !
And suddenly from his outstretched arm Down fell the red skin of the lion Into the river at his feet. His mighty club no longer beat
'he forehead of the bull; but he Reeled as of yore beside the sea, When, blinded by Enopion,
He song at the blacksmith at his forge, And, cambing up the mountain gorge, Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.
Then, through the silence overhead, An angel with a trumpet said, "Forevermore, forevermore, The reign of violence is o'er!" And, like an instrument that flings Its music on another's strings, The trumpet of the angel cast Upon the heavenly lyre its blast,
And on from sphere to sphere the words Re-echoed down the burning chords,— "Forevermore, forevermore, The reign of violence is o'er!"
Among the long, black rafters,
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean Seemed to lift and bear them away;
As, sweeping and eddying through them, Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight, The seaweed floated wide.
And like those waters rushing Among the wooden piers, A flood of thoughts came o'er me That filled my eyes with tears. How often, O how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, O how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide Would bear me away on its bosom O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless, And my life was full of care, And the burden laid upon me Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me, It is buried in the sea; And only the sorrow of others Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden pierɛ, Like the odor of brine from the ocean Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands Of care-encumbered men, Each bearing his burden of sorrow, Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless, And the old subdued and slow !
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows, As long as the heart has passions, As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection And its shadows shall appear, As the symbol of love in heaven, And its wavering image here.
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