How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies? How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains? Ah! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge

Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements, Claiming the sol for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions

Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too, Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!

Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts ?

Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,

Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,

And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?

Far

more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,

Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's

Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires

Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak

Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!

Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,

Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor; And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice!
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice;

And the night shall be filled with music! And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.

THE day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

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 ale-house.

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.

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 fasting 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.

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,
Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The evening star, the star of love and rest!
And then anon she doth herself divest

Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.

O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus !

My morning and my evening star of love!
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,

As that fair planet in the sky above,

Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,
And from thy darkened window fades the light.

AUTUMN.

THOU Comest, Antumn, heralded by the rain, With banners, by great gales incessant fanned, Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!

Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast do-
main!

Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging

eaves;

Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attend ed;

Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden
leaves!

DANTE.

TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,

With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise, Like Farinata from his fiery tomb. Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;