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.

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 splendour, 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 Hang Sachs, thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremburg, a wanderer from a region

far away,

As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay :

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

The nobility of labour, the long pedegree of toil.

THE NORMAN BARON.

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 domes ique, de maladie, et de péril de mort, les nobles se repenirent de posséder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agréable Dieu, qui avait créé tous les hommes à son image.

THIERRY: CONQUE TE DE L'ANGLETERRE.

In his chamber, weak and dying,
Was the Norman baron lying;
Loud, without, the tempest thundered,
And the castle-turret 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 neighbouring kloster
Rang for the Nativity.

In the hall, the serf and vassal

Held, that night, their Christmas wassail; Many a carol, oid 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 faintly,
Knocking at the castle-gates.

POEMS.

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 ! "