TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK WELCOME, my old friend, While the sullen gales of autumn The ungrateful world Has, it seems, dealt harshly with 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 As these leaves with the libations Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Thou recallest bards, Who, in solitary chambers, 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, Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, Yorick and his boon companions Once Prince Frederick's Guard 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! |