In his mantle,-wound about him, And so stands he calm and childlike, I would be like him, a child! And my songs,-green leaves and blossoms,-- THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL. FROM THE GERMAN OF JULIUS MOSEN. ON the cross the dying Saviour And by all the world forsaken, A little bird is striving there. Stained with blood and never tiring, From the cross 't would free the Saviour, THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS. And the Saviour speaks in mildness: And that bird is called the crossbill; THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS. FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINRICH HEINE. THE sea hath its pearls, The heaven hath its stars; But my heart, my heart, My heart hath its love. Great are the sea and the heaven; Thou little, youthful maiden, Come unto my great heart; My heart, and the sea, and the heaven 289 POETIC APHORISMS. FROM THE sinngediCHTE OF FRIEDRICH VON LOGAU SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, MONEY. WHEREUNTO is money good? Who has it not wants hardihood, THE BEST MEDICINES. Joy and Temperance and Repose SIN. Man-like is it to fall into sin, POVERTY AND BLINDNESS. A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is ; For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees. POETIC APHORISMS. 291 LAW OF LIFE. Live I, so live I, To my Lord heartily, CREEDS. Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be. THE RESTLESS HEART. A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round; If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground. CHRISTIAN LOVE. Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke; But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke. ART AND TACT. Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; Often in a wooden house a golden room we find. RETRIBUTION. Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small, Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all. TRUTH. When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch's fire, Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus Truth silences the liar. RHYMES. If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers' ears, They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own, They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known. |