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 labour, Such songs have power to quiet Then read from the treasured volume 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, To the dismal knell ; Shadows are trailing, Like a funeral bell. TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. WELCOME, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, 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 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 Scattered from hilarious goblets, As these leaves with the libations Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When in dreamy youth I wandered When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Shouted from suburban taverns 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. Once some ancient Scald, In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, Once Prince Frederick's Guard Joined the chorus ! Peasants in the field, Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, sung them. All have Thou hast been their friend; They, alas! have left thee friendless! And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.117 VOGELWEID the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours Under Würtzburg's minster towers. And he gave the monks his treasures, Saying, "From these wandering minstrels 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 Day by day, o'er tower and turret, |