Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart, Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair, That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air! Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes, Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains. From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild, Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build. As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime; Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom. 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, 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. The Twelve Wise Masters was the title of the original Corporation of the Mastersingers. Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nuremberg, though not one of the original Twelve, was the most renowned of the Mastersingers, as well as the most voluminous. He flourished in the sixteenth century; and left behind him thirty-four folio volumes of manuscript, containing two hundred and eight plays, one thousand and seven hundred comic tales, and between four and five thousand lyric poems. + Adam Puschman, in his poem on the death of Hans Sachs, describes him as he appeared in a vision : "An old man, Gray and white, and dove-like, Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard; But thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler-bard. Thus, O Nuremberg, 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 pedigree 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 domestique, de maladie, et de péril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de posséder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agréable à Dieu, qui avait créé tous les hommes à son image."-THIERRY, Conquête de l'Angleterre. IN his chamber, weak and dying, In this fight was Death the gainer, And the lands his sires had plundered, By his bed a monk was seated, From the missal on his knee; And, amid the tempest pealing, In the hall, the serf and vassal Held, that night, their Christmas wassail Many a carol, old and saintly, Sang the minstrels and the waits. And so loud these Saxon gleemen Till at length the lays they chaunted Whispered at the baron's ear. Tears upon his eyelids glistened, Turned his weary head to hear. And the lightning showed the sainted In that hour of deep contrition, All the pomp of earth had vanished, Every vassal of his banner, All those wronged and wretched creatures, And, as on the sacred missal And the monk replied, "Amen!" Mingling with the common dust: RAIN IN SUMMER. How beautiful is the rain! How it clatters along the roofs, How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout! Across the window-pane It pours and pours; And swift and wide, With a muddy tide, Like a river down the gutter roars The rain, the welcome rain! The sick man from his chamber Looks at the twisted brooks; He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool; His fevered brain Grows calm again, And he breathes a blessing on the rain. From the neighbouring school Come the boys, With more than their wonted noise And commotion; And dow the wet streets Sail their mimic fleets, Till the treacherous pool Engulfs them in its whirling And turbulent ocean. In the country, on every side, Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide, Stretches the plain, To the dry grass and the drier grain In the furrowed land The toilsome and patient oxen stand; Lifting the yoke-encumbered head, With their dilated nostrils spread, They silently inhale The clover-scented gale, And the vapours that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil. For this rest in the furrow after toil Their large and lustrous eyes Seem to thank the Lord, More than man's spoken word. Near at hand, From under the sheltering trees, He can behold Things manifold That have not yet been wholly told, Follows the water-drops Down to the graves of the dead, Down through chasms and gulfs profound, To the dreary fountain-head Of lakes and rivers under ground; And sees them, when the rain is done, On the bridge of colours seven Climbing up once more to heaven, Thus the Seer, With vision clear, Sees forms appear and disappear, In the perpetual round of strange Mysterious change, From birth to death, from death to birth, From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth; Till glimpses more sublime Of things, unseen before, Unto his wondering eyes reveal The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel Turning for evermore In the rapid and rushing river of Time. |