Shadows are trailing, Like a funeral bell. 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, 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 ale-house. Soiled and dull thou art; Yellow are thy time-worn pages, As the russet, rain-molested 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 In the twilight. 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, 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, And recalling by their voices WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE. VOGELWEID the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister, 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." L Thus the bard of love departed; On his tomb the birds were feasted Day by day, o'er tower and turret, On the tree whose heavy branches On the cross-bars of each window, There they sang their merry carols, Till at length the portly abbot Then in vain o'er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, When the minster bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests. Then in vain, with cries discordant, Time has long effaced the inscriptions And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet's bones. But around the vast cathedral, DRINKING SONG. INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, And possessing youth eternal. Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Thus he won, through all the nations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armour, Judged by no o'er-zealous rigour, Much this mystic throng expresses: These are ancient ethnic revels, Even Redi, though he chaunted Then with water fill the pitcher Come, old friend, sit down and listen! THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"-JACQUES BRIDAINE. SOMEWHAT back from the village street Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; "Forever-never! Never-forever!" Halfway up the stairs it stands, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, Crosses himself, and sighs, alas! Never-forever!" By day its voice is low and light; And seems to say at each chamber-door,- 66 Never-forever!" Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, Never-forever!" |