ADDITIONAL POEMS.

RAIN IN SUMMER.

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs !

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 down 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,
Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

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,

The farmer sees

His pastures and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops
Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.

These, and far more than these,

The poet sees!
He can behold
Aquarius old

Walking the fenceless fields of air;
And from each ample fold

Of the clouds about him rolled
Scattering everywhere

The showery rain,

As the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold

Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told-
Have not been wholly sung nor said.
For his thought, that never stops,
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
Opposite the setting sun.

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 carth,

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.

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,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within,

Like a funeral bell.

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID. "

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,
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feel the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest,

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
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
By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,
On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sculptured face,

On the cross-bars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side;
And the name their voices uttered
Was the name of Vogelweid.

Till at length the portly abbot
Murmured," Why this waste of food?