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Gloomy and dark, as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!

Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's

Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers

Stalked those birds, unknown, that have left us only their footprints.

What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?

How canst thou walk in these streets who hast trod the green turf of the prairies? How canst thou breathe in this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains? Ah! 'tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge

Looks of dislike in return, and question these walls and these pavements, Claiming the soil for thy hunting-ground, while down-trodden millions

Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,

Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!

Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash!

There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple

Pave the floors of thy palace halls with gold, and in summer

Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.

There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!

There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn,

Or by the roar of the Running-water, or where Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine the Omawhaw

like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what mumurs arise from the hearts of those mountainous deserts?

Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,

Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,

And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of the Behemoth,

Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires

Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the grey of the daybreak

Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!

Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east wind,

Drifts evermore to the West the scanty smokes of the wigwams

SONGS.

SEAWEED.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic

The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,

Laden with seaweed from the rocks;
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing
Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,

Answering the hoarse Hebrides:

And from wrecks of ships, and drifting,
Spars uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas;-
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves and reaches

Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,

Floats some fragment of a song;
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavour

That for ever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate:

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate ;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded

Household words, no more depart.

THE DAY IS DONE.

THE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.
Come read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mights thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.

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,
And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like benediction

That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

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
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

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

Like a funeral bell.

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK.

WELCOME, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows

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
Of Olympus.

Yet dost thou recall,

Days departed, half-forgotten,

When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,―

When I paused to hear

The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban tavern
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,
Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings.

Once in Elsinore,

At the court of old King Hamlet,
Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these dittie

Once Prince Frederick's Guard

Sang them in their smoky barracks;-
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field.

Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them.

Thou hast been their friend;

They, alas! have left thee friendless
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build

In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,—

Quiet, close, and warm,

Sheltered from all molestation,

And recalling by their voices

Youth and travel.

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 feed 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 lands 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?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward
For our fasting brotherhood."

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,

Clamorous round the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions,
On the cloister's funeral stones,
And tradition only tells us

Where repose the poet's bones.
But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes multiplied,
Still the birds repeat the legend,
And the name of Vogelweid.

DRINKING SONG.

INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. COME, old friend! sit down and listen! From the pitcher, placed between us, How the waters laugh and glisten In the head of old Silenus! Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Led by his inebriate Satyrs; On his breast his head is sunken, Vacantly he leers and chatters. Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; Ivy crown that brow supernal As the forehead of Apollo,

And possessing youth eternal. Round about him, fair Bacchantes. Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's Vineyards, sing, delirous voices.

Thus he won, through all the nations,
Bloodless victories, and the farmer
Bore, as trophies aud oblations,

Vines for banners, ploughs for armour.
Judged by no o'er-zealous rigour,
Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigour,
And Silenus of excesses.
These are ancient ethnic revels,

Of a faith long since forsaken;
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.
Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,-
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons

Never would his own replenish.
Even Redi, though he chaunted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies.
Then with water fill the pitcher
Wreathed about with classic fables;
Ne'er Falernian threw a richer
Light upon Lucullus' tables.

Come, old friend, sit down and listen!
As it passes thus between us,
How its wavelets laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!

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
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall

An ancient timepiece says to all,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

Half way up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

With sorrowful voice to all who pass,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,

And seems to say, at each chamber-door,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient timepiece told,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain.
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

Never here, forever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall dissappear,-
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

THE ARROW AND THE SONG.

I SHOT an arrow in the air,

It fell to earth I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song!

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS.

SONNETS.

14

THE EVENING STAR.

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,
Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The evening star, the star of love and rest!
And then anon she doth herself divest
Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
My morning and my evening star of love!
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
As that fair planet in the sky above,
Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,
And from thy darkened window fades the light.

AUTUMN.

THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,18
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves;
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden
leaves!

DANTE.

TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,

With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.

Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
By Fra Hilario in his diocese,

As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks, The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;

And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks, Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!"

TRANSLATIONS.

THE HEMLOCK-TREE.

FROM THE GERMAN..

O HEMLOCK-TREE! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches;

Green not alone in summer time,

But in the winter's frost and rime!

O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!

O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!

To love me in prosperity,

And leave me in adversity!

O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!

The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example,

So long as summer laughs she sings, But in the autumn spreads her wings. The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example!

The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!

It flows so long as falls the rain, In drought its springs soon dry again. The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!

ANNIE OF THARAW

FROM THE LOW GERMAN OF SIMON DACHI. ANNIE of Tharaw, my true love of old, She is my life, and my goods, and my gold. Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again To me has surrendered in joy and in pain Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good, Thou, O my soul, my flesh, and my blood! Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come

snow,

We will stand by each other, however it blow
Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain,
Seall be to our true love as links to the chain.
As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall'
The more the hail beats, and the more the rains
fall,-

So love in our hearts shall grow mighty and strong,

Through crosses, through sorrows, through manifold wrong.

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