Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

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.

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 VOGELWEIDE.

VOGELWEIDE, the Minnesinger,

When he left this world of ours,

Laid his body in the cloister,

Under Würtzburg-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 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? Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our fasting brotherhood."

« AnteriorContinuar »