VBffi 
 
 flHT
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 Zhe Canterbury poets. 
 
 Edited by William Sharp. 
 
 GERMAN BALLADS,
 
 SERMAN BALLADS. TRANS- 
 LATED AND EDITED BY 
 ELIZABETH CRAIGMYLE. 
 
 Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee: thou art translated/' 
 
 LONDON : 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE. 
 
 NEW YORK : 3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET.
 
 E&CS 
 
 TO E. A. D. 
 
 " Du bis/ min, ich bin din, 
 Des sollst du gewiss sin. 
 Du bist beschlozzen in min Herzen, 
 Verlorn is das sluzzelin, — 
 Du tntisst immer darinne sin.'' 
 
 — Wertheu von Tegernsee, 
 
 12th Century. 
 
 nm*
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Goethe— 
 
 The God and the Bayadere" 
 
 The Erl-King . 
 
 The Bride of Corinth 
 
 TAGE 
 
 3 
 
 Schiller— 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Ring of Polykrates . . . .21 
 
 The Parting of the Earth . 
 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 The Walk to the Forges 
 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 The Maiden from a Far Country 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 Kassandra 
 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 The Glove 
 
 
 
 
 47 
 
 The Feast of Victory 
 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 The Cranes of Ibykus 
 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 Hector's Farewell 
 
 
 
 
 64 
 
 The Diver 
 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 The Fight with the Dragon 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 The Count of Hapsburg .... 
 
 86 
 
 * Burger— 
 
 Lenore ....... 93 
 
 The Wild Huntsman . . .104 
 
 Earl Walter . 
 
 
 
 
 114
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Uhland— 
 
 The Minstrel's Curse 
 
 Retribution . 
 
 The Ferry 
 
 The Smithying of Sigfrid'a Sword 
 
 The Blind King 
 
 The Three Songs 
 
 Count Eberhard's Hawthorn 
 
 Richard the Fearless 
 
 Charlemagne's Voyage 
 
 Roland, the Shield-Bearer . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 125 
 
 . 130 
 
 . 131 
 
 . 133 
 
 . 135 
 
 . 139 
 
 . 141 
 
 . 143 
 
 . 147 
 
 . 150 
 
 Heine— 
 
 In a Dream . 
 
 Love's Burial . 
 
 The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar 
 
 The Bridal . 
 
 The Story of a Night 
 
 The Asra 
 
 Don Ramiro . 
 
 161 
 164 
 166 
 171 
 174 
 178 
 179 
 
 RUCKERT— 
 
 Barbarossa .... 
 How Christ came to a Lonely Child 
 Told by a Brahmin . 
 
 187 
 189 
 193 
 
 Platen— 
 
 The Death of Carus 
 The Pilgrim of St. Just 
 The Grave in the Busentinus 
 Harmosan 
 
 197 
 201 
 
 202 
 204 
 
 Freiligrath— 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! . 
 
 Were I before the Gates of Mecca 
 
 209 
 213
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Herder— 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SirOlaf .... -217 
 
 The Child of Sorrow 22 ° 
 
 M ISCELLANEOUS— 
 
 Sword-Song ....... 225 
 
 A Night of Spring . 
 
 
 
 . 228 
 
 The Submerged Town 
 
 
 
 . 230 
 
 Fair Bohtraut 
 
 
 
 . 232 
 
 The Horse of Vevros 
 
 
 
 . 234 
 
 The Drink from a Jack-Boot 
 
 
 
 . 237 
 
 The Robber-Brothers 
 
 
 
 . 239 
 
 Attila's Sword 
 
 
 
 . 241 
 
 The Horses of Gravelotte . 
 
 
 
 . 243 
 
 The Confession of Charlemagne 
 
 
 
 . 246 
 
 Petrus .... 
 
 
 
 . 252 
 
 The Spectre Eeriew . : 
 
 
 
 . 257 
 
 Est, Est 
 
 
 
 . 260 
 
 Schwerting the Saxon 
 
 
 
 . 264 
 
 The Brace's Locket . 
 
 
 
 . 267 
 
 The Widow's Son 
 
 
 
 . 273 
 
 A Folk-Song . 
 
 
 
 . 277 
 
 Notes 
 
 279
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Few remarks are more often quoted than Fletcher 
 of Saltoun's, "Let me make the ballads of a 
 country, and I care not who makes its laws." But 
 the laws of Fletcher's own country at one time 
 took an unfair advantage over the ballads. For in 
 Calvinistic Scotland of the sixteenth century, these 
 metrical romances were considered as altogether 
 profane and ungodly, and no marriage could be 
 celebrated unless the contracting parties deposited 
 ;£io as caution-money that they would have no 
 minstrels at the wedding. Under the Regent 
 Morton, printing a ballad was punishable with 
 death, and in 1579 two luckless poets were actually 
 hanged for the high crime and misdemeanour of 
 making ballads. What Morton and Knox would 
 have done with the still more criminal translator of 
 ballads it is impossible to say. 
 
 But when paternal legislation is required to
 
 xii IN TROD UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 repress a common crime, that crime is generally 
 the outcome of some widely-spread and universal 
 instinct. All nations as they rise above the savage 
 condition show the instinct for story-telling and 
 story-hearing, and the epic-and-ballad stage has 
 been passed through by all who have set their 
 mark on the history of civilisation. The great 
 epics come early in the heroic age, the mists of 
 time rest over the origin of the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey, and even in the time of Pisistratus a 
 class of men called the Rhapsodists had arisen, 
 whose profession it was to recite the Homeric 
 poems. France has her noble Chanson de 
 Roland, Spain her Chronicle of the Cid. The 
 Northern branches of the Teutonic race have the 
 wild legends of the two Eddas, Heimskringla, the 
 Kalevala, the Volsunga Saga, and the Laxdsela 
 Saga. The two latter have, in our own era, served 
 as the foundation of Morris' mediaeval legends, 
 "Sigurd the Volsung," and "The Lovers of 
 Gudrun." England and Germany hold in com- 
 mon the treasure of Beowulf, while the Nibelungen 
 Lied and Gudrun have a common origin and story 
 with the Norse Sagas. The Ballad in all countries 
 existed contemporaneously with the Epic. The 
 Odyssey itself has been held to be but a collection 
 of ballads, and Catc and Cicero speak regretfully 
 of the old ballads of the Latin language which
 
 IN TROD UCTOR Y NO TE. xiii 
 
 had perished before their day. While Omar 
 Khayyam sat beneath the rose-trees at Naishaipur 
 stringing his Rubaiayat like pearls, a more virile 
 and less pessimistic race of poets in Iran and 
 Khorassan were singing of Zal and Rodahver, 
 Rustem, and Khai-Khosroo. In Turkestan, 
 Roushan Beg the free-booter was celebrated, and 
 the "Leap of Kurroglou" was sung at every 
 watch-fire. Spain had her heroes in the Cid and 
 Bernardo del Carpio, and readers of Cervantes 
 will remember the peasant whom Don Quixote 
 saw going forth to his work, " singing the ballad 
 of Roncesvalles." Charlemagne and his Twelve 
 Peers were the common inheritance of all the 
 nations of Frankish and Visigothic blood. The 
 ballads of France perhaps show to disadvantage 
 beside those of her sister-nation : the Chanso?is de 
 Gestes probably supplied their place to a great 
 extent Yet La Belle Isambourg, and that 
 dramatic figure of the sea-captain, who when 
 denied his lady-love defiantly answers, "Je l'aurai 
 par mer, Je l'aurai par terre, Ou par trahison," at 
 once occur to the lover of ballads. Of the Northern 
 ballad-literature which produced such supreme 
 ballads as " Clerk Saunders," " Glasgerion," and 
 " Childe Waters," it is unnecessary to speak here. 
 Ballads are the natural development of tradition, 
 myth, folklore, and superstition. The floating
 
 xiv IN TROD UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 traditions of the great deeds of great men are 
 gathered up into the historical ballad, in which 
 Germany is peculiarly rich. Without going back, 
 with Dahn and Lingg, to Arminius and Attila, 
 she has many heroes. Kaiser Karl, Richard the 
 Fearless, Roland and his brother-in-arms, Oliver, 
 are claimed both by East and by West Franks, 
 and sung of both in France and in Germany. But 
 the romantic figure of Frederick Barbarossa, 
 enchanted in his subterranean castle, and that of 
 the chivalric Emperor Maximilian — " the last of the 
 knights " — are purely German. 
 
 Turning from the historic to the romantic 
 ballad, we are at once struck by the rarity of the 
 feminine element. The institutions of chivalry 
 had no such deep hold on the Teutonic as on 
 the Latin races. When woman ceased to be 
 reverenced as an Alruna-wife, and a mother of 
 heroes, she was not elevated into a goddess of 
 tilt-yard and tourney. Probably this may account 
 for the unusual paucity of the sentimental ballad. 
 Burger, indeed, wrote a tragical love-story, 
 " Lenardo and Blandine," as powerful as it is 
 unpleasant, a variant on the historic fate of the 
 unfortunate trouvlre, Guillaume de Cabestan, with 
 a king's daughter substituted for the wife of the 
 Seigneur de Roussillon. But, with the exception 
 of Heine, none of the romantic poets seem to care
 
 INTRO D UCTOR Y NO TE. xv 
 
 to make love, whether fortunate or ill-starred, their 
 theme. 
 
 Coming into the supernatural domain, we miss 
 the familiar form of the enchanted princess who 
 has been bewitched into shape of a beast by the 
 power of gramarye, and also notice that the highly 
 poetic superstition of the were-wolf has given rise 
 to scarce a single poem. The German ballad, being 
 a late product, had no organic connection with the 
 ages when such superstitions really entered into 
 the life of the people. Fairies, also, are conspicuous 
 by their absence ; but in compensation this branch 
 of German literature is extremely rich in all manner 
 of ghostly apparitions, and the spectre bridegroom, 
 who appears in one or two English ballads, is a 
 common figure. The place of the "good folk" is 
 supplied by the Elves, Neckan, and Erl-king : the 
 ghostly shadow whose touch, in Goethe's well- 
 known ballad, kills the child in its father's arms. 
 Herder's "Sir Olaf" deals with the Ed-king's 
 fascinating daughters, who dance by moonlight on 
 the wild heath. Neckan, the water sprite, is a 
 harmless water-kelpie, whose evil propensities are 
 confined to a deal of mischief. 
 
 Perhaps a short glance at the history of German 
 literature may help to explain why the ballad in 
 Germany sprung not from the people but from the 
 educated classes.
 
 xvi INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Passing over the Beowulf Saga and the frag- 
 mentary Hildebrandslied, — a Germanic " Sohrab 
 and Rustem," — we come to the thirteenth century, 
 the time of the Volksepos. The Nibelungen-Lied 
 (1210) and Gudrun (1225) have been called the 
 Iliad and Odyssey of German literature. The 
 " Lay of the Niblungs" is full of the material which 
 makes the ballads of other lands, — the wrestle 
 between Gunther and Brunhild, where the warrior- 
 maiden ties her bridegroom with her girdle to the 
 wall of the bride chamber, — the slaying of Sigfried 
 as he stoops over the forest well, — Chriemhild 
 finding the dead body of Sigfried lying across her 
 threshold in the grey of the morning, — the murderer 
 sitting before the hall of Chriemhild with the sword 
 of the murdered man gleaming bright across his 
 knees, — the Burgundians fighting to the last while 
 the blazing rafters of the hall crash down around 
 them, — the awful smile on the white lips of Chriem- 
 hild as Gunther and Hagen stand fettered before 
 her, — these are the stuff of which another nation 
 makes the ballads that wander through the land 
 upon the lips of minstrels. But if ballads there 
 indeed were, they have perished. 
 
 Then came the epoch of the knightly Minne- 
 singers, Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg. The 
 two latter are the authors of the romances of
 
 INTROD UCTOR Y NO TE. xvii 
 
 " Parcival " and "Tristan und Isolde," which in 
 our own century gave Wagner the t/iotif for two of 
 his operas. Tannhauser, too, lived in this epoch, 
 — he who, in the most pathetic of legends, still 
 '' drees his weird " in the enchanted caverns of 
 Venusberg. In the fifteenth century appeared 
 the genuine ballad, such as the " Ballad of 
 Tannhauser," and the " Noble Moringer," which 
 is the original of Scott's novel, The Betrothed. 
 But the Volkslieder, or folk-songs, held the place in 
 Germany taken by the ballads in other countries. 
 Possibly the more musical and tender type of the 
 national genius accounts for this. 
 
 Then in the sixteenth century came Dr. Martin 
 Luther and the Reformation, and the national 
 literature became wholly given over to theology 
 and satire writing, though the common people still 
 lent a greedy ear to the legends of the Wandering 
 Jew and Faustus. In the middle of the eighteenth 
 century Bodmer and Breitinger tried vainly to 
 revive popular interest in the works of the Hohen- 
 staufen period, — the chivalric epoch of Germany, — 
 but the age of chivalry was gone. It was from our 
 own country that the Romantic impulse was to come. 
 
 The eighteenth century was pre-eminently the 
 epoch of dreary primness in European poetry. 
 Correctness was the deity worshipped by all ; 
 solemn Alexandrines were the rule in France, and 
 
 2
 
 xviii INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 the glittering iambics of Pope were the standard 
 of England, while Germany was wholly devoted 
 to Gottsched, Bodmer, and the dreary scriptural 
 epics of Klopstock. In 1765 Bishop Percy, of 
 Dromore, published his famous Reliques of 
 English Poetry, which was welcomed with ac- 
 clamation, not only in England but all over the 
 Continent. Macpherson's " Ossian" too appeared, 
 and Fingal and Selma were taken to the bosom 
 of Germany. Everywhere attention was turned to 
 the ballads which had almost fallen into oblivion. 
 Spain had, to her honour, long since recognised 
 her national heritage, and collected the Moorish 
 ballads in the Cancionero of 15 10, while the 
 ballads of the Cid had been published by Escobar 
 in 161 5. Later on the ill-fated Gerard de Nerval, 
 just in time, collected the folk-ballads of France. 
 And in 1778 Herder published the "Stimmen der 
 Volker in Liedern," and in " Deutsche Art und 
 Kunst," strove to guide the thought of Germany to 
 the ancient models. Our own grand old ballad of 
 "Sir Patrick Spens" was among the Scottish ballads 
 which appeared in the first-named work. 
 
 Then Germany woke up in dismay, to find that 
 she alone of the nations had no old ballads to 
 edit : for the Volkslied had taken the place of the 
 chanted romance of other countries. However, 
 with characteristic patience she began to devote
 
 INTRO D UCTOR Y NO TE. xix 
 
 herself to ballad-making. But the result was the 
 Kunst-ballad, not the Volk-baNad—ihe. outcome of 
 a mere artistic impulse, not of the heart of the 
 people rapt into song. 
 
 Burger (1747-1794) was one of the most enthu- 
 siastic admirers of Percy and Ossian, and has 
 produced some splendid ballads, instinct with life, 
 fire, and power. But, if imitation be the sincerest 
 flattery, then the good Bishop of Dromore had a 
 genuine flatterer in this poet. " He has been steal- 
 ing like a carrion-crow !" was the unkind criticism 
 passed by Wieland on the scriptural epics of his 
 old master, Bodmer: and the same remark might 
 be applied to Burger. His ballad of "Der Kaiser 
 und der Abt," has its prototype in the old English 
 ballad, "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury;" 
 "Die Entfuhrung" is formed on the model of 
 "The Childe of Elle ;" while " Graf Walter" is the 
 beautiful old ballad "Childe Waters," in a German 
 setting. I am told that even the celebrated 
 "Lenore" is an English ballad, "William and 
 Helen," set against the background of the Seven 
 Years' War. "Lenore" and "The Wild Hunts- 
 man," along with Percy's Reliques, it will be 
 remembered, gave Sir Walter Scott his earliest 
 impetus to that field of literature where his first 
 laurels were won. Perhaps we owe to Burger and 
 Percy, not only the "Border Minstrelsy," but,
 
 xx IN TROD UC TOR Y NO TE. 
 
 indirectly, the " Eve of St. John" and the " Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel." 
 
 Uhland's poetic activity was spread over a long 
 life (1787-1862). He is a writer of many ballads, 
 and has been extolled by German writers as nearer 
 the type of the old minstrel than any other of their 
 poets, while " Kdnig Karl's Meerfahrt" is some- 
 times chosen as the typical German ballad. But 
 it requires exceptional talent to lift the four-line 
 stanza, which he so often uses, above the level 
 of prose-narration ; while hybrids between the 
 Art-ballad and Folk-ballad, such as "Roland 
 Schildtrager," will always be wearisome to an 
 English ear. His " Luck of Edenhall," and 
 " Castle by the Sea," are familiar to all through 
 the medium of Longfellow's scholarly translations. 
 The few ballads translated by Bayard Taylor have 
 also been adequately rendered. 
 
 But the German ballad had yet to receive its 
 highest development, and to rise above Uhland's 
 verse-tales, and Burger's modifications of Percy. 
 Goethe and Schiller had passed through their 
 Sturm und Drang period : the last " Robber" had 
 disappeared from the highways of Germany, and 
 Werther, after having written " Letters" both from 
 heaven and from hell, was at last allowed to rest 
 peacefully in his grave. It was impossible that 
 the two great poets should not be swayed by the
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. xxi 
 
 romantic impulse; and 1797 is noted in German 
 literary history as the "Year of Ballads," when the 
 two working on the same lines produced such 
 brilliant results. 
 
 Goethe, with his customary insight, said a 
 notable thing when he laid down as the first canon 
 of the ballad that it should be " mysterious." For 
 the touch of mystery makes the supreme ballad. 
 Centuries before Goethe had enunciated it, the 
 impulse to the weird and mystic had swayed the 
 forgotten Scottish song-smiths from whose hands 
 came the Border Ballads. It is this eeriness that 
 we feel in the " Wife of Usher's Well"— 
 
 " It fell about the Martinmas, 
 When nichts are lang and mirk, 
 The wife's three sons cam' hame again, 
 And their hats were o' the birk. 
 
 It neither grew in syke or ditch, 
 On earthly brae or sheugh, 
 But by the gates of Paradise 
 That birk grew fair eneuch." 
 
 The finest touch perhaps in all our own ballad- 
 literature is — 
 
 " It was mirk, mirk nicht, and nae stern-licht, 
 
 And they waded through red blude up to the knee, 
 For a' the blude that's shed on earth 
 Rins through the swings 0' that counlrie." 
 
 The " Bride of Corinth" and " Lenore" mark the
 
 xxii IN TROD UCTOR V NO TE. 
 
 highest level which the " mystic " ballad has 
 reached in modern times. 
 
 The " God and the Bayadere* " is of an entirely 
 different type. Rich and sonorous as is the metre 
 of the "Bride of Corinth," the rhythm of this poem 
 has a still more bewildering beauty. And yet so 
 absorbed are we in the action and thought of the 
 poem, that it is only after many readings that the 
 artistic charm of the setting strikes us. Every word 
 is pictorial, every line instinct with music. While 
 we read it we are but the instruments on which a 
 great master is playing. And at the end we are 
 lifted into a region to which no other German poet 
 has ever risen. As the God lifts his mortal beloved 
 from the corpse-fire, so "the sweep of the great 
 wings" raises us for a time over small con- 
 ceptions and limited prejudices into a realm of 
 divine tolerance and charity. Goethe's life-work 
 has built him a throne far in the empyrean, 
 " where Orpheus and where Homer are," but this 
 supreme flower of ballad-poetry alone would be 
 sufficient to give him place among the Immortals. 
 
 In the domain of the Kunst-ballad, the outcome 
 of a purely artistic conception, Schiller can fully 
 challenge comparison with his great contemporary. 
 The martial fire of Korner, the passion of Heine, 
 the wide-reaching insight of Goethe, were utterly 
 beyond Schiller. Perhaps also his classical
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. xxiii 
 
 ballads are, at times, too rich with ornament ; his 
 allusions too recondite for the average man whose 
 Lempriere is on the top shelf, and whose ideas of 
 the " Thymbrian " and " Polyxena" are but misty. 
 Gargantua's ideal for the education of Pantagruel 
 was to make that hopeful prince "a bottomless pit 
 of all knowledge ;" and Schiller is too apt to take 
 for granted that his readers' education has been 
 conducted on the same admirable principles. 
 But as stories the ballads are admirable : such 
 legends as the " Ring of Polykrates " and " Damon 
 and Pythias," the world will never be weary of 
 telling and hearing. His metres, rich, varied, 
 sonorous, changing with the feeling of the ballad, 
 are a miracle of artistic perfection. Unfortunately, 
 his most superb metric success, the "Song of the 
 Bell," as not a ballad, cannot have place in this 
 collection. In it the wedding of sense with sound 
 is carried to its highest possible pitch. 
 
 When we read Goethe, under the sway of that 
 universal intellect, we are dominated by the 
 elemental passions such as love, terror, or despair. 
 His ethic breadth is Shakespearian in its wideness. 
 For Goethe, like the Sophokles of Matthew 
 Arnold's sonnet, " saw life steadily, and saw it 
 whole." Schiller's poetic vision was far more 
 bornt, and perhaps there was some truth in his 
 modest self-appraisement, "Gegen Goethe bin ich,
 
 xxi v IN TROD UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 und bleib' ich, ein poetischer Lump." When we 
 read his poems we enter at once into a narrower 
 sphere, where we are sometimes inclined to resent 
 the obvious didactic purpose. Schiller had a 
 most orthodox belief in the edifying triumph of 
 the good, and the equally edifying downfall of 
 the wicked. Some one ethic end is steadily kept 
 in view in each ballad. "Damon and Pythias" 
 is the glorification of friendship, — though one does 
 wonder idly what response was made by the 
 immortal pair of friends to the tyrant's final request 
 to be admitted " in eurem Bund der dritte." The 
 Crusader, in " The Fight with the Dragon," learns 
 the hard lesson that to obey is better than sacrifice 
 — even sacrifice of dragons. In the " Glove," Lady 
 Kunigonde is taught that manly self-respect is to 
 be as jealously guarded as knightly honour, that no 
 man can be made the puppet and plaything of a 
 woman without degradation. The good Fridolin is 
 perhaps a little wearisome, and his triumphant vin- 
 dication leaves us cold ; while the effect of " Ritter 
 Toggenburg" is rather mawkish than touching. 
 
 The "Diver" seems at first sight to be at 
 variance with Schiller's usual methods, yet it is 
 only in seeming. " Twice have the knights been 
 shamed by a squire," — the brave youth has dared 
 the unknown horrors of Charybdis, has brought 
 back the treasure, by his heroism has won
 
 IN TROD UCTOR V NO TE. xxv 
 
 the heart of the king's daughter, and knows that 
 he loves and is beloved. It is over no foiled life 
 that the whirlpool closes. 
 
 In the "Cranes of Ibykus," the singer does 
 indeed fall beneath the dagger of the assassins, 
 but the foul deed cannot be hidden from the eyes 
 of the Immortal Gods, and is brought to light by 
 the guilty conscience of the murderers. The scene 
 in the theatre when the chorus enters carries the 
 mind involuntarily back to Greek tragedy. The 
 conclusion is very noble, the tone Hellenic, and 
 the whole poem a marvel of clearness, energy, and 
 compression. It was a favourite with Schiller, 
 and Goethe, who read it in the manuscript, gave 
 the author many suggestions. 
 
 Goethe and Schiller were the Dioscuri of the 
 Romantic renaissance. After Schiller's death, in 
 1805, Goethe permanently forsook the ballad for 
 the drama, and devoted himself to the completion 
 of " Faust." Then the ballad fell into the hands 
 of the mob of gentlemen who write with ease, and 
 there was a slight relaxing of interest in this form 
 of poetry in favour of the universal and widely- 
 spread study of the Carlovingian and Hohenstaufen 
 Cycle of Romances. But it was only the recoil 
 of the wave which was again to sweep shoreward 
 in the magnificent movement of Neo-Romanticism. 
 
 The voice of the new era was Heine. With all
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 his cynicism, he was at heart what Nodier called 
 him — tin romantiqiie defroqud — belonging to the 
 new school in reality, though not marching under 
 its banner. The passionate cry, the haunting, intan- 
 gible beauty of his untranslatable lyrics, is known to 
 every lover of poetry. But his ballad-writing was 
 the work of a boy of sixteen or seventeen, to whom 
 the touch of "Red Sefchen's" beautiful mouth had 
 opened the gates of passion. Possibly the weird 
 setting of this, his first amour, had a power in 
 directing his genius. His ballads are mystic, 
 ghostly, gruesome, in a word " uncanny " ; — what 
 we should expect from the boy whose first love 
 was the executioner's niece, whose first kiss was 
 snatched beneath the shadow of the sword which 
 had drunk the life-blood of a hundred doomed 
 wretches. To Heine might be applied the cynic 
 saying of a recent writer, that every man walks 
 through life with the bacchante, Sex, on his left 
 hand, the skeleton Death on his right, and while 
 he scourges himself for leering at the one, he 
 murmurs prayers against the other. But Heine 
 murmurs no prayer. Throughout his life he had 
 eyes only for the beautiful, unveiled form of the 
 bacchanal, till the grisly skeleton became the daily 
 companion and couch-mate of the nine years spent 
 on his " mattress-grave." Strangely powerful, and 
 imaginative as are the ballads, " Im siissen Traum,"
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. xxvii 
 
 " Ich lag und schlief," and " Was treibt und tobt 
 mein tolles Blut ?" they have an unhealthy 
 fascination. These all belong to the "Junge 
 Leiden " section of the " Buch der Lieder," but 
 "The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar," the most beautiful 
 of all his ballads, is in the "Heimkehr" cycle. 
 This half-indicated love-story is full of an exquisite 
 tenderness, a pathetic beauty, a delicacy of feeling, 
 which Heine's ballads reached here only. Perhaps 
 we owe it to a momentary touch of that "heavenly 
 home-sickness" of which he tells us in his intro- 
 duction to the Romances. . 
 
 Very remarkable among these early "Traum- 
 bilder" is the poem entitled "Ein Traum gar 
 seltsam schauerlich," where he sees the apparition 
 of a maiden washing his shroud, squaring his 
 coffin plank, and finally digging his grave. The 
 mystic Washers of the Shroud appear both in 
 Greek and in Norse superstition, but it may be 
 questioned whether the ghastly idea has been ever 
 used more effectively than by Heine. The short 
 poem called " The Asra " is also noticeable for 
 the restrained and delicate beauty of its treatment 
 of the passion of love. It has the same fragile 
 loveliness that startles us in some of Edgar Poe's 
 early poems, the chill but exquisite fantasy of frost- 
 work on the window pane. 
 
 Heine's enemy, Count Platen, on whom he made
 
 xxviii INTROD UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 such an unprovoked attack in the " Reisebilder," 
 was more of a reflective poet than a writer of 
 ballads, yet during his residence in Italy he 
 produced a few fine classical ballads. Ruckert's 
 " Barbarossa," besides being a fine romantic ballad, 
 has the advantage of dealing with a well-known 
 German hero, and therefore is one of the best 
 known modern German poems. 
 
 Germany has never had any lack of martial 
 poetry. The War of Liberation in 1813 developed 
 at any rate two poets, old Arndt, whose " Was ist 
 das Deutsche Vaterland?" and "Der Gott der 
 Eisen wachsen liess," roused the spirit of Germany, 
 and the brilliant and gifted Korner, whose early 
 death in the war was a loss to German literature. 
 And in our own day the Franco-German War of 
 1870 had its poets. No one can read Freiligrath's 
 stirring " Hurra, Germania ! " — a ballad with the 
 ring of steel in it — without recognising that 
 Romance is no outworn thing, and that the 
 German ballad still has a great future before it. 
 
 A celebrated critic has lately informed the 
 reading world that the prevalent taste for the 
 novel of adventure is due to a " recrudescence of 
 barbarism." This is an hard saying; and has 
 caused great searchings of spirit among those 
 tasteless barbarians who still prefer The Three
 
 IN TROD UCTOR Y NO TE. xxix 
 
 Musketeers and Allan Quatermain to Robert 
 Elsmere and the Kreutzer Sonata. Another 
 critic also has recently remarked that the poetic 
 ideal of the day is to write bad ballads in pseudo- 
 Scotch. Poor Romance has always been treated 
 cavalierly by the critics, — those watch-dogs of the 
 stairs of Art. But nevertheless there is a con- 
 sensus of opinion that we are on the edge of a 
 great Romantic revival such as the end of the last 
 century saw. The day of the ballade is well-nigh 
 over, and the whirligig of Time has brought in the 
 ballad's revenges. 
 
 The great temple of Poetry has many altars ; 
 and we are each free to burn candles before our 
 own particular saint of literature, whether it be at 
 the magnificent altar of Browning, in the Gothic 
 side-chapel of Morris, or " the shrine, occult, with- 
 held, untrod" where Rossetti is worshipped But 
 many of the devoutest worshippers of these, or 
 other literary idols, still love the bracing outside 
 air of the ballads. And many who have no 
 appreciation of the poetry of sentiment or 
 imagination yet are foremost among the sworn 
 lovers of this fascinating form of poetry. Though 
 they be ignorant of Tennyson, and acknowledge 
 not Heine, yet their eyes glisten over the pathetic 
 close of "Graeme and Bewick," or flash at 
 Horner's "Sword-Song."
 
 xxx INTRO D UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 So long as the world remains, men will sail the 
 sea with Sir Patrick Spens, share Janet's night- 
 vigil at Carterhaugh, stoop over the crag with 
 Kempion to kiss the enchanted princess, face the 
 Eldritch Knight with Syr Cauline, and draw the 
 bow with Sweet William of Cloudeslie. There 
 will never come a time when Chevy Chase will 
 not stir hearts like Sidney's, " as with a trumpet." 
 The generations that come after us will still see 
 Germaine's husband standing at the door praying 
 for entrance : the bower of Aucassin and Nicolette 
 will never be untrodden by the feet of lovers. 
 Our children's children will still see the lithe 
 figure of the Diver poised for the spring into 
 Charybdis, and watch the sparks struck out by the 
 hoofs of the black stallion, as the figures of Lenore 
 and her spectre-lover flash past them into the 
 darkness. At midnight the door may open, and 
 the ghostly Bride of Corinth may glide in, spectral 
 in her white robes. These things are secure above 
 time and fashion. For the nineteenth century and 
 its pessimism will pass away; but a straight stroke, 
 a good horse, and a fair woman are things in which 
 all generations and races of men will take delight. 
 Despite the fluctuations of popular taste, the ballad 
 instinct is planted imperishably in the hearts of 
 men, and therefore is immortal. 
 
 ELIZABETH CRAIGMYLE.
 
 GERMAN BALLADS.
 
 GOETHE,

 
 German JBalla&s. 
 
 THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE. 
 
 Mahadoh, the Lord of Nations, 
 For the sixth time came on earth. 
 In his wondrous incarnation 
 He would know men's grief or mirth, 
 He would live among the earth-folk, 
 All their common life-chance share ; 
 God must take man's nature on him 
 Would he justly smite or spare. 
 Through the city there passes that wanderer holy, 
 He has humbled the proud and uplifted the lowly, 
 And at evening forsakes it, the further to fare. 
 
 As he passes to the outskirts 
 
 Through the city suburb streets, 
 
 One most lost, and yet most lovely, 
 
 Face to face the Immortal meets. 
 
 " Greetings, fair one ! " "Thanks a-many ! 
 
 Stay, my handsome fugitive."
 
 4 GOETHE. 
 
 ' ' Who art thou ? " "A Bayadere, — 
 
 Love and I together live." 
 In the dance she can strike him right deftly the cymbal, 
 In the circle of dancers her white feet are nimble, 
 Now she bows at his feet her breast-roses to give. 
 
 So she draws him o'er her threshold, 
 
 Archly whispers laughingly : 
 
 "Ah, sweet stranger, soft with lamplight 
 
 Shall my hut shine bright for thee ! 
 
 Art thou tired ? I will refresh thee, 
 
 Softly bind thy feet that smart ! 
 
 Wilt thou choose or rest or pleasaunce ? 
 
 I will try my utmost art." 
 All his well-feigned weariness so she relieveth, 
 The God smiles upon her, with joy he perceiveth, 
 A woman though ruined yet sweet at the heart. 
 
 Servile duties he imposeth, 
 
 Brightly still she plays her part ; 
 
 First she did them as an handmaid, 
 
 Now in them she puts her heart. 
 
 So within the white, frail blossom 
 
 At due time there sets the fruit ; 
 
 When a woman is obedient, 
 
 Love is still Obedience' root. 
 Yet lest all she hath won so, by pleasure she loseth, 
 The heights and the depths the All-knower he choosetli, 
 Love, terror, and torture, and soul-pangs acute.
 
 THE GOD AND THE BA Y AD ERE. 5 
 
 As her painted cheeks he kisses, 
 Through her veins the love-fire leaps, 
 She is meshed within love's meshes — 
 For the first time now she weeps, 
 And her dainty limbs have failed her, 
 She is kneeling in the dust ; 
 And the weary feet she kisses, 
 Not for gain, nor yet for lust. 
 Now the lovely web of the night enfolds them, 
 And the veil of the silence wraps and holds them, 
 Their love to the darkness is given in trust. 
 
 It is late before she slumbers, 
 
 Soon she wakes from short, sweet rest, 
 
 Wakes — to find upon her bosom 
 
 Dead her well-beloved guest ! 
 
 Shrieking loud, she strives to wake him. 
 
 Vain ! her guest no more will wake ; 
 
 Now the bearers of the dead folk 
 
 Come the body forth to take. 
 She hears the death-song, sees the death-pile preparing, 
 Through the dark-robed procession she presses de- 
 spairing, 
 "Who art thou? Why press to the grave for his 
 sake?" 
 
 By the death-bicr she lies prostrate, 
 Wildly doth she scream and rave,
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 "Give me back mine own, my husband, 
 
 I will seek him in the grave ! 
 
 Shall these limbs of godlike beauty 
 
 Fall to ashes grey and white ? 
 
 Mine he was, mine, not another's — 
 
 Mine — ah, only one sweet night." 
 The priests they are chanting the requiem eerie, 
 " We bear forth the old men, the worn and the 
 
 weary, 
 We bear forth the young men, the thoughtless and 
 light." 
 
 " Hear the wisdom of the Brahmins. 
 
 ' Husband ' is no word for thee. 
 
 Thou — a shameless Bayadere, — 
 
 Hast no right with such as he. 
 
 Only shades may follow dead men 
 
 To the Kingdom of the Dead ; 
 
 Wife alone may follow husband, 
 
 In her duty honoured. 
 Blow, trumpets, a last time ! And ye, ye Immortals, 
 We pray that the youth's soul may enter heaven's 
 
 portals, 
 Whose body we burn while the flames shoot up red ! " 
 
 So the choir : that without pity, 
 Made more wild her love's desire, — 
 Sudden, stretching arms towards him, 
 Sprang she in that hell of fire !
 
 THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE: 7 
 
 Unburnt, scatheless, from the corpse-fire 
 Rose the God's immortal frame, 
 In his arms to heaven he bore her, 
 Purged from sin by touch of flame. 
 For the Viewless are joyful o'er sinners repentant ; 
 God's lost children are lifted by angels relentant 
 In their circling arms to a heaven beyond shame.
 
 GOETHE, 
 
 THE ERL-KING. 
 
 Who rides so late through the night-wind wild ? 
 
 It is a father and his child ; 
 
 The boy is clasped in his sheltering arm, 
 
 He holds him safe, and he nestles warm. 
 
 " My son, why hid'st thou thy face in fear?" 
 " Father, the Erl-king draweth near, — 
 The dark Erl-king, with crown and train." 
 " 'Tis the cloud-skirt grey of the breaking rain." 
 
 " Thou lovely child, come, go with me 
 To the pleasures and games I keep for thee ; 
 Fair flowerets bloom on the distant shore, 
 And my mother hath golden webs in store." 
 
 " My father, my father, say, dost thou not hear 
 That wicked whispering vex mine ear ? " 
 " Nay, child, the whisper thine ear that grieves 
 Is the sough of the wind in the fallen leaves."
 
 THE ERL-K1NG. 9 
 
 " Come, fair boy, wilt thou go with mt ? 
 My princess-daughters shall wait on thee. 
 They shall weave their dances to charm thy sight, 
 And sing sleep down on thine eyes each night." 
 
 " My father, my father, and dost thou not see 
 The Erl-king's shadowy daughters three ?" 
 " My darling, I see on the lonely way 
 The ghostly willow-boles glimmering grey." 
 
 " Thou shalt not bar me from my delight, 
 Thy will is vain against spectre-might." 
 " My father, my father, his touch is cold ; 
 The Erl-king has me in fatal hold ! " 
 
 In horror the father rides away, 
 And clasped in his arms the child groaning lay ; 
 When he reached his home in the dawn-tide red, 
 In his sheltering arms the child was dead.
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 
 THE BRIDE OF CORINTH. 
 
 From the distant violet-crowned Athens, 
 
 Where the lordly town of Corinth stands, 
 
 Came a youth to find an unknown stranger, 
 
 With his father joined in friendly bands. 
 
 'Twixt them promise stood 
 
 Son and daughter should 
 
 Join in Venus' temple hearts and hands. 
 
 Ah ! will they of Corinth bid him welcome, 
 
 If he does not buy their favour dear ? 
 
 He and his adore the old Greek godhoods, 
 
 They the White Christ hold in holy fear. 
 
 Still men's knowledge saith 
 
 " Buds a newer faith, 
 
 Then all sweet old love-ties men uptear." 
 
 When he comes the house is wrapped in silence, 
 Naught within except the mother wakes ; 
 
 She bids welcome to the young Athenian, 
 In the stateliest room his couch she makes,
 
 THE BRIDE OF CORINTH. 1 i 
 
 Doth his needs divine, 
 Sets forth food and wine, 
 Bids farewell before the bread he breaks. 
 
 But the youth, all spent and stained, exhausted, 
 
 Worn with travel since the dawn shone red, 
 Weary, past the touch of thirst and hunger, 
 Casts him straightway down upon his bed, 
 Lies in death-like rest, 
 While an unknown guest 
 Passes through the door beside his head. 
 
 By the dying lamp's uncertain shimmer, 
 
 Spectral in her robe and veil's white fold, 
 There he sees a maiden in his chamber, 
 Round her brow a band of black and gold. 
 When she sees him near, 
 Hands she wrings in fear 
 At her own intrusion rash and bold. 
 
 " Guest," she cries, " mine own house holds me 
 stranger, 
 Nothing heard I of your con.ing's fame 
 In my dreary cell of cold and darkness ; 
 Now my cheeks blush hot with maiden shame. 
 On the soft-piled bed 
 Lay thy weary head, 
 I depart as softly as I came."
 
 12 GOETHE. 
 
 " Stay, fair maiden," cried the youth awakened, 
 
 Springing from his couch in eager haste ; 
 " Here are gifts of Ceres and of Bacchus, 
 Venus' cestus glitters round thy waist. 
 Thou art pale with fright, 
 Dearest, come, this night 
 We may know what joys the gods can taste " 
 
 " Nay, O youth, stretch not vain arms toward me, 
 
 Not for me to tread in Joy's sweet ways ; 
 Life for me is closed, and hope is ended, 
 Through my mother's fever-stricken craze, 
 When the oath she swore 
 Gave her daughter o'er 
 To the Heaven that Youth and Nature slays. 
 
 " And the sweet old Gods we loved were banished, 
 
 And their names were never heard again ; 
 One, the Vengeful, unseen sits enthroned, 
 High in barren heaven beyond our ken. 
 On the altar here, 
 Fall not lamb nor steer, 
 Nay, they offer hearts and souls of men." 
 
 - 
 
 But his words stream out instinct with passion, 
 And his speech she hears and understands : 
 
 " Can it be that in the still night-silence, 
 Here my plighted bride before me stands ?
 
 THE BRIDE OF CORINTH. 13 
 
 And she shall be mine, 
 Sanction, half-divine, 
 From our fathers joins with mine her hands." 
 
 " Not these hands of mine, O my beloved : 
 
 'Tis my younger sister thou wilt wed ; 
 When her soft white arms are wrapt about thee, 
 Think of one whose bliss so quickly fled. 
 Not for me is love, 
 Nor the joys thereof, 
 In the grave is laid my marriage-bed." 
 
 " Nay, away with ghastly dreams and fancies, 
 
 Hymen's self will smile on our delight ; 
 
 Thou art neither lost to love or lover, 
 
 Athens holds a shelter for our flight. 
 
 Sweetest, stay and share, 
 
 Free from doubt and care, 
 
 Here the bridal-feast with me to-night." 
 
 Now already change they true love-tokens; 
 Golden is the chain she gives him there, 
 And he reaches her a silver beaker, 
 
 Carven with strange old legends rich and fair: 
 " This is not for me : 
 All I beg from thee 
 Is a lock of that brown clustering hair."
 
 i 4 GOETHE. 
 
 As the noon of night goes softly past them, 
 
 All her ghostly terror from her slips ; ' 
 
 In the myrrhine cup of blood-red vintage 
 
 Deep her eager thirsty mouth she dips ; 
 
 Yet, of vvheaten bread, 
 
 Howso'er he pled, 
 
 Not a morsel crossed her cold, white lips. 
 
 And she passes him the jewelled goblet, 
 
 Deep and deeper yet he ever drinks, 
 Still more passionate grow his wild beseechings, 
 And the love-words with his vows he links ; 
 But howe'er he pray, 
 Still she answers, " Nay," 
 Till in tears upon his couch he sinks. 
 
 And she casts herself beside her lover, 
 
 " I may rest, alas, by no man's side ; 
 If my mouth burnt hot beneath thy kisses, 
 Thou would'st know the secret that I hide. 
 White as mountain-snow, 
 Cold as ice below, 
 Is the gracious bosom of thy bride." 
 
 K 
 
 But his strong young arms are wrapt around her, 
 With a strength that youth and passion gave; 
 
 " ' Ice ' art thou ? This heart of mine can warm thee, 
 Wert thou risen a ghost from out thy grave.
 
 THE BRIDE OF CORINTH. 15 
 
 On thy lips my kiss 
 Burns like this, — and this. 
 Has my clasp not strength enough to save ? " 
 
 Happy tears are thick upon her eyelids, 
 
 Tears the first her eyes have ever known ; 
 Space and time and earth they have forgotten, — 
 Each remembers naught but love alone : 
 All his great desire 
 Turns her blood to fire, 
 Yet no heart leaps wild against his own. 
 
 But the mother, passing by the portal, 
 
 Seems to hear strange eerie sounds within, 
 Leans to listen softly at the threshold, — 
 Is it voices twain she hears within ? 
 
 " Bride," and " Sweet," and " Bride," 
 Broken love-words sighed, 
 Sobs that die away while laughs begin. 
 
 While she stands unmoving in the doorway, 
 
 Seeking now to know the truth of this, 
 There she hears sweet vows and flattering praises, 
 And the words of lovers in their bliss : — 
 "Ah, to-morrow night, 
 Back to our Delight, 
 Thou wilt come again ? " and kiss chokes kiss.
 
 1 6 GOETHE. 
 
 Then the mother speaks in haste and anger, 
 Hand upon the latch that opes with ease, 
 " Many women serve the lust of strangers; 
 Holds my house hetairai such as these ? " 
 But she starts with fright, 
 By the lamp's pale light, 
 Sees she, — God, 'tis her own child she sees ! 
 
 And the youth, wild with his sudden terror, 
 With the maiden's veil of shining gauze, 
 With the carpet that he casts around them, 
 Strives to hide their breach of household laws. 
 From the place she lies 
 Slowly doth she rise, 
 To her height her tall white figure draws. 
 
 " Mother !" thus she speaks in hollow accents, 
 
 " Dost thou grudge the one sweet night I crave? 
 Do you drive me from his side soft nestling, 
 As my soul to its despair you drave ? 
 Doth it not suffice 
 Wound in shroud of price, 
 To have laid me stark within my grave ? 
 
 " From the tomb wherein you laid your daughter, 
 Still her right against you witnesseth; 
 
 For she recks not murmured hymn, nor blessing, 
 Nor the words the swart priest muttereth ;
 
 THE BRIDE OF CORINTH. 17 
 
 Consecrated rite 
 Hath nor force nor might, 
 Weighed with love that triumphs over death. 
 
 IC He was pledged to me to be my bridegroom, 
 
 At the laughter-loving Venus' shrine, 
 Though you broke your ancient, sacred promise, 
 For the strange, false faith that now is thine, 
 God no ear will bow, 
 To your brain-sick vow, 
 And my lover surely now is mine. 
 
 " From the grave a loathly longing drew me, 
 For the joys your hand had crushed in bud, 
 Once to lie upon my lover's bosom, 
 
 As a vampire, suck his red heart's-blood ; 
 Fate to him made sure, 
 Others shall endure, — 
 Who shall stay youth's wild desire in flood ? 
 
 " Ha, fair youth, our night was sweet together ! 
 
 Pale and dying now thou liest there. 
 Round thy neck my golden chain is gleaming, 
 And thy pledge with me I forth shall bear. 
 At the break of day 
 Shall thy head be grey — 
 This the only lock of thy brown hair. 
 
 2
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 " Mother, build a pyre for our dead bodies; 
 Let the wind-breath wake its fiery coals, 
 When my corpse and his are laid upon it, 
 And the pall of fire above them rolls ; 
 When the flame sinks low, 
 And the ashes glow, 
 Shall the ancient Gods receive our souls.'"
 
 SCHILLER.
 
 THE RING OF POL YKRA TES. 
 
 THE RING OF POLYKRATES. 
 
 Upon the battlements he stood, 
 And gazed in proud and happy mood 
 
 On Samos, by his right hand won. 
 To the Egyptian at his side 
 He turned him in his kingly pride, 
 
 " Wilt thou not call me Fortune's son?" 
 
 " The Immortals have thee in their care ; 
 For those who once thine equals were 
 
 Now crouch beneath thy sceptred might. 
 Yet dare I not thy fortune praise, 
 For the strife-embers yet may blaze, 
 
 Thy foe's eyes wake by day and night." 
 
 And ere the king these words had spoken, 
 A herald with the Miletus token 
 
 Stood panting by that regal pair. 
 " Lord King, let incense smoke uprise 
 From thousand altars to the skies, 
 
 With victor laurels crown thy hair.
 
 22 SCHILLER. 
 
 " ' Thy foe hath fallen upon my spear ; '— 
 Such news sends to thy royal ear 
 
 Our Polydor, thy leader true." 
 From the black basin in his hand, 
 Blood-boltered, grim with dust and sand, 
 
 A well-known head the soldier drew. 
 
 Yet shuddering, Egypt's king stepped back, 
 " Yea, so ; yet still thy luck may lack, - ' 
 
 With darkened, ominous brow spake he. 
 " Think how the unruled, unpastured waves 
 May yawn to give thy seamen graves, 
 
 May whelm thy fleet beneath the sea." 
 
 And ere the king these words had spoken, 
 The joy-shout through his speech had broken, 
 
 Uprising where the monarchs stood; 
 For in the harbour far below, 
 Laden with spoil, with gold a-glow, 
 
 Lay ships, with masts thick as a wood. 
 
 Astonished spoke the kingly guest, 
 " Ill-luck to-day may lie at rest, 
 
 Yet wake to-morrow for thine ill. 
 The war- wise Cretans threat thy land ; 
 Near are they, and upon thy strand 
 
 The deadly storm-cloud hovers still."
 
 THE RING OF POL YKRA TES. 
 
 And scarce the words were spoke aloud, 
 When from the ships a seething crowd 
 
 Rushed thousand- throated : " Victory ! 
 No fear of foemen or of war, 
 The storm has driven the Cretans far, 
 
 And fear and dread are all passed by." 
 
 The guest-friend spoke in shuddering terror, 
 " To call thee • blest ' I hold no error ! 
 
 But yet such bliss the soul must scare. 
 The envy of the Undying Gods 
 May touch thee yet with fiery rods, 
 
 And perfect bliss is no man's share. 
 
 " With me, too, fortune still hath been 
 In all my deeds the gods I ween 
 
 Have shown no hating countenance. 
 And yet their hands took from me one 
 Most dear; my heir, mine only son, — 
 
 I paid my toll to evil chance. 
 
 " Pray to the Unseen Ones of Heaven, 
 To thee some evil may be given 
 
 To dark this bliss so fearful-fair. 
 None lie in an unbloodied grave 
 To whom the Gods full-handed gave 
 
 Joy over-much and bliss to spare.
 
 24 SCHILLER. 
 
 " If from the Gods no bolt may fall, 
 Follow my counsel, friend, and call 
 
 On thine own head misfortune down. 
 That thing of all thy heaped-up treasure, 
 Wherein thy heart holds highest pleasure, 
 
 Let the unpluinbed salt ocean drown." 
 
 Then spake the Samian, touched with fear, 
 " This ring of mine I count most dear 
 
 Of all the island holds, and this 
 Unto the Erinnys will I give. 
 Perchance the Sisters may forgive." — 
 
 It flashes from the precipice. 
 
 When the next dawn of morning shone, 
 A fisher blithe before the throne 
 
 Came, and the king did lowly greet ; 
 " King, drawing in my nets to shore, 
 I found a fish unknown before, 
 
 I lay it at my sovereign's feet. " 
 
 And, as the slave the fish prepared, 
 Wide-eyed and marvelling down he stared, 
 
 And cried with sudden wonder struck ; 
 " Lord King, the gem that thou didst wear, 
 In the fish-maw is gleaming fair ! 
 
 O king, unbounded is thy luck ! "
 
 THE RING OF POL YKRA TES. 
 
 The guest turned, shivering-white with fear, 
 ' ' No longer will I tarry here ! 
 
 The Gods thy ruin have designed."' 
 Guest-friendship, union he forswore, 
 And straightway, from that fatal shore, 
 
 His galleys sailed before the wind.
 
 26 SCHILLER. 
 
 THE PARTING OF THE EARTH. 
 
 Zeus, bending, spake from the blank height of heaven, 
 " Take here my world, ye new-born race of men. 
 
 Throughout the ages it to you is given, 
 / claim it not again." 
 
 The acres-man seized the fair land for tillage 
 
 Men ploughed the barren heath, 
 The robber from his eyrie looked for pillage 
 
 O'er the wide field beneath. 
 
 The grapes hung purpling o'er the barren ridges, 
 
 Priests pressed the blood-red wine, 
 The King barred roads, and spanned the floods with 
 bridges, 
 
 Then spake, " The tenth is mine." 
 
 Long after, when the sharing-time was hidden 
 
 By mists of ancient time, 
 The Poet walked on earth, a guest unbidden, 
 
 None listened to his rhyme.
 
 THE PARTING OF THE EARTH. 27 
 
 " Woe ! is it for my sin, or through my failing 
 
 Shareless am I alone ? " 
 So loud he wailed, and cast himself down, wailing, 
 
 Before Kronion's throne. 
 
 " My earth is given away to the strong-hearted, 
 
 All right of mine is dead ; 
 Where wert thou when the earth was shared and parted ? " 
 
 " With thee!" the Poet said. 
 
 " When strife and rancour o'er the whole earth darkened, 
 
 Say, was it sin in me, 
 That I, who hung upon thy lips and hearkened, 
 
 Thought not of aught but thee ? " 
 
 " What shall I do ? " spake Zeus, " for mine no longer 
 
 Are earth and whispering sea ; 
 Shareless art thou ? Thy share in me is stronger, 
 
 My heaven stands ope for thee."
 
 2 8 SCHILLER. 
 
 THE WALK TO THE FORGES. 
 
 A duteous squire was Fridolin, 
 
 And ever did he burn 
 With zeal for his sweet mistress' sake, 
 
 The Countess of Savcrn. 
 She was so gentle, and mild, and good, 
 Yet had she been of haughty mood 
 Still would the squire have served her true, 
 As God hath bid his servants do. 
 
 From early daybreak's dewy hours 
 
 Till chimed the vesper-bell, 
 His every wish and thought he bent 
 
 To serve his lady well. 
 And if she said, " Nay, strive not so," 
 The tear-mist dimmed his eye's bright glow, 
 And all the more he would fulfil 
 Each trifle of a woman's will. 
 
 Therefore the Countess raised him high 
 O'er all her courtly train ;
 
 THE WALK TO THE FORGES. 29 
 
 Her lovely mouth would praise her squire, 
 
 Nor weary of the strain. 
 As page and squire he had begun, 
 But now she held him as a son, 
 And oft her beauteous eyes were seen 
 Watching her page's graceful mien. 
 
 Robert the huntsman saw, and swore 
 
 His vengeance on the squire, 
 And sought, nor waited long, a chance 
 
 To wreak his jealous ire. 
 And once on a day when the Count and he 
 Rode home from the chase in the greenwood free, 
 He scattered base suspicion's seed, 
 That should spring to the fruit of a fearful deed. 
 
 " How happy are you, noble Count ! " 
 
 His sudden speech broke out, 
 " You dream your dream in golden sleep, 
 
 And know no touch of doubt. 
 Your wife is noble and fair, and she 
 Is ringed and girdled with chastity. 
 No stranger-rover shall ever say 
 That her truth from her husband swerved away." 
 
 The Count's dark brows were bent and black, 
 
 ' ' What speech is this to me ? 
 Think'st thuii I build on woman's truth, 
 
 Inconstant as the sea ?
 
 3 o SCHILLER. 
 
 It wavers to every flatterer's breath, 
 
 On surer grounds is built my faith. 
 
 The Countess Savern is set too high 
 
 To be marked by the glance of a rover's eye." 
 
 " Right well you say," the other cries, 
 
 " And matter for a jest 
 This low-born slave who tries to scale 
 
 The lofty eagle's nest. 
 To his Lady the Countess would aspire 
 The hot-brained boy in his mad desire." — 
 " Can you speak such words of an earthly man !' 
 And the huntsman answers, " I surely can. 
 
 " My Lord does well to scorn the tales 
 
 His household's mouths that fill. 
 He seeks for silence, therefore I 
 
 A.m silent at his will." 
 " Speak out, or I will strike thee down ! " 
 The Count's eyes flash, his bent brows frown, 
 " Who lifts his glances to Kunigonde ?" 
 " Who else but Fridolin le Blond ?" 
 
 " Handsome the fellow is in sooth, 
 So said the crafty squire, 
 
 While in his master's every vein 
 Were shoots of ice and fire.
 
 THE WALK TO THE FORGES. 
 
 " Nay, good my Lord, could you fail to see 
 The varlet has eyes for none but she ? 
 At table he gives you nor service nor care, 
 He is fastened so to my Lady's chair. 
 
 " See here the verses that he writes, 
 
 His passion to confess." 
 " Confess ! " " And for your Countess' love 
 
 The varlet dares to press : 
 The gracious Countess soft and mild, 
 By her woman's pity has been beguiled 
 To hide his insolence from your sight, 
 For in truth to scorn him you both have right. 
 
 The Count set spur to his coal-black steed, 
 
 Into the wood he tore, 
 Where day and night in the furnace bright 
 
 They smelted the iron ore. 
 His serfs they toiled both early and late 
 To feed the maw of the furnace great. 
 The bellows blew and the sparks flew free 
 Till the rocks themselves might melted be. 
 
 The might of water, the might of fire, 
 
 Are joined in union here, 
 The mill-wheel, flashing through the foam, 
 
 Circles for ever near.
 
 32 SCHILLER. 
 
 The works go on both night and clay, 
 The hammers' rhythm beats alway, 
 Even the iron itself must melt 
 Beneath such blows as there it felt. 
 
 He beckons two of the toiling serfs, 
 
 And low in their ear he says, 
 ' ' The first whom I shall send to you 
 
 Who greets you in this phrase, 
 ' Have ye done the word of the master well ? : 
 Seize him, and cast in the furnace hell, 
 So he burn to ashes right speedilie, 
 And I never again his face may see." 
 
 Then smiled the brutal pair a smile 
 
 With cruel meaning fraught, 
 Like hammered iron were their breasts 
 
 That knew of pity naught. 
 With the bellows' fiery breath did they blow 
 The furnace-flame to a redder glow, 
 And waited with murder in their eyes 
 The step of the destined sacrifice. 
 
 Then Robert to his fellow speaks 
 
 With false hypocrisy, 
 " Rise, comrade, tarry not nor wait, 
 
 Our good Lord calls for thee."
 
 THE WALK TO THE FORGES. 33 
 
 To Fridolin the Master says, 
 
 " Quick, to the forges go thy ways, 
 
 And ask the serfs that round them stand, 
 
 ' Have ye fulfilled the Count's command ? ' " 
 
 " This will I do," the youth replies, 
 
 And girds him for the road, 
 But fain would ask his Lady's will 
 
 Ere to the forge he strode. 
 Before the Countess the youth he stood, 
 " I seek the furnace in the wood, 
 Is there hest of thine I can fulfil, 
 For my service lies at my Lady's will ? " 
 
 To him the Lady of Savern 
 
 Replied in gentle tone, 
 " I would fain hear mass, but my little son 
 
 On a couch of pain doth moan. 
 The service I ask of thee shall be 
 To speak a prayer for thee and me. 
 When thou art shriven in the holy place, 
 My soul shall also find a grace." 
 
 Welcome the bidding is, I trow, 
 Civen by his mistress sweet, 
 
 And on his errand forth he speeds 
 With eager-hastening feet.
 
 34 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 But scarce hath he reached the village end, 
 When he hears the bell that bids folk wend 
 To share in the blessed Sacrament 
 That our Lord for a grace to sinners sent. 
 
 " I dare not shun my Lord when thus 
 
 I meet him on the way," 
 He says, and steps within God's House. 
 
 Yet all in silence lay, 
 For the land was yellow with golden corn, 
 And the folk were toiling from night to morn, 
 So the choir had tarried in the field, 
 Nor were there their help in the mass to yield. 
 
 Instead of the dallying sacristan, 
 
 His service he hath given ; 
 " Man never was hindered," he saith, "by steps 
 
 He took on the path to heaven." 
 With lowly reverence in his soul, 
 He decks the priest with cope and stole, 
 And paten and chalice doth he prepare 
 That all shall be fit for the service fair. 
 
 When vessels and altar are arrayed, 
 Then Fridolin doth stand 
 
 Beside the holy priest of God, 
 The missal in his hand,
 
 THE WALK TO THE FORGES. 35 
 
 Meet genuflection the youth hath made, 
 Each fitting duty hath he paid, 
 And when the holy Sanclus came, 
 He rang the silver bell at the Name. 
 
 But when, with face to altar turned, 
 
 The pious priest hath bowed, 
 And held the Body of the Lord 
 
 Uplifted o'er the crowd, 
 The tinkle sweet of the silver bell 
 Of the drowsy Sacristan's coming doth tell, 
 And the folk they cross them in pious wise, 
 When the Christ is lifted before their eyes. 
 
 So has he everything fulfilled 
 With earnest reverent thought, 
 
 Of all the rites the church demands 
 Hath he omitted nought. 
 
 No weariness has o'er him passed 
 
 Till the Vobiscum at the last 
 
 Fell softly on the kneclers' head ; 
 
 " Peace be with you," the priest hath said. 
 
 The Holy Vessels then he takes, 
 
 And lays them duly by, 
 Puts all things in the accustomed place 
 
 Where they were wont to lie.
 
 3 5 SCHILLER. 
 
 To the forges next he his steps addrest, 
 With conscience pure and mind at rest, 
 And while he took the greenwood way 
 Twelve Paternosters did he say. 
 
 He sees the forges' swarthy smoke 
 
 Rise black against the sun, 
 And to the serfs he calls, " Have ye 
 
 The master's order done ? " 
 They grin with a strange and ghastly grin, 
 The furnace-door they point within ; 
 " We have done what the Count hath bid us do- 
 The lord will praise us for servants true." 
 
 Swift with the answer to his Lord 
 
 Homeward the stripling hies ; 
 Scarce dares the astonished Count to trust 
 
 The witness of his eyes. 
 " Whence com'st thou ?" gaspingly said he. 
 " Sir, from the forge." " It cannot be ! 
 Or thou to do my hest delayed." 
 " Lord Count, 'twas only till I prayed. 
 
 " When from your presence-chamber fair 
 
 At morning hour I went ; 
 (Forgive me) of my Lady's will 
 
 I sought commandement.* 
 
 * " From her fair eyes he took commandement."— Spenser.
 
 THE WALK TO THE FORGES. 37 
 
 She laid her hest on me that I 
 
 Should hear the Mass, and right willingly 
 
 I told my rosary, nothing loth 
 
 For the weal of my Lord and Lady both." 
 
 But all astonied stood the Count, 
 
 White were his lips and cheek ; 
 " What answer did they make to thee 
 
 At the blast-furnace ? Speak ! " 
 " Their hidden meaning I could not know, 
 But they pointed in the furnace glow ; 
 ' We have done what the Count hath bid us do — 
 The lord will praise us for servants true.'" 
 
 " And Robert ?" quickly asks the Count, 
 
 The while his blood ran cold ; 
 " Hast thou not met him as thou cam'st 
 
 In wood, or field, or wold ? " 
 " Not in wood, or field, or any place 
 Did I see of the huntsman any trace." 
 Here the Count's cry his speech broke through, 
 " Now God hath judged between the two ! " 
 
 As if they both had equals been, 
 He clasps the stripling's hand, 
 
 And to his wife he leads the youth, 
 — She cannot understand.
 
 3 8 SCHILLER. 
 
 " No angel is more pure than he, 
 Let him still keep your favour free. 
 Howe'er our faithless eyes were dim, 
 God and his angels are with him."
 
 MAIDEN FROM A FAR COUNTRY. 39 
 
 THE MAIDEN FROM A FAR COUNTRY. 
 
 In a vale among the herdsmen, 
 When the spring-scents filled the air, 
 
 And the earliest larks were singing, 
 Came a maiden, strange and fair. 
 
 She among them had no kinsmen, 
 No man asked her name or race, 
 
 Soon she parted like a vision, 
 And she left nor clue nor trace. 
 
 Round her hovered peace and blessing, 
 At her step all hearts were stirred, 
 
 Yet she seemed a thing so sainted, 
 No man breathed of love a word. 
 
 In her lap were fruits and blossoms 
 
 Ripened in some far-off land 
 By the glowing tropic sunlight 
 
 On a strange and distant stiand.
 
 40 SCHILLER. 
 
 And she gave the happy herdsmen 
 What she brought across the foam, 
 
 Youth and manhood, child and greybeard, 
 Each had gifts to carry home. 
 
 Last of all, enlinked and lingering, 
 Came a plighted youth and maid ; 
 
 And the loveliest of her blossoms 
 Softly in their hands she laid. 

 
 KASSANDRA. 41 
 
 KASSANDRA. 
 
 Joy was in the halls of Troia, 
 
 Ere the solemn feast befell, 
 Hymns of joy ring through the city, 
 
 With the lyre according well. 
 Greek and Trojan hands are resting 
 
 From the weeping-causing fight, 
 For the glorious Pelides 
 
 Priam's daughter weds to-night. 
 
 And the happy folk are wending, 
 
 Laurel-boughs upon their hair, 
 To the Immortals' Holy Houses, 
 
 To the Thymbrian's altar fair. 
 Through the streets with shout of wassail 
 
 Dance the gay Bacchantic train, — 
 Only one is left forsaken, 
 
 Only one in lonely pain.
 
 42 SCHILLER. 
 
 Joyless there where all were joyful, 
 
 Uncompanioned and alone, 
 Dark Kassandra wandered lonely, 
 
 Where Apollo's laurels moan. 
 To the deepest hid wood-silence 
 
 Took the prophetess her path, 
 And she cast her seer-fillets 
 
 To the earth in shame and wrath. 
 
 " Friam's city thrills with joyance, 
 
 Every heart beats high with pride, 
 Hope is blossoming for my parents, 
 
 And my sister is a bride. 
 I alone deserted sorrow, 
 
 No delusion veils my eyes, 
 To these doomed and fated ramparts, 
 
 Swift and winged, Destruction nighs. 
 
 " For the torch that I see glowing 
 
 Glimmers not in Hymen's hand, 
 And a glare the clouds is reddening— 
 
 'Twas no altar lit the brand. 
 Yea, I see the feast made ready; 
 
 Yet in my foreboding heart, 
 Now resound Fate's direful footsteps, 
 
 And the guest-clouds break and part.
 
 KASSANDRA. 43 
 
 " And my wailing meets reproving, 
 
 And my sorrow angry scorn, 
 I must hide within the desert 
 
 Pangs by which my heart is torn ; 
 For the happy and the joyous 
 
 Jestingly avoid my road, — 
 Ah ! thou wily Python-slayer, 
 
 Heavy on me lies thy load. 
 
 " Wherefore set me in this city 
 
 Here to voice ihine Oracle, 
 I, among these blinded townsfolk, 
 
 Seeing, — only but too well ? 
 Wherefore gav'st the power of seeing 
 
 What I cannot turn away, 
 P'earful things that from the Future 
 
 Stalk more near and near each day ? 
 
 " Wherefore rend the veil asunder 
 
 Under which the Terror stands ? 
 Life is linked to happy Error, 
 
 Knowledge with white Death clasps hands. 
 From the steaming shine of blood-pools 
 
 Shroud mine eyes in darkness up ! 
 Fearful is it of thy wisdom 
 
 Thus to be the mortal cup !
 
 44 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 " Let the old-time happy blindness 
 
 This terrific light eclipse, 
 I have ended joyful singing 
 
 Since thy voice spake through my lips. 
 Thou hast ta'en away the Present, 
 
 Though the Future's veil thou lift ; 
 Is not happy Now stolen from me ? 
 
 Nay, resume thine evil gift ! 
 
 " Never with the bride-like garland 
 
 Have I crowned mine odorous hair, 
 Since I vowed me to thy service 
 
 Where thine altar-flames upflare. 
 All my youth was spent in weeping, 
 
 Sorrow only was my part, 
 Every woe that touched my kindred 
 
 Struck upon mine aching heart. 
 
 "Joyful are my old girl-comrades, 
 
 All around me live and love. 
 Every heart with bliss is heaving, 
 
 Mine alone is void thereof. 
 Vain for me is this sweet Spring-time 
 
 That with flowers the earth hath crowned ; 
 Who can laud this life whose glances 
 
 Pierce within its deeps profound ?
 
 KASSANDRA. 45 
 
 " Blessed hold I Polyxena, 
 
 With her bliss intoxicate, 
 For the best of the Hellenes 
 
 Chooses her to-day for mate. 
 And her breast with pride is heaving, 
 
 All a fairy-tale doth seem, — 
 Not the Viewless Ones above us 
 
 Doth she envy, in her dream. 
 
 " So for one, mine own, my chosen, 
 
 All my heart in longing sighs, 
 And the soul of love within him 
 
 Looks beseeching through his eyes. 
 To the house-stead with my lover 
 
 I would go, — ah, willingly ! 
 There would step a Stygian Shadow 
 
 All night long 'twixt him and me. 
 
 ' ' Gruesome, pallid larvce scare me, 
 
 Sent by dark Persephone, 
 Where I walk or where I wander 
 
 At my side ill spirits be. 
 To the youths' and maidens' sporting 
 
 In the fearful spectres press, 
 Visions crowding and terrific 
 
 Leave no minute's happiness.
 
 46 SCHILLER. 
 
 " And I see the dagger gleaming, 
 
 Murderous eyes that gleam beside, 
 Nowhere from the grisly Terror 
 
 Can I flee, whate'er betide. 
 Knowing, seeing, fascinated, 
 
 Where no kindred by me stand, 
 Shall I meet the Fate decreed me, 
 
 Falling in a foreign land.'' 
 
 And while yet her words were speaking 
 
 Hark the shouts confused that run 
 From the temple's brazen gateway : 
 
 Dead lay Thetis' glorious son. 
 Eris shakes her snaky tresses, 
 
 All the guardian gods have gone, 
 And the thunder-clouds are blackening, 
 
 Blackening down on Uion.
 
 THE GLOVE. 47 
 
 THE GLOVE.* 
 
 Behold the arena cleared ; 
 King Francis sits prepared 
 To see the lion -fight ; 
 His statesmen and courtiers are there to see, 
 And all around in the balcony 
 
 Is a circle of ladies bright. 
 
 The king he beckons, and lo ! 
 
 A door wide open they throw ; 
 
 And the lion from his rest has risen, 
 
 And with heavy stride comes forth from his prison ; 
 
 And he stared around, 
 
 But uttered no sound, 
 
 And yawned, and yawned, 
 And shook his mane, 
 
 And stretched his limbs, 
 And lay down again. 
 
 • Asterisks are attached to the three poems not translated 
 by the editor.
 
 48 SCHILLER. 
 
 Now beckons the king, 
 And the wardens swing 
 
 Wide open another door. 
 With a savage spring 
 A tiger leapt out, 
 And he saw the lion 
 
 As he looked about, 
 And rent the heavens with his roar, 
 And he lashed the rail 
 With his heavy tail ; 
 Then slyly, slyly, he paced the ground 
 
 The lion around, 
 And round he rolled his bristly tongue, 
 
 And beside his foe 
 With an angry growl, and a murmur low, 
 His tawny body he flung. 
 
 The king he beckoned once more ; 
 They opened the door 
 Of a double cell, and two leopards gay, 
 
 With a warlike bound, 
 Sprang to the tiger where he lay 
 
 By his foe on the sanded ground, 
 His claws he fixed in their spotted hides, 
 But the lion jumped up with a warning roar 
 And the beasts drew back, and their battle was o'er, 
 And, hot from the strife 
 Of death and life, 
 They crouched on their wounded sides,
 
 THE GLOVE. 49 
 
 There fell from the balcony then and 
 
 there 
 A glove from the hand of a lady fair, 
 Midway between 
 The angry lion and tiger keen, 
 
 Then said the Lady Cunigond 
 To the Knight Delorges, jokefully, 
 
 " If thy love, sir knight, be as true and fond 
 As every hour thou swear'st to me, 
 
 Go, fetch my glove from the wild beasts' 
 den." 
 
 Swiftly ran Delorges then ; 
 Over the barrier dire he passed, 
 And fast and fearlessly making his way 
 To where on the ground untouched it lay, 
 He lifted the glove, and held it fast. 
 Knights and ladies there assembled, 
 Looking downward, feared and trembled; 
 Safely back he bears the glove ! 
 
 Every mouth speaks out his praises, 
 But his mistress there above — 
 
 'Tis no glance of scorn she raises 
 On the knight that sought her love.
 
 50 SCHILLER. 
 
 He bowed before the lady fair — * 
 " For your thanks I have no care 
 Nor claim," and so he left her there. 
 
 [Hogg's Instructor. ) 
 
 * This translation follows Schiller's copy in 1798, " Und tier 
 Ritter sich tief oberbengend spricht," instead of the unchivahic 
 alteration, " Und er wirft ihr den Handschuh in's Gesicht." 
 Browning's "Glove" is a striking sequel, throwing a new light 
 on the action of Lady Kunigonde.
 
 THE FEAST OF VICTORY. 51 
 
 THE FEAST OF VICTORY. 
 (a free translation.) 
 
 Ceased now were Priam's banquets, 
 
 Ilion's flames had flickered down, 
 Now the fair-haired Greeks surrounded 
 
 By the plunder of the town, 
 Sat upon the high-prowed vessels 
 
 On the Hellespontine strand, 
 Ready for the home-returning, 
 
 To their far-off Grecian land. 
 
 And in huddled groups of anguish, 
 
 Sat the Trojan maidens there, 
 Smiting on their breasts, and wailing, 
 
 With dishevelled golden hair. 
 In their conqueror's feast of victory 
 
 Rose the captives' wail and moan, 
 Who but saw, through flames of llion, 
 
 One beloved face alone.
 
 52 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 To the high Gods of Olympus, 
 
 Kalchas offereth victims now, 
 To the Builder and Destroyer, 
 
 Grey-eyed Pallas, pays his vow, 
 And to Him who round the nations 
 
 His wave-girdle closely slings, 
 And to Zeus, the Terror-sender, 
 
 Who the ^Egis-horror swings. 
 
 Atreus' son, the people's shepherd, 
 
 Counted o'er the people's tale 
 Who had round his standard gathered, 
 
 Once in fair Scamander's vale. 
 And the cloud of dark remembrance 
 
 Blackened on the monarch's brow, 
 Many lay by Simois' river, 
 
 Few would cross Scamander now. 
 
 Far in Argos, Clytemnestra 
 
 Listens to /Egisthus' sighs, 
 At the threshold of Atrides, 
 
 Murder waits with awful eyes. 
 " Some shall fall beneath the dagger, 
 
 On whose crests swords splintered vain. 
 So half-jesting, spoke Odysseus 
 
 With a glimpse of future pain.
 
 THE FEAST OF VICTORY. 53 
 
 In the purple tent, a maiden 
 
 Lay upon Atrides' breast, 
 Round the blossom of her body 
 
 Closer yet his arms he pressed. 
 Outrage followeth ever outrage, 
 
 Vengeance treads the heel of Lust. 
 In the heaven-height rules the judgment 
 
 Of Kronion. He is just. 
 
 " Well the happy it beseemeth," 
 
 Oileus' son spake with a groan, 
 " When they praise Kronion's justice 
 
 Ruling on the Heaven-throne." 
 Nay, the Gods give gifts, unheeding 
 
 Of the longing or the lack, 
 For Patroclus lieth buried, 
 
 But Thersites cometh back. 
 
 " On the wall the Telamonian 
 
 Shield gleams in the crimson light ; 
 Present is thy memory with us, 
 
 O my brother ! Tower in fight ! 
 When the Grecian ships were blazing, 
 
 In the arm of Ajax lay 
 Help and hope. But this Odysseus 
 
 Wears the arms he sought to-day.'
 
 54 SCHILLER. 
 
 To their greatest Dead, Achilles, 
 
 Pours his son the ruby wine. 
 " Telamon is worthy praising, 
 
 Father, highest praise is thine. 
 Greatest gifts are fame and valour, 
 
 Of the gifts the Gods can give, 
 Thou art dust with thy Patroclus, 
 
 But thy name for aye shall live." 
 
 " If the voice of song is silent, 
 
 O'er the dead and conquered man, 
 So will I speak up for Hector," 
 
 Tydeus' warlike son began, 
 " He who, for his hearth and altar, 
 
 Fighting, the Defender, fell, 
 Shall not be forgot in singing, 
 
 When the bards Troy's story tell." 
 
 Nestor then, the ancient warrior, 
 
 Who three generations saw, 
 Reached the laurel-crowned beaker 
 
 To the crownless Hecuba. 
 " Drink, the wine foams in the chalice; 
 
 Drink, forget all sorrow's smart, 
 Wonderful the gifts of Bacchus, 
 
 Balsam for the riven heart.
 
 THE FEAST OF VICTORY. 55 
 
 " Sad Niobe, when her children 
 
 Fell beneath Diana's dart, 
 Tasted of the glorious vintage, 
 
 And was comforted at heart, 
 For while dancing crimson bubbles 
 
 Wink beside the goblet's brim, 
 Sorrow may be quite forgotten, 
 
 Sunk in Lethe's waters dim." 
 
 By Apollo's spirit driven, 
 
 Rose Kassandra from her seat, 
 From the black ships downward glancing; 
 
 Ruined Troy lay at her feet. 
 " Smoke is all existence earthly; 
 
 As its columns melt away, 
 So shall die Achilles, Hector, — 
 
 But the Gods endure for aye. "
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 THE CRANES OF IBYKUS. 
 
 Unto the strife of song and car, 
 Where the Greeks gathered wide and far, 
 To Corinth from far Hellas' end 
 Went Ibykus, the Immortals' friend. 
 The poet -soul Apollo gave him, 
 With song his lips and heart were fired, 
 So to the Isthmian games he wended 
 From Rhegium, by him inspired. 
 
 Already in the evening light 
 He sees Akrokorinth shine bright, 
 And great Poseidon's grove of pine 
 Bends o'er his steps with shade divine. 
 Naught moves within it, but above him 
 A flight of Cranes moves on its way, 
 They travel to the warm sweet Southland 
 In a great squadron, vast and grey.
 
 THE CRANES OF IB YKUS. 57 
 
 " O Cranes, I greet you fair and free ! 
 Ye have gone with me to the sea. 
 An omen good I hold you now, 
 Your chance and mine are one I trow ; 
 For from afar we both have journeyed. 
 And seek some hospitable roof. 
 ^^So may we find a host propitious, 
 Nor shame to find men stand aloof." 
 
 And on he strides in cheerful mood, 
 Till in the heart of that dark wood, 
 Where o'er a bridge the footpath lay, 
 .Sudden, two murderers bar his way. 
 He must make ready for the combat, 
 But soon, outwearied, sinks his hand, 
 Tis used to touch of silver lyre-strings, 
 Not arch of bow, nor hilt of brand. 
 
 He calls on men and gods to aid ; 
 In vain, — for none within that glade 
 To see him, or to help are near. 
 None that appeal for aid can hear. 
 " And must I perish here forsaken, 
 Unwept, beside a foreign sea, 
 By secret felons foully murdered ? — 
 Will no avenger rise for me ? "
 
 58 SCHILLER. 
 
 Stabbed through and through the Poet falls, 
 
 Above his head he hears the calls 
 
 Of the crane army travelling o'er 
 
 His head. He hears, can see no more. 
 
 " If this foul deed no voice arraigns, 
 
 Witness my unavenged death, 
 
 Above in heaven, ye travelling cranes ! " 
 
 He calls aloud with his last breath. 
 
 They found the naked body there ; 
 Though gashes marred the corpse so fair, 
 Yet could his friend in Corinth tell 
 The features that he loved so well, 
 " And is it thus again I meet thee ? 
 I hoped that with the pine-branch crown 
 Thy dying head should be encircled, 
 Ringed with the aureole of renown." 
 
 All folk within fair Corinth town 
 Grieve for the fair young life cut down, 
 All Greece in sorrow shares a part, 
 His loss is mourned by every heart, 
 And to the Prytanes of the City 
 The folk pour in, an angry flood : 
 " With blood appease the Singer's manes, 
 Give to the Shade the Slayer's blood I "
 
 THE CRAJSES OF 1BYKUS. 59 
 
 There is no clue, there is no trace ! 
 For men of every land and race 
 Throng to the Isthmian games so fair, 
 And who may guess the murderer there ? 
 Was it the deed of cowardly robbers? 
 Was it some secret, envious foe ? 
 Nay; only Helios, the All-seeing, 
 The truth of that foul deed may know. 
 
 Among the throngs of Greeks maybe 
 He strides abroad right openly, 
 While after him they hold pursuit 
 He joys in murder's golden fruit. 
 Perhaps within the Immortals' temples, 
 Mocking the Gods, his head is bowed ; 
 Perhaps he joins the waves of people 
 That to the theatre now crowd. 
 
 No vacant place is there for long, 
 For in and in the audience throng, 
 And streaming in from near and far 
 All the Hellenes gathered are. 
 Like storm-moved seas the noise of people 
 Pouring the mighty building through, 
 They spread in tiers that ever widen, — 
 Above them skies of turquoise-blue.
 
 60 SCHILLER. 
 
 Who counts the nations, names the names, 
 That stream to share the Isthmian games ? 
 From Theseus' town, from Aulis' strand, 
 From Phocis, and from Sparta's land, 
 From the far coasts of distant Asia, 
 From isles of the ^Egean Sea, — 
 Now from the stage they hear resounding 
 The chorus' awful melody. 
 
 And, as the ancient custom stands, 
 Step slowly the grim chorus bands 
 Forth from their shadowy lurking-place, 
 And round the circle slowly pace. 
 These are no strides of earthly women, 
 And of no earthly house they are ! 
 Towering their giant-stature rises 
 Over the stateliest there by far. 
 
 To each a mantle black doth cling, 
 And in their fleshless hands they swing 
 Torches with dusky flames aglow ; 
 No blood within those cheeks may flow. 
 And where a woman's fluttering tresses 
 Her dainty forehead meet and kiss, 
 There hideous snakes and twining adders 
 In slimy tangles crawl and hiss.
 
 THE CRANES OF IBYKUS. 61 
 
 Then stalking round in circles grim, 
 They raise the ancient Choric Hymn, 
 That pierces through the sinful heart, 
 That snares the felon by its art ; 
 And, palsying both brain and heartstrings, 
 Sounds the Erinnys' ghastly song, 
 Freezing alike the blood and marrow : 
 No lyre may mark its cadence long. 
 
 " Of surety it is well with him 
 Whose soul no stain of guilt can dim ; 
 We may not come his steps anear, 
 He walks Life's path all free from fear. 
 But woe and treble woe upon him 
 Who strives to hide his Sin from light, 
 For on the murderer's trace we fasten, - 
 The dark and fearful Race of Night. 
 
 " Thinks he by flight to win a truce ? 
 Nay, the winged hunters throw their noose 
 Around his feet to tangle fast, 
 So he must fall to earth at last. 
 We hunt him on, and know no slackening, 
 Repentance wins no moment's peace, 
 We hunt his soul to Hades' shadow, 
 Nor shall he find in death release ! "
 
 62 SCHILLER. 
 
 Such are the words the Chorus saith, 
 And utter silence, deep as death, 
 Over the audience vast doth lie, 
 As if an unseen god were nigh. 
 Solemn and grim, in ancient fashion, 
 They circle round those Forms of Fear, 
 With slow and measured steps returning, 
 And in the background disappear. 
 
 Men shudder in a half-belief, 
 And hearts that tremble like a leaf 
 Do homage to that fearful Might, 
 Which sees all hidden sins aright, 
 Which dark, inscrutable unfathomed, 
 Weaves the dark web of Destiny. 
 Knows every heart and every spirit, 
 Yet from the sunlight still must flee. 
 
 Forthwith upon the highest tier, 
 
 A sudden voice shrills loud and clear, 
 
 " See there, see there, Timotheus, 
 
 See there ! The Cranes of Ibykus ! " 
 
 And blacker grew the sullen heaven, 
 
 And over the assemblage high 
 
 Men saw through thunder-clouds half riven, 
 
 The dark crane-army travel by.
 
 THE CRANES OF IBYKUS. 63 
 
 "Oflbykus!" At that dear name 
 Flashed smouldering wrath to burning flame. 
 As in the JEgean wave strikes wave, 
 So in their wrath the people rave. 
 "'Of Ibykus ! ' of the lost Singer ? 
 He whom some felon-hand struck down ? 
 What was the cry, what is its meaning ? 
 What of the dark crane-phalanx brown ? " 
 
 The questioning shouts grow still more loud, 
 There runs throughout the heaving crowd 
 A flash like lightning, sudden-bright, 
 " The Eumenidae show their might ! 
 The singer's death shall soon be wroken, 
 His murderer sits among us here ! 
 Seize him by whom the words were spoken, 
 And seize his comrade sitting near ! " 
 
 Yet he who gave the sudden scream, 
 In silence safe himself may deem ; 
 In vain. The lips that quivered white 
 Revealed his guilt in all men's sight. 
 They haled them to the seat of judgment, 
 And sentence on them straight was passed, 
 Then, conscience -struck, they owned the 
 
 murder. — 
 Vengeance had found them at the last !
 
 64 SCHILLER. 
 
 HECTOR'S FAREWELL. 
 
 ANDROMACHE. 
 
 "Will my Hector turn him where for ever 
 Peleus' son with hands that shred and sever, 
 
 To Patroclus fearful offering brings ? 
 Who shall teach thy young Astyanax 
 Spear to poise and wield the two-edged axe 
 
 When thy soul its flight to Hades wings ? " 
 
 HECTOR. 
 
 " Idle fears, sweet wife, thy soul are thronging 
 To the fighting-field streams out my longing, 
 
 Arms of mine are shield to Pergamus. 
 Fighting for the Holy Hearth and Altar 
 Though I fall, with soul that cannot falter, 
 
 Sink I downward to the Stygian hush."
 
 HECTOR'S FAREWELL. 65 
 
 ANDROMACHE. 
 
 " Never shall I list thy weapons' clanging, 
 On the bright blade at thy side now hanging 
 
 Rust shall gather, and thick dust shall lie. 
 Wilt thou go where no friend-voice thee haileth, 
 Where Cocytus through the darkness waileth, 
 
 Where thy love in Lethe's stream shall die ? " 
 
 " All the dreams of Hector, all his thinking 
 In the depth of Lethe may be sinking, 
 
 But his love, — not so. 
 Hark the clang ! the Greeks our walls are scaling, 
 Gird my hero-sword on, cease thy wailing ; 
 
 Hector's love shall die in Lethe ? No."
 
 66 SCHILLER. 
 
 THE DIVER.* 
 
 " O, WHERE is the knight or squire so bold 
 
 To dive mid yon billowy din ? 
 I cast down a cup of the purest gold, 
 
 Lo ! the whirlpool has sucked it in ! 
 I grant the prize of that costly cup 
 To the venturous hand that shall bear it up." 
 
 The monarch he spake as he proudly stood 
 
 On the cliff's o'erhanging steep, 
 And he plunged the cup in Charybdis' flood 
 
 Into the arms of the endless deep : 
 "Now who is so gallant of heart," he cried, 
 "As to venture his life in yon raging tide?" 
 
 They listened, that goodly company, 
 
 And were mute, both squire and knight ; 
 
 For they silently gazed on the wild, wild sea, 
 
 And they dare not strive with the whirlpool's might ; 
 
 And the king, for the third time, loudly spake, 
 
 " Will no man dive for his monarch's sake ? "
 
 THE DIVER. 67 
 
 But silently still they gaze and stand, 
 
 Till a gentle page and bold, 
 Stepped lightly forth from the shuddering band, 
 
 And loosed his scarf and his mantle's fold, 
 While warriors and ladies around the place, 
 All wondering look on his fearless face. 
 
 And lo ! as he stands on the outermost verge, 
 
 He sees, in the dark seas gushing, 
 The struggling waves of the mighty surge, 
 
 From the muttering depths of the whirlpool rushing 
 And their sound as the sound of thunder is, 
 And they leap in their foam from the black abyss. 
 
 And it hisses, and eddies, and seethes, and starts, 
 
 As if water and fire were blending, 
 Till the spray-dashing column to heaven up-darts, 
 
 Wave after wave everlastingly sending — 
 Never exhausted, and never at rest, 
 Like a new sea sprung from the old sea's breast. 
 
 But the terrible storm is at length asleep ! 
 
 Black amid snow-white spray, 
 A fathomless chasm yawncth deep — 
 
 Such portal dream we to hell's dark way ! 
 And see the fierce wrangling billows now 
 Drawn down to those hungry depths below.
 
 68 SCHILLER. 
 
 Then quick, ere the tempest again awakes ! 
 
 The youth but kneels to pray ; 
 And a cry of horror from each lip breaks — 
 
 He is whirled in the whirling stream away ! 
 And the greedy jaws of the fierce, white wave 
 Mysteriously shut o'er the swimmer brave ! 
 
 All smooth is the surface ; beneath is heard 
 
 A muttering deep and suppressed ; 
 From lip to lip passes the trembling word, 
 
 " God speed thee, great spirit and dauntless breast ! 
 Then they pause, and they listen right fearfully 
 To the gathering howls of the hollow sea. 
 
 King, if thou cast in thy crown of gold, 
 And say, " He who wins the gem, 
 
 Kingdom and crown for his own shall hold! " 
 Small were my wish for the diadem ; 
 
 For how should a living soul reveal 
 
 What the howling seas in their depths conceal ? 
 
 Full many a stately ship hath rushed 
 
 Down to yon bubbling wave, 
 And mast and keel, all shattered and crushed, 
 
 Arose from the depth of the deadly grave. 
 Nearer and nearer that deep sound now 
 Comes like a tempest at work below,
 
 THE DIVER. 69 
 
 And it hisses, and eddies, and seethes, and starts, 
 
 As if water and fire were blending, 
 Till the spray-dashing column to heaven up-darts, 
 
 Wave after wave everlastingly sending : 
 Whose sound as the sound of thunder is, 
 Where they rush with a roar from their black abyss. 
 
 But see ! what shines from the dark flood there, 
 
 As a swan's soft plumage white ? 
 An arm and a glittering neck are there — 
 
 They busily move with a swimmer's might. 
 It is he ! and lo ! in his left hand high 
 He waves the goblet exultingly. 
 
 He is breathing deep, he is breathing long, 
 
 As heaven's glad ray he hails, 
 While merrily shout the rejoicing throng — 
 
 " He lives ! he is here !" and the fierce wave quails; 
 From the depths where the waters battle and roll, 
 The brave youth has brought back a living soul ! 
 
 And he comes, while the gay troop cluster round — 
 
 He bends at his sovereign's feet, 
 And he gives him the cup, kneeling low on the ground ; 
 
 And the king hath beckoned his daughter sweet, 
 And she crowns the goblet with wine's bright spring, 
 While the bold youth speaks to the wondering king.
 
 70 SCHILLER. 
 
 " Long life to our monarch ! and joy to those 
 Who breathe in the light of the blushing sky ! 
 
 It is fearful there, where the dark wave flows, 
 Nor should man tempt the gods on high, 
 
 Nor ever to seek those sights presume 
 
 Which they graciously curtain with night and gloom. 
 
 " Down ! down I shot like a lightning flash, 
 When, lo ! from the depths of the rocky ground, 
 
 Did a thundering torrent to meet me dash. 
 Like a child's frail top I spun around, 
 
 Powerless and weak; for how should I fight 
 
 With the double stream in its raging might ? 
 
 " Then Heaven, to whom I bitterly cried, 
 Displayed, through the driving foamy blast, 
 
 In the depths of the sea, a rock's bare side; 
 I grasped the edge, I was safe at last ! 
 
 And there hung the cup on its coral brow, 
 
 Saved from the bottomless depths below ! 
 
 " For the purple darkness of the deep 
 
 Lay under my feet like a precipice ; 
 And though there the ear must in deafness sleep, 
 
 The eye could look down the sheer abyss, 
 And see how the depths of those waters dark 
 Were alive with the dragon, the snake, and the shark !
 
 THE DIVER. 7\ 
 
 " There, there they clustered in grisly swarms, 
 
 Curled up into many a hideous ball ! 
 The sepia stretching its horrible arms, 
 
 And the shapeless hammer — I saw them all ! 
 And the loathsome dog-fish with threatening teeth, 
 Hyena fierce of the sea beneath. 
 
 " In horrible consciousness there I stayed, — 
 One soul, with feeling and thought endued, 
 
 : Mid monsters afar from all earthly aid, 
 Alone in that ghastly solitude ! 
 
 Far, far from the sound of human tone, 
 
 In the depths which the sea-snake calls her own ! 
 
 "And shuddering, I thought, 'They are creeping more 
 near, 
 
 They uncoil! and they straighten their hundred joints, — 
 They will clutch me soon ! ' In my frenzied fear 
 
 I loosed my hold of those coral points. 
 I was seized by the whirling stream once more ; 
 But it saved me now — for it rose to shore ! " 
 
 The monarch he marvelled that tale to hear, 
 
 And he spake — " The cup is thine ! 
 Now win me this ring of jewels clear — 
 
 See how its gleaming diamonds shine ! 
 Go down yet again, and bring word to me 
 What thou find'st in the uttermost depths of the sea."
 
 72 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 i" 
 
 His daughter, she listened in fear and shame, 
 
 And with winning tones she spake, 
 " father ! enough of this terrible game ! 
 
 Think what he hath dared,— at thy word, — for thy sake ! 
 Or if thou yet longest with quenchless desire, 
 Twice shall these knights be shamed by a squire 
 
 Then the monarch he quickly grasped the cup, 
 
 And he hurled it far below. — 
 " If once again thou can'st bear it up, 
 
 The first of my knights will I dub thee now ! 
 And thou shalt win as thy bride this day, 
 This maid who so sweetly for thee doth pray ! " 
 
 Through his spirit no earthly fire is rushing, 
 
 And fearlessly flash the page's eyes, 
 For he sees how that fair young face is blushing, 
 
 He sees how it droops, as the bright tint dies. 
 Burning such noble prize to win, 
 For life or death he plunges in ! 
 
 Again that groaning ! — that low deep sound 
 
 That heralds the thunder-crash. 
 With anxious looks they are gathering round,— 
 
 It cometh, it cometh, the waves' wild clash ! 
 Backward and forward it rushes and roars, 
 But alas ! the youth no wave restores. 
 
 {Boys' Own Magazine.)
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 73 
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 
 
 What means this rush of hurrying feet, 
 Sounding through every lane and street ? 
 Arc Rhodus' roofs with fire a-blaze ? 
 Men thronging choke the narrow ways, 
 And, high above the seething crowd, 
 I see a knight's plume waving proud. 
 Behind, a sight to make men quail, 
 A monster strange and huge they trail, 
 It seems a dragon by its size, 
 Such jaws befit the crocodile ; 
 They watch the knight and watch his prize, 
 Lost in their wonder for a while. 
 
 A thousand tongues shout ceaselessly, 
 " That is the monster, come and see ! 
 Our herds and herdsmen he devoured, 
 At last the brute is overpowered ; 
 Before this hero many a knight 
 Went forth to wage the unequal fight,
 
 74 SCHILLER. 
 
 Yet no man e'er returned his ways. 
 Give to the noble conqueror praise ! " 
 And to the cloister on they go, 
 Where sit the knights of good St. John, 
 Whom men as Hospitallers know. 
 Into the council they have gone. 
 
 Before the Knight Grand-Master's face 
 The young knight takes his wonted place, 
 And all the folk with cheer and shout 
 Throng on the landing-steps without. 
 The hero speaks when all are stilled, 
 " My knight's devoir have I fulfilled. 
 The dragon which laid waste the land, 
 I met and conquered, sword in hand, 
 The ways are for the wanderer free, 
 The herd no more in stall need pine, 
 And safe the pilgrims now shall be 
 That travel to Our Lady's shrine." 
 
 Sternly the Master gave him heed, 
 Then saith, " It was a noble deed ! 
 Such feats have honoured knights of old, 
 Thy soul was great, thy heart was bold. 
 Do thou repeat the first pledge now 
 Of knights that take our holy vow,
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 75 
 
 Whose shoulders bear the blessed sign." — 
 White grows the listening faces' line, — 
 The young knight speaks with reverence low, 
 While o'er his cheeks a blush doth flit, 
 " Tis by obedience men may know 
 A knight to bear the Cross is fit." 
 
 "This duty that thou shouldst have kept, 
 
 Son, thou hast boldly overstept : 
 
 The fight our Order's law gainsaid 
 
 Was impious," the Master said. 
 
 "Judge, Lord, when thou hast heard my tale," 
 
 The youth replied, nor did he quail. 
 
 " Our Order's higher law and will 
 
 I sought most truly to fulfil. 
 
 Not without thought did I go hence 
 
 To wage the fight for death and life ; 
 
 With wily sleights for my defence, 
 
 I hoped to conquer in the strife. 
 
 " For of our Order five, the best, 
 Already had (God give them rest !) 
 Lost life in that wild game they played, 
 When thou the waste of life gainsaid. 
 Yet at my heart the longing lay 
 To know the joy of that fierce fray,
 
 76 SCHILLER. 
 
 I started from my couch at night 
 Gasping in dreams of close-locked fight. 
 And when the morning dawned unblest, 
 Fresh terror spread the country through, 
 My heart beat high within my breast, 
 I swore to wage the war anew. 
 
 " What honours youth ? — my musings ran,- 
 
 What deeds give glory to the man ? 
 
 What did the mighty heroes bold 
 
 Of whom we read in legends old, 
 
 In whom misguided heathens blind 
 
 The avatars of gods did find ? 
 
 They cleansed the world from west to east 
 
 Of many a strange and monstrous beast, 
 
 They met in fight the lion grim 
 
 And battled with the Minotaur 
 
 To free the victims claimed by him ; — 
 
 Such deeds as these a beacon are. 
 
 " Must the Crusader's knightly sword 
 Fall only on the Paynim horde ? 
 Fights he alone with false gods ? Nay, 
 World-champion is the knight I say ! 
 The world in every need and harm 
 Must seek salvation in his arm.
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 77 
 
 Courage is much, nor wisdom less, 
 
 And strength must yoke with wiliness. — 
 
 So oft I spake, and went alone 
 
 To find the dragon's track of fear, 
 
 A sudden light upon me shone, 
 
 I cried, ' Thenk Heaven ! My path is clear ! : 
 
 "Then, Sire, I asked a grace of thee, 
 ' I fain my home rgain would see.' 
 Thou grantedst me the easy boon, 
 And the grey sea was crossed right soon. 
 When I had reached my fatherland, 
 I made a faithful craftsman's hand 
 A dragon's likeness grim portray 
 Distinct in every hue and trait. 
 On short distorted legs and feet 
 Rested the hideous body's weight, 
 And o'er the back the scales did meet, 
 A fearful corslet's mail and plate. 
 
 " The long neck showed a bristly fell, 
 And, gruesome as the gate of hell, 
 The mighty jaws were gaping wide 
 As if some prey the creature spied. 
 In the black gulf that yawned beneath 
 Were rows of sharp and pointed teeth,
 
 78 SCHILLER. 
 
 Like to a sword-point was the tongue, 
 
 From the small eyes green lightnings sprung 
 
 The uncouth body's loathly length 
 
 Was ended in a serpent's train, 
 
 So it could coil its fearful strength 
 
 Round man and horse and crush the twain. 
 
 " So stood the monster, trait by trait, 
 
 O'er-clad with cloth of dusky grey, 
 
 Half salamander and half snake, 
 
 Begotten in some poisonous lake. 
 
 When the completed work stood there 
 
 I chose of noble hounds a pair, 
 
 Strong, swift, and bold ; such dogs are they 
 
 That drive the Urus wild to bay. 
 
 I set them at the mimic brute, 
 
 With voice and hand I hound them on, 
 
 Until they grow more resolute, 
 
 And fasten savagely thereon. 
 
 " And where the belly soft and white 
 Gave vantage for the hounds' sharp bite, 
 I taught them to attack it fierce, 
 With pointed teeth to gnaw and pierce. 
 With bow and arrows fit for need 
 I mount my noble well-tried steed,
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 79 
 
 Of the best blood of Araby, 
 Of matchless speed and mettle high. 
 Straight at the dragon-form I ride, 
 The charger with my spur I prick, 
 And cast my arrows at its side, 
 As if to pierce the corslet thick. 
 
 "Although the horse reared back from it, 
 
 And in his terror champed the bit ; 
 
 Though the hounds shrunk when urged to near, 
 
 I trained them till they lost all fear. 
 
 And so we practised on and on 
 
 Till the third moon upon us shone. 
 
 When they aright their lesson knew 
 
 We sailed across the ocean blue ; 
 
 'Tis but three mornings since I stood 
 
 Again upon my native strand, 
 
 Each idle minute's rest I rued 
 
 Till to the work I set my hand. 
 
 '* How could my heart in peace lie still ? 
 New terror all the land did fill ; 
 Torn in the swamp the herdsmen lay 
 Who in the marsh had lost their way. 
 And I resolved upon the deed, 
 Listing but to mine own heart's rede,
 
 So SCHILLER. 
 
 I told my squires of mine intent, 
 And through the secret ways I went, 
 Mounted upon my proven steed, 
 And with my noble hounds beside ; 
 No witness there could mark my deed, 
 As on the Quest we forth did ride. 
 
 "Thou know'st, my Lord, the tiny church 
 High on the mountain set a- perch, 
 It looks o'er all the island fair, 
 'Twas a bold spirit set it there ! 
 The outside is but poor and mean, 
 But o'er the altar may be seen 
 The pictured Maiden Mary mild, 
 The Three Kings, and the Holy Child. 
 Thrice thirty steps wind up the path 
 By which the pilgrim climbs the height, 
 Yet he forgets them when he hath 
 The sweet Lord's face before his sight. 
 
 " Hollowed within the mountain-side 
 Is a dark grotto, low and wide, 
 On floor and walls swamp vapours steam, 
 Within its darkness shines no beam. 
 Within the Dragon housed, and lay 
 At ravenous watch both night and day,
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 81 
 
 Here coiled he, like Hell's greedy snake, 
 And near God's house his lair did make, 
 So when the pilgrim wandering there 
 Began to climb the rocky way, 
 Unknowing of the springe and snare, 
 The wily monster seized his prey. 
 
 " And now I scaled the rocky height ; 
 Ere I should dare the desperate fight, 
 The holy place I knelt within 
 To purify my soul from sin. 
 And in that temple of the Lord 
 I donned my harness, girt my sword, 
 In my right hand I grasped my spear, 
 And took the downward path of fear, 
 Some hasty last commands I flung 
 Unto my squires who stayed behind, 
 Into my saddle then I sprung, 
 And to God's care my soul resigned. 
 
 " Scarce had I reached the even plain, 
 When both the hounds gave tongue amain, 
 My horse began to pant and rear, 
 Recoil and gasp in sudden fear, 
 For, basking on the sun-warmed soil, 
 There lay the foe in hideous coil, — 
 
 6
 
 82 SCHILLER. 
 
 Scarcely his loathly length we knew. 
 
 My noble dogs upon him flew, 
 
 But back, as arrows swift, they rushed, 
 
 When the black jaws yawned sudden-wide, 
 
 From whence the poisonous breath out-gushed. 
 
 Then, like a jackal's whine, it cried. 
 
 " The hounds with voice and hand I cheer, 
 Again the foe they venture near, 
 The spear I poise in air and whirl, 
 Then at the monster's loins I hurl ; 
 But, powerless as a staff, good lack ! 
 The scaly corslet hurls it back, 
 And ere I can renew the cast, 
 My steed rears up as if aghast 
 At the brute's basilisk-like eyes, 
 And at his hot and poisonous breath, 
 And from the combat back he flies, — 
 That hour I stood at gaze with Death ! 
 
 " From selle I sprang in naught afraid, 
 Out flashed from sheath my well-tried blade, 
 Yet though my strokes fell fast and fierce, 
 The scaly mail I could not pierce ; 
 Its tail coiled both my feet around, 
 And dashed me headlong to the ground !
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 83 
 
 Close are the hideous teeth and claws, 
 Above me yawn the open jaws — 
 'Twas well for me that in that tide 
 My gallant hounds dashed in between, 
 And seized the beast by throat and side, 
 Or else its victim I had been. 
 
 "And ere the brute again was free 
 I rose again right speedilie, 
 I saw its belly white and bare, 
 And deep I plunged my falchion there. 
 Up to the hilt in flesh it stood, 
 Out leapt the jet of dark-red blood ! 
 Stark-dead down falls the monster great, 
 And buries me beneath its weight. 
 All sense and feeling passed from me, 
 But when I ope my swimming eyes, 
 My squires around me there I see, 
 Dead in his blood the Dragon lies." 
 
 Now that the story was told out, 
 The folk could give the long-pent shout, 
 When all the gallant tale is spoken, 
 Out the applause at length has broken. 
 To the groined roofs of that high hall 
 The shout rose up from one and all ;
 
 84 SCHILLER. 
 
 Even the stern Order's proud acclaim 
 Greets him as worth a hero's fame, 
 The thankful people ready near 
 To bear him forth in triumph stand, 
 Yet the Grand Master frowns austere, 
 And " Silence ! " sternly doth command. 
 
 "The Dragon, that laid waste the land, 
 Hath fallen," he saith, "beneath thy hand. 
 The folk may hold thee god,— but know 
 Thine Order holds thee as its foe ! 
 Thine heart a serpent nourisheth 
 Worse than the one that met its death. 
 The snake that poisons all within, 
 That breeds disunion, ruin, sin, 
 Is the ill spirit that resists 
 All due control, which, men can tell, 
 Breaks Peace and Order's golden twists, 
 And makes God's world like Satan's hell. 
 
 " Valour even Paynims show in fight, 
 Obedience decks Christ's chosen knight ; 
 For where the Lord of Heaven and Earth 
 Took servant's place and mortal birth, 
 Upon the soil of Palestine 
 Our fathers took the pledge we sign,
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 85 
 
 They swore to strive and struggle still 
 
 To crush the serpent of self-will : 
 
 You played for fame, — you won your stake, — 
 
 Now go for ever from our sight ! 
 
 On you Christ's yoke you would not take, 
 
 To bear Christ's cross you have no right." 
 
 The voices of the outraged folk 
 
 Into a sudden storm outbroke, 
 
 For him the Chapter supplicate, 
 
 But silently he hears his fate, 
 
 Doffs the Crusader's mantle, and 
 
 Kisses his stern Superior's hand, 
 
 And goes. The Master's looks were bent 
 
 On him, as humbly forth he went, 
 
 He called him, "To my arms, my son ! 
 
 Thou conqueror in this harder fight, 
 
 Take thou thy Cross. It has been won 
 
 By this self-conquest in our sight ! "
 
 86 SCHILLER. 
 
 THE COUNT OF HAPSBURG. 
 
 At Aachen in his kingly might, 
 
 Within the ancient hall, 
 Sat Emperor Rudolf on the night 
 
 His crowning-feast did fall. 
 The meats they were carved by the Count Palatine, 
 The King of Bohemia he served him the wine, 
 
 And the Seven Electors they gleamed 
 Around him as stars round the sun stand in heaven ; 
 They did him such suit and such service, the Seven, 
 
 As of right to their office beseemed. 
 
 The lofty balconies around 
 
 Were thronged with loyal folk, 
 And through the silver trumpets' sound 
 
 Their acclamations broke ; 
 For, after long years of strife and of stress 
 The land no longer was emperorless, 
 
 A ruler and judge was again upon earth. 
 No more should the country be ruled by the spear, 
 Nor the weak and the peaceful crouch cowering in fear, 
 
 Before tyrants of noble birth.
 
 THE COUNT OF HAPS BURG. 87 
 
 The Kaiser lifts his cup of wine, 
 
 And speaks with glances bright : 
 " Well doth your glorious banquet shine, 
 
 To give my heart delight ; 
 Vet music is wanting, of all things the best, 
 That shall move and shall soften the heart in my breast. 
 
 So it hath been with me from of old, 
 And the doctrine in youth that I held for true 
 My faith and my practice my knighthood through, 
 
 As an emperor still I hold." 
 
 Wrapt in his long talaria's fold 
 
 The minstrel then appears, 
 Amid the ring of princes bold, 
 
 His locks are white with years. 
 " Sweet music sleeps in my golden strings ; 
 'Tis of love's reward that the minstrel sings. 
 
 He praises the highest and best 
 Of all things that are wished or desired by the heart ; 
 At this feast of his crowning, what thing of my art 
 
 Would Kaiser Rudolf request ?" 
 
 " Nay, thou art not in my command," 
 
 Did Kaiser Rudolf say, 
 " A greater lord doth rule thy hand, 
 
 A greater impulse sway. 
 As through the air the storm-wind blows,
 
 88 SCHILLER. 
 
 None knowing whither it comes or goes, 
 
 As fountains from earth upstart, 
 So the song of the singer must rise from his soul 
 And awake those hid feelings, by mystic control, 
 
 That sleep in the depth of the heart." 
 
 Straightway the minstrel strikes the strings, 
 
 They answer ringingly : 
 " A hero once rode to the hunt," he sings, 
 
 " To chase the Gemsbock free. 
 His squire rode after with weapons for need, 
 And, as the Count on his noble steed 
 
 Was riding the lea-land o'er, 
 He heard a bell ring out on the air ; 
 'Twas a priest who did pyx and chalice bear, 
 
 And his sacristan strode before. 
 
 " The Count leapt down from saddle-seat, 
 
 And bared his plumed head, 
 With pious reverence to greet 
 
 The hallowed wine and bread; 
 But a brook roared past with waters brown, 
 Where the Giessbach' flood came tearing down, 
 
 And travellers' footsteps stayed. 
 The priest he laid the pyx aside, 
 From his feet the sandals he untied, 
 
 And stood ready the brook to wade.
 
 THE COUNT OF HA PS BURG. 89 
 
 " ' Now wherefore this, I fain would know ?' 
 
 The Count in wonder stood : 
 ' My Lord, to a dying man I go, 
 
 Who longs for the heavenly food ; 
 Across the bridge mine errand lay, 
 But the Giessbach' flood has torn it away, 
 
 And never a plank is there. 
 For the sake of him who dying lies, 
 I will wade the water in lowly guise, 
 
 Therefore my feet I bare. ' 
 
 " The Count he set him on his steed, 
 
 The reins in his hand did lay, 
 To ride to him that was in need, 
 
 Nor in his course delay. 
 And he, on the horse that had borne his squire, 
 In the chase had full of his heart's desire ; 
 
 The priest on his errand sped, 
 And with thankful look next morn did wait 
 With the good Count's horse at his castle gale, 
 
 By the bridle modestly led. 
 
 " 'Now, Heaven forfend.'the Count cried then, 
 
 ' That I, in chase or strife, 
 Should ever back the steed again 
 
 That bore the Lord of Light ! 
 If to keep it thou art forbidden by vow,
 
 go SCHILLER. 
 
 To the service of God I give it now ; 
 
 To Him who sits on high, 
 Who hath given me all that I have on earth, 
 Both riches and honour and noble birth, 
 
 I give it gratefully.' 
 
 " ' That God thou honourest thus on earth, 
 
 Who hears his servants' prayer, 
 Give thee that honour thou art worth, 
 
 Both here on earth, and There! 
 You ruled in Switzerland right well, 
 And of your justice all folk tell; 
 
 You have six daughters fair, 
 Six kings the maidens six shall wed, 
 Six crowns shall deck your grandson's head, 
 
 And these your race shall bear.'" 
 
 With drooped head sat the Kaiser wise, 
 
 Of long past times he thought, 
 Then turned, and in the singer's eyes 
 
 For the song's meaning sought. 
 He saw the priest of bygone years, 
 And strove to hide his starting tears 
 
 In the royal mantle's fold. 
 All saw the Kaiser moved and pale, 
 And knew the hero of the tale 
 
 The minstrel-priest had told.
 
 BURGER.
 
 LENORE. 93 
 
 LENORE. 
 
 Lenore she woke at morning-red, 
 (O, but her dreams were eerie !) 
 " Love William, art thou untrue or dead ? 
 
 For thy coming I grow weary." 
 He was with old King Frederick's powers 
 Through the fight at Prague in its bloody hours, 
 No message came to tell 
 What chance to him befell. 
 
 The Empress and the King at last 
 
 Decreed the strife surcease. 
 Their warlike thoughts away they cast, 
 
 And made the longed-for peace. 
 And either army did homeward come 
 With clang of trumpet and kettledrum, 
 With joyful sound of singing, 
 And green boughs round them clinging
 
 94 BURGER. 
 
 And far and wide, and wide and far, 
 
 Through every path and street, 
 Folk came to hail them from the war, 
 
 With shouts of joy to greet. 
 " Thank God !" the wives and children cried, 
 "Welcome !" from many a maiden bride, 
 Only Lenore did miss 
 Her lover's clasp and kiss. 
 
 In every face her love she sought, 
 
 Vain was her anxious tasking, 
 For there was none could tell her ought, 
 
 Useless was all her asking. 
 The soldiers passed and left her there, 
 And then she tore her raven hair, 
 Cast herself on the ground, 
 In passionate sorrow drowned. 
 
 The mother ran to clasp her child : — 
 
 " God shield us all from harms ! 
 Dear one, what is this grief so wild ?" 
 
 And clasped her in her arms. 
 " O mother ! mother ! unending woe ! 
 This world and the next to rack may go. 
 The mercy of God is dead ! 
 Woe, woe is me ! " she said.
 
 LENORE. 95 
 
 " Help, God, our Lord ! Look down on us ! 
 
 Child, say ' Thy will be done.' 
 His will is best, though it be thus, — 
 
 Pity us, Holy Son ! " 
 ' ' O mother, mother ! Words and wind ! 
 God robbed me. He is cruel and blind. 
 What use of all my praying ? 
 Now, — no more need of saying." 
 
 " Have pity, Lord ! Thy children know 
 
 Thy help in their distress ; 
 The blessed Sacrament shall grow 
 
 A thing to heal and bless." 
 " O mother, I feel this grief of mine 
 Past help of blessed bread and wine. 
 No sacrament will give 
 Dead men the power to live." 
 
 " My child, it may be thy false true-love 
 
 In a far-off distant land, 
 Has cast off his faith like an easy glove, 
 
 And given another his hand. 
 Whistle him lightly down the wind, 
 His fault will he rue, his loss will he find. 
 The coward will regret his lie, 
 In the hour when he comes to die."
 
 96 BURGER. 
 
 " O mother, mother, « Lost' is Most.' 
 
 ' Forlorn ' is e'en ' forlorn. ' 
 I have bought Death at a mighty cost, 
 
 O, had I ne'er been born ! 
 
 The light of life is quenched, I know, 
 
 Like a torch blown out it is even so, 
 
 And God in heaven is dead. 
 
 Woe, woe upon my head." 
 
 " Enter not into judgment, Lord, 
 Her heart and brain are dazed, 
 Heavy on her is laid thy sword, 
 Through sorrow she is crazed. 
 Forget thine earthly love's distress; 
 Think upon Heaven's blessedness, 
 So that thou shalt not miss 
 The Heavenly Bridegroom's kiss." 
 
 " O mother ! what is dreary heaven ? 
 
 O mother, what is hell ? 
 With him, with him is all my heaven, 
 
 Without him, that is hell. 
 To lights of heaven and earth am I blind ; 
 They are quenched like torches in the wind 
 Blessed ?— Without my love, 
 Not here, nor in heaven above."
 
 LENORE. 97 
 
 So raged the madness of despair, 
 
 Like fire in heart and brain. 
 At God's cruel will she hurled in air 
 
 Wild curses half insane. 
 She beat her bosom, she wrung her hands, 
 Till the sunshine shone on other lands, 
 Till in the evening sky 
 Gold stars shone silently. 
 
 And hark ! a sound of horse's feet 
 
 The eerie night-wind bore. 
 The rider sprang from saddle-seat 
 
 With spur-clash at her door. 
 Hark, at the gate doth the stranger ring ; 
 And the bell it clashes its kling-ling-ling. 
 Softly he called her name, 
 These were the words that came : — 
 
 " Rise up, rise up, mine own sweetheart ! 
 
 Are you sleeping, my child, or waking? 
 
 Is it laughter or weeping that is thy part, 
 
 Is it holding or forsaking ? " 
 " Thou, Wilhelm, — thou, — and night so late? 
 To wake and weep hath been my fate, 
 Such sorrow was betiding : 
 Whence com'st thou hither riding?" 
 
 7
 
 9 8 BURGER. 
 
 " We saddled our horses at midnight deep, 
 
 From Bohmen rode I hither, 
 I come for my bride when the world's asleep, 
 
 But I shall be riding with her." 
 
 " Nay, Wilhelm, come within the house ; 
 
 The wind in the hawthorn holds carouse, 
 
 The clasp of my snow-white arm 
 
 Shall keep my beloved warm." 
 
 " Let the wind set hawthorn boughs a-swing, 
 
 And the storm-sprites rave and harry ! 
 The stallion stamps, spur-irons ring, 
 
 I may not longer tarry. 
 Come, kilt thy kirtle, behind me spring, 
 A hundred miles brook no faltering, 
 For far away is spread 
 My sweetheart's bridal-bed." 
 
 " Is there a hundred miles between 
 
 Us and our bridal-bed ? 
 Eleven has struck on the clock I ween 
 
 And dawn will soon shine red." 
 "Nay, look, my love, at the full moon's face 
 We and the dead folk ride apace, 
 Ere day with darkness meets 
 You shall press your bridal sheets,"
 
 LENORE. 99 
 
 " Now where, dear love, is the bride-chambere, 
 
 And when may we hope to win it ? " 
 " Six planks and two small boards are there, 
 
 It is cool and still within it." 
 " Is there room for me ?" " Of a suretie. 
 Come, kilt thy kirtle and ride with me, 
 For we the guests are wronging, 
 And the bride-bed faints with longing." 
 
 She kilted her kirtle and sprang behind 
 
 On the steed as black as night, 
 And round the rider's waist she twined 
 
 Her arms so soft and white. 
 Into the night away they go 
 Like a bolt that's launched from a steel cross- 
 bow, 
 At every horse-hoofs dint 
 Fire flashes from the flint. 
 
 They ride — they ride — on either hand 
 
 Too fast to see or know them, 
 Fly hedges, wastes, and pasture-land 
 
 The bridges thunder below them. 
 " Dost fear, my love? The moon shines bright. 
 Hurrah ! the Dead ride fast by night. — 
 Dost fear, my love, the Dead ?" 
 " Nay, yet let be the Dead I"
 
 BURGER. 
 
 The black black ravens are croaking there, 
 
 The mass they sing and say, 
 The dirge swells out on the midnight air, 
 " Let us carry the corpse to the clay." 
 The funeral chant the riders hear, 
 There are mourners bearing coffin and bier, 
 The dirge the echoes woke 
 Like the frogs in dreary croak. 
 
 "Ye may bury the corpse at midnight drear, 
 
 With dirge and sound of weeping : 
 I ride through the dark with my sweetheart dear 
 
 To a night of happy sleeping. 
 Come hither, O sexton, O choir, come near 
 And sing the bride-song sweet to hear, 
 Come priest, and speak the blessing 
 Ere we our couch are pressing." 
 
 The phantom show it melts like snows ; 
 
 As if to grant his praying, 
 An eldritch sound of laughter rose, 
 
 But their course knew no delaying. 
 He never checks his horse's rein, 
 And through the night they ride amain ; 
 The flashing fire-flaught flies, 
 The sparks from the horse-hoofs rise.
 
 LENORE. 101 
 
 How flew to right, how flew to left, 
 
 The hills, the trees, the sedges ! 
 How flew to left, to right, to left, 
 
 Townlets and towns and hedges ! 
 " Dost fear, my love ? The moon shines bright. 
 Hurrah ! the Dead ride fast by night. — 
 Dost fear, my love, the Dead ? " 
 "Ah, let them rest, the Dead." 
 
 See there, see there, on the scaffold's height, 
 
 Around the axe and wheel, 
 A ghostly crew in the moon's grey light 
 
 Are dancing a ghastly reel. 
 " Ha, ha, ye foot it lustily, 
 Come hither, old friends, and follow me. 
 To dance shall be your lot 
 While I loose her girdle-knot." 
 
 And the gallows'-crew they rushed behind 
 
 On the black steed's fiery traces, 
 As the leaves that whirl in the eddying wind, 
 
 Or dust the hurricane chases, 
 lie never checks his horse's rein, 
 And through the night they ride amain; 
 The flashing fire-flaught flies, 
 The sparks from the horse-hoofs rise.
 
 102 BURGER. 
 
 On, on, they race by the moon's pale light, 
 
 All things seem flying fast, 
 The heaven, the stars, the earth, the night 
 
 In one wild dream flash past. 
 " Dost fear, my love? The moon shines bright 
 Hurrah ! The Dead ride fast by night. — 
 Dost fear, my love, the Dead ? " 
 "Alas, let be the Dead." 
 
 " Soon will the cock's shrill trumpet blare, 
 
 The sand will soon be run ; 
 O steed ! I scent the morning air ; 
 Press on, brave steed, press on. 
 We have won to our goal through rain and mire, 
 The bride-bed shivers with sweet desire, 
 And dead folk ride apace. — 
 We have reached the trysting-place." 
 
 To a portal latticed with iron grate 
 He galloped with loosened rein, 
 And lightly he struck on that gruesome gate,— 
 
 Burst bolt and bar in twain ! 
 Its iron jaws are split in sunder, 
 Over the graves the horse-hoofs thunder, 
 And shadowy grave-stones loom 
 I' the moonlit churchyard gloom.
 
 LENORE. 103 
 
 In a second's space came a wonder strange, 
 
 A hideous thing to tell. 
 The rider's face knew a ghastly change, 
 
 The flesh from the white bones fell. 
 A featureless skull glares out on her, 
 No hair to wave, and no lips to stir, 
 She is clasped by a skeleton ! 
 Still the weird ride goes on. 
 
 The coal-black stallion snorts and rears, 
 
 Its hoofs dash sparks of fire, 
 Beneath the riders it disappears, 
 They have won to their desire. 
 Wild shrieks on the night-wind come and go, 
 Wild laughs rise up from the graves below, 
 The maiden's heart at strife, 
 Struggled 'twixt death and life. 
 
 Ill spirits ring them in crazy dance, 
 And the dance grows ever d.iftur ; 
 They point at her in the moon's grey glance, 
 
 And howl with eldritch laughter : — 
 " Though thy heart be broken beneath his rod, 
 Rebel not. God in heaven is God. 
 Thou art ours for eternity. — 
 His grace with thy poor soul be ! "
 
 io4 BURGER. 
 
 THE WILD HUNTSMAN.* 
 
 The Rhinegrave winds his horn — " Away ! 
 
 To horse ! on foot 1 The chase ! hurrah ! " 
 Up leaps his steed with eager neigh 
 
 On comes his train with loud huzza ; 
 The hounds uncoupled rush at speed, 
 Clattering o'er bush and brake and mead. 
 
 In Sabbath brightness still and fair, 
 Yon church uplifts its stately tower ; 
 
 The solemn bell that calls to prayer 
 Peals deeply forth the wonted hour, 
 
 While far and lonely, soft and slow, 
 
 The reverent anthem soundeth low. 
 
 Right o'er the hallowed path they ride, 
 With wild halloo and ringing shout : 
 
 Behold ! behold ! on either side 
 A single Horseman joins the rout ; 
 
 A fiery roan the left — the right 
 
 A graceful steed all silver- white.
 
 THE WILD HUNTSMAN. 105 
 
 Who were these riders ? Well I guess, 
 But know not, nor may utter more ! 
 
 A face of spring-tide gentleness 
 
 The youthful right-hand horseman bore ; 
 
 Tawny and fierce, the other's eye 
 
 Shot lightnings like an angry sky. 
 
 " Right welcome ! " cries the hunter loud, 
 " To this our chase right welcome be ! 
 
 No sport can heaven or earth afiord 
 Of fairer fame or merrier glee." 
 
 He clapped his hands with joyous cry, 
 
 And waved his hunting-cap on high. 
 
 " 111 blends thy horn so wild and vain,"— 
 Thus did the right-hand horseman say, 
 
 "With solemn bell and Sabbath strain.— 
 Return ! Forbear the chase to-day. 
 
 O, let thy better self persuade. 
 
 Be not by evil thoughts betrayed ! " 
 
 " The chase, my noble lord ! The chase ! " 
 Eager the left-hand horseman cried ; 
 
 " Let dull bells ring, and pale monks sing, 
 'Tis to the merry chase we ride ! 
 
 Of me come learn thou princely lore, 
 
 And list yon prater's words no more."
 
 io6 BURGER. 
 
 "Well spoken, rider frank and free 1 
 A hero to my taste art thou. 
 
 Let him who loves not venerie 
 
 Mutter his prayers, and knit his brow. 
 
 Out, pious fool ! I hold my way, 
 
 Let it offend thee as it may." 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! o'er dale and hill, 
 O'er field and plain, away they ride ; 
 
 But, right and left, these horsemen still 
 Keep closely at the baron's side. 
 
 Up leaps from yonder sheltering crag 
 
 A stag of ten, a milk-white stag. 
 
 Louder the chief his horn doth wind, 
 Faster, on foot, on horse they fly ; 
 
 Lo ! one by one, before, behind, 
 The panting vassals sink and die. 
 
 ' ' Ay, sink to hell ! a baron's glee 
 
 Must ne'er be marred for such as ye ! " 
 
 Lo ! to a field of yellow corn, 
 
 The trembling stag for refuge flies, 
 
 And see ! a peasant poor and worn 
 Pleads to the Count in piteous guise ) 
 
 " Have mercy, noble baron, spare 
 
 The hope of want, the fruit of care ! "
 
 THE WILD HUNTSMAN. 107 
 
 Forward the right-hand horseman spurred, 
 
 Mildly to check and gently warn ; 
 The left, with many a scoffing word, 
 
 Urges the deed of ruthless scorn. 
 The baron spurns that gentle pleading, 
 And follows where the left is leading. 
 
 " Hence, dog ! " in tones of furious wrath 
 The Count disdains the peasant's woe, 
 
 " Hence ! or I hew thee from my path ! 
 Hence I Gallant comrades, forward, ho ! 
 
 In token that the truth he hears, 
 
 Rattle your whips about his ears ! " 
 
 'Tis said, 'tis done ! On, on they dash, 
 That lowly fence the baron leapt ; 
 
 Behind, with clanging horn and crash, 
 Hound, horse, and man in fury swept — 
 
 Hound, horse, and man the full ears crushing, 
 
 Till the field steamed beneath their rushing. 
 
 Scared by that coming storm, the stag 
 Flies breathless over waving meads — 
 
 Through field and plain, o'er vale and crag, 
 Pursued, but yet unreached, he speeds 5 
 
 And, bootless cunning ! strives to hide 
 
 'Mid gentle flocks in pastures wide.
 
 io8 BURGER. 
 
 But up and down, through wood and plain, 
 And to and fro, through plain and wood, 
 
 The hurrying hounds upon him gain, 
 Scenting his steps, athirst for blood ; 
 
 Their rage the trembling shepherd sees, 
 
 And sues for pity, on his knees. 
 
 "Mercy, O mercy ! Not in sport 
 Make poor and peaceful flocks your prey- 
 
 The hapless widow's sole support ! 
 
 Ah, pause and think ! Oh, do not slay ! 
 
 Spare to the poor their little all — 
 
 Mercy, O mercy! hear my call ! " 
 
 Forward the right-hand horseman spurred, 
 In soothing tones to check and warn ; 
 
 The left, with mocking laugh and word, 
 Urges the deed of ruthless scorn ; 
 
 The baron spurns that gentle pleading, 
 
 And follows where the left is leading. 
 
 " Out of my path, rash cur ! Away ! 
 
 I would that, in yon quivering kine, 
 My dogs could make thyself their prey, 
 
 And yonder beldame wife of thine : 
 Think ye my heart would then be loth 
 Up to yon heavens to send ye both ?
 
 THE WILD HUNTSMAN. 109 
 
 " Hurrah, companions ! Forward there ! 
 
 Ho, tantarara ! hark away ! " 
 Then every hound did raging tear 
 
 With cruel teeth the nearest prey ; 
 Beneath the bleeding shepherd's eye 
 His bleeding flock are rent and die. 
 
 Scarcely, with ever-slackening pace, 
 The stag escapes that murderous crowd, 
 
 With blood and foam on flank and face, 
 He seeks a thicket's midnight shroud. 
 
 Deep in the darkness of the wood 
 
 A hermit's forest-temple stood. 
 
 With crack of whip and clang of horn, 
 With crashing hoofs that shake the air, 
 
 With cries of mirth and shouts of scorn, 
 The wild troop follow even there ; 
 
 Lo, from his prayers aroused, they see 
 
 The hermit come, with gentle plea. 
 
 " Cease, nor pollute this sacred shade ! 
 
 Cease, nor profane this hallowed time ! 
 God's creature cries to him for aid, 
 
 And calls for vengeance on thy crime. 
 For the last time be warned ! Forbear, 
 Or dread destruction and despair ! "
 
 BURGER. 
 
 Forward the right-hand horseman spurred, 
 With anxious eyes to check and warn ; 
 
 The left with many a scoffing word, 
 Urges the deed of ruthless scorn; 
 
 Woe, woe ! he spurns that gentle pleading, 
 
 And follows where the left is leading. 
 
 " Destruction ? Let it fall ! " he cries ; 
 
 " Deem'st thou my heart to overawe ? 
 If yonder cell were heaven or hell, 
 
 To me 'twould matter not a straw ! 
 Away, thou fool ! God's wrath, or thine, 
 Shall never baffle sport of mine. 
 
 " My whip I swing, my horn I wind; 
 
 Hurrah, companions ! Forward there ! " 
 Ha ! — cell before, and train behind, 
 
 At once have melted into air, 
 And shout, and yell, and hunter's call, 
 Sink into death-like silence all. 
 
 The trembling baron gazes round; 
 
 His whip he swings no echo wakes ; 
 He shouts, and cannot hear a sound ; 
 
 He winds — his horn no answer makes; 
 On either flank his steed he spurs; 
 In vain, — it neither starts nor stirs.
 
 THE WILD HUNTSMAN. 
 
 And gradual darkness o'er him now 
 Closes, and closes like a grave. 
 
 'Tis silence all, save deep and low 
 A murmur like a distant wave, 
 
 And lo ! a thunder- voice on high 
 
 Proclaims his sentence terribly. 
 
 " Thou mad blasphemer ! pause, attend; 
 
 God, man, and beast have felt thy wrongs. 
 The groans of thine oppressed ascend 
 
 To him to whom revenge belongs ! 
 Accused, condemned, and sentenced, — see 
 Grim Vengeance lights her torch for thee. 
 
 " Fly, sinner, fly ! and from this hour, 
 Till weary time itself shall close, 
 
 By hell's inexorable power 
 
 Be chased ! — a warning dread to those 
 
 Who scorn at Pleasure's sinful word 
 
 Alike God's creatures and their Lord." 
 
 Lo, swarthy yellow lightning breaks 
 Through the soft shadow of the trees : 
 
 In marrow, bone, and nerve he quakes — 
 lie seems to burn, to thrill, to freeze ! 
 
 Cold Horror frowns before — behind, 
 
 Hisses the storm and shrieks the wind.
 
 BURGER. 
 
 Still raved the blast and roared the storm, 
 When from the womb of earth arose 
 
 A sable hand of giant form ! 
 
 The fingers open — lo ! they close ! 
 
 See, see ! his quivering neck they clench ! — 
 
 See, see ! his head around they wrench ! 
 
 Beneath him yawns a fiery flood, 
 
 Green, blue, and red — its waves of flame 
 
 Swarming with hell's terrific brood 
 Of shapes too horrible to name ! 
 
 Lo, in an instant, from the deep 
 
 At once a thousand hell-hounds leap ! 
 
 Through woods and fields, away ! away ! 
 
 Howling aloud, the sinner flew; 
 But through the whole wide world for aye 
 
 Those baying dogs of hell pursue ; 
 By day in earth's deep caves — by night 
 High in the air they hold their flight. 
 
 Still backward stares his pallid face, 
 
 While forward speeds each shuddering limb. 
 
 He sees those monsters of the chase 
 Athirst for blood : and gaunt and grim — 
 
 The greedy jaws for him that gape, 
 
 And the fiend-huntsman's awful shape.
 
 THE WILD HUNTSMAN. 113 
 
 This is that chase which sweeps aloft, 
 And shall till breaks the day of doom ; 
 
 Startling the lonely wanderer oft 
 When night hath closed, and all is gloom ; 
 
 Seen by full many a huntsman pale, 
 
 Whose lips must never breathe the tale. 
 
 {Boys' Own Magazine.)
 
 II4 BURGER. 
 
 EARL WALTER.* 
 
 (ADAPTED.) 
 
 Earl Walter cries at the stable door, 
 " Come water and groom my steed! " 
 
 And out there came the fairest may 
 That e'er served earl at need. 
 
 " Well may ye save and see, Lord Earl 
 
 Well may ye save and see ! 
 My golden girdle was once too loose, 
 
 Now 'tis too tight for me. 
 
 ' ' My body bears the fruit of love 
 That was 'twixt me and thee, 
 
 My silken coat was all too wide, 
 Too narrow 'tis for me. " 
 
 * This is a translation of the old English ballad, " Childe 
 Waters," but Burger's additional touches are of such beauty 
 that I cannot refrain from inserting it here.
 
 EARL WALTER. 115 
 
 "Fair may, if this be as thou say'st, 
 
 And mine thy child may be, 
 So thou shalt deal my red red gold, 
 
 And deal my white monneye. 
 
 " Fair may, if this be as thou say'st, 
 
 And mine thy child may be, 
 Ye both shall rule my folk and land, 
 
 But, and my castles three." 
 
 " O, Earl, for love and faith and troth 
 
 What counts thy beaten gold ? 
 And not for land and castles three 
 
 Have I mine honour sold. 
 
 "A glance of love from your blue eyes 
 
 Is more in truth to me, 
 Than all thy heaps of beaten gold, 
 
 Than all thy white monneye. 
 
 " A single kiss from your red mouth 
 
 That once gave kisses seven, 
 Is more than lands and castles three, 
 
 Though they were built in Heaven." 
 
 " Fair may, this morning must I ride 
 
 To guest in Weissenstein, 
 With me must ride the loveliest maid 
 
 On cither side the Rhine. "
 
 u6 BURGER. 
 
 " If thou wilt guest in Weissenstein, 
 When dawns to-morrow's day, 
 
 So let me go with thee, Lord Earl, 
 And speed thee on thy way. 
 
 " Though I be not the loveliest may 
 
 On either side the Rhine, 
 Yet will I dead me as a boy, 
 
 And be a page of thine." 
 
 " If thou wilt be a page of mine 
 And change thy sex for me, 
 
 Then thou must short thy gown of silk 
 Two fingers o'er thy knee. 
 
 " And thou must short thy golden hair 
 
 And short it to thine ear, 
 If thou wouldst be a page of mine, 
 
 Or folk at thee would fleer." 
 
 She ran beside his steed that day, 
 All through the hot noon-tide, 
 
 Yet ne'er he spake the courteous word, 
 "Now, Sweetheart, mount and ride !" 
 
 Barefoot she ran through heath and furze, 
 Through thorn and prickly shoot, 
 
 Yet ne'er he spake the courteous word, 
 " Now, Sweetheart, shoe thy foot ! "
 
 EARL WALTER. 117 
 
 " Draw rein, draw rein, thou noble Earl ! 
 
 Ride not so fierce and fast, 
 Alas, my body throbs so sore, 
 
 Some ill will come at last." 
 
 " Fair page, dost see the water wan 
 
 Withouten bridge or ford ? " 
 " O God ! Earl Walter, pity me ! 
 
 I cannot swim, my Lord." 
 
 Withouten word he plunged his steed 
 
 The water wan within ; 
 " Now help me, God in Heaven !" she cries,— 
 
 The water wets her chin. 
 
 She struggles on with foot and hand, 
 
 And up she holds her chin. 
 Earl Walter's heart was beating sore 
 
 When they the shore did win. 
 
 When they had swum that water wan, 
 
 He called her to his knee, 
 " Come here, fair may, and see this light, 
 
 It shines from far for me ! 
 
 " Thou seest a lordly castle shine, 
 
 Gold-roofed it seems to be, 
 Twelve lovely maidens sit therein, 
 
 The loveliest waits for me.
 
 u8 BURGER. 
 
 " Thou seest a stately castle shine, 
 Of marble gleaming wide, 
 
 Twelve lovely maidens dance therein 
 The loveliest is my bride." 
 
 " I see a lordly castle stand 
 Gold-roofed i' the evening sun. 
 
 On thee and on the maid within 
 I ask Christ's benison. 
 
 "I see a stately castle stand 
 Full fair and white this tide. 
 
 Christ's benison be still on thee, 
 And on thy chosen bride." 
 
 The twain rode to the castle fair, 
 Like gold i' the evening light, 
 
 They looked within the castle gate 
 That was of marble white. 
 
 They saw the lovely maidens twelve 
 Were playing at the ball ; 
 
 But fairer than them all was she 
 Who led the steeds to stall. 
 
 They saw the lovely maidens twelve, 
 The dance's circle lead ; 
 
 But fairer than them all was she 
 Who littered down the steed.
 
 EARL WALTER. 119 
 
 Out spake Earl Walter's sister fair, 
 
 And wonderingly spake she, 
 ' ' Your page, good brother mine ? A page 
 
 Was never fair as he. 
 
 " Fairer is he than any page 
 
 That serves the king at court. 
 Yet is his girdle all too tight, 
 
 His gown of green too short. 
 
 " As if he were my mother's son 
 
 I love him standing there. 
 Now may I lead your page this night 
 
 Into a chamber fair ? " 
 
 " Nay, such a page," Earl Walter cried, 
 "Who runs through heath and wold, 
 
 Ye must not lay in chamber fair, 
 Nor lap in cloth of gold. 
 
 "A boy who runs the livelong day 
 Through mud, and dust, and mire, 
 
 May eat his morsel with the dogs, 
 And sleep beside the fire." 
 
 And when the vespers had been sung, 
 
 And all were boune to bed, 
 "Come here, my page, and mark thou well 
 
 My words," Earl Walter said.
 
 BURGER. 
 
 " Go to the castle-town, and search 
 Through every lane and street, 
 
 And bring me straight the fairest maid 
 That thou may'st chance to meet." 
 
 She went into the castle-town, 
 Through every lane and street, 
 
 She brought to him the fairest maid 
 That she could chance to greet. 
 
 "Now let me lie at your bed-foot, 
 Lord Earl, till dawn of day : 
 
 In all the castle is no place 
 Where I my head may lay." 
 
 He beckoned, and the page she sank 
 
 Across her master's feet, 
 And, till the dawn of morning grey, 
 
 She lay in slumber sweet. 
 
 "Hallo ! hallo ! I hear without 
 The herdsmen greet the day. 
 
 Up, lazy page ! and feed my horse 
 With golden oats and hay. 
 
 " Give him his fill of golden oats, 
 
 Of golden oats and hay, 
 So he may fresh and ready be 
 
 To bear me home to-day."
 
 EARL WALTER. 121 
 
 She sank beside the manger there, 
 
 Her travail had begun, 
 And there, within the horses' stall, 
 
 She's borne a fair young son. 
 
 Then rose the ancient Countess up, 
 
 And to her son did call, 
 " Rise up, son Walter, rise and look 
 
 Within thy horses' stall. 
 
 " For in the stall there houses sure 
 
 Some eerie ghost forlorn, 
 It sobs even as a woman sobs 
 
 The hour her child is born." 
 
 Up rose Earl Walter, from the wall 
 
 He caught his garments down, 
 And round his body white he wrapt 
 
 His furred and silken gown. 
 
 And at the stable-door he stood, 
 
 And held him close and still, 
 The sobs the maiden sobbed in pain 
 
 Softened his iron will. 
 
 And, " Lullaby, my little child," 
 
 Between her sobs she said, 
 " Lie still, my babe, nor sob so sore, 
 
 Or thou wilt soon be dead.
 
 BURGER. 
 
 " May God give thee, my little child, 
 
 His choicest blessings all ! 
 Thy mother shall wear a shroud of white, 
 
 Thy father purple and pall." 
 
 " O hold, thou sweetest maid on earth ! 
 
 Mine own true sweet heart, hold ! 
 My heart is not of frozen ice, 
 
 Nor yet of marble cold. 
 
 " O now be still, mine own sweet heart ! 
 
 And sob no more for me, 
 Christening and wedding both to-night 
 
 The self-same hour shall be."
 
 (INLAND.
 
 THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. 125 
 
 THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. 
 
 There stood in times of story a castle proud and high, 
 The sailors saw afar off its turrets pierce the sky, 
 Around were perfumed gardens, a garland rich and fair, 
 Within them rainbow fountains sprang sparkling high in 
 air. 
 
 The king that ruled within it was great in power and 
 
 might, 
 His brows were dark and lowering, his lips with wrath 
 
 were white; 
 His very thoughts are murder, his glance devouring 
 
 flame, 
 His words they fall like scourges, in blood he writes his 
 
 name. 
 
 And to the evil castle came once a minstrel-pair, 
 
 The younger's locks were golden, grey was the other's 
 
 hair; 
 Upon a noble charger the aged singer rode, 
 With untired step beside him his young companion strode.
 
 126 UHLAND. 
 
 Then spake the grey-haired minstrel, " Be ready now, 
 
 my son, 
 Hard is the task that waits us; sing as thou ne'er hast 
 jfk. done, 
 
 -^l Sing of all pain and pleasure, and strain thine utmost art, 
 To-day we strive to soften the brute king's stony heart." 
 
 Soon stand both daring singers within the palace-hall, 
 The throned king is listening, the queen and nobles all : 
 The king in fearful splendour, like the Northern Lights' 
 
 red glare, 
 The queen so soft and gentle, like a moonbeam white and 
 
 fair. 
 
 And, hark, upon the harp-chords his hand the harper 
 
 flings ; 
 What wondrous music shivers from out the stricken 
 
 strings ! 
 Then like a stream came welling the youth's voice 
 
 heavenly clear, 
 It cadenced with the old man's, like an angel's to the ear. 
 
 They sing of love and spring-time, of joy and faithfulness, 
 Of freedom and of manhood, of faith and holiness; 
 They sing all unknown sweetness that comes and passes 
 
 by, 
 
 They sing of all things lofty, that make the heart beat 
 high.
 
 THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. 127 
 
 The courtiers throng around them, — they are not jesting 
 
 now ! 
 The haughty plumes are bending, to God the helmed 
 
 heads bow; 
 The queen's eyes melt and soften, — What are both throne 
 
 and crown ? 
 The rose from out her bosom to the minstrels she throws 
 
 down ! 
 
 " Ye have seduced my people, seduce ye now my queen ? " 
 The king he shrieks in frenzy, trembling in wrathful teen. 
 And at the stripling straightway his battle-blade he flings, 
 Instead of quivering music, the heart-blood quivering 
 springs. 
 
 The crowd of listeners scattered like dust before the 
 
 storm. 
 Upon the old man's bosom there lies a lifeless form, 
 He wraps his mantle round it, he sets it on his horse, 
 And upright in the saddle he binds the mangled corse. 
 
 Before the castle portal the ancient singer stood, 
 He took his harp so wondrous of gold and precious wood, 
 Against a marble pillar he shivered it in twain ; 
 Then shrieked this imprecation till the castle rang 
 amain :
 
 128 UHLAND. 
 
 "Woe, woe, ye palace-chambers! Woe, woe, ye halls 
 
 so proud ! 
 No more shall song or harpings within you sound aloud, 
 But groans and dreary sobbings and stealthy step of 
 
 slaves, 
 Till Vengeance stamps your turrets a-level with men's 
 
 graves ! 
 
 " Woe, woe, ye perfumed gardens, in all your fair May- 
 
 light ! 
 Look on this ghastly, soulless clod, — and wither at the 
 
 sight ! 
 On every spring and fountain shall this sight a seal be 
 
 placed, 
 So ye shall lie in future days a desert, stony waste. 
 
 " Woe to thee, murderer ! Thine hand hath crushed the 
 
 singer's crown ; 
 Fruitless shall be thy striving for the garland of renown, — 
 Thy very name shall perish, despite thy craft and care, 
 Even as a last death-rattle dies out in empty air ! " 
 
 So hath the old man cursed him — and God in heaven 
 
 hath heard ; 
 The halls and ramparts crumble at the minstrel's magic 
 
 word ; 
 One pillar only standeth of the ruined splendours all, 
 And that, already cloven, is nodding to its fall.
 
 THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. 129 
 
 Around, instead of gardens, is a desert heathen land ; 
 No tree gives cooling shadow, no fount breaks through 
 
 the sand ; 
 The king has been forgotten, no bards his deeds rehearse, 
 His very name is vanished ! Such is the Minstrel's 
 
 Curse I
 
 i 3 o UHLAND. 
 
 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 The thrall has stabbed his noble lord; 
 
 For the thrall would fain bear lance and sword. 
 
 He stabbed the knight in the woods asleep, 
 He sank the corpse where the Rhine runs deep. 
 
 He armed himself in the harness bright, 
 On the dead man's horse he sprang so light. 
 
 While he rides o'er the bridge on the charger black, 
 The steed it rears, and would fain go back. 
 
 He goads its flank till the spurs are wet, 
 And the horse springs over the parapet. 
 
 The dead man's corslet drags him down, 
 And the deep Rhine-waters cover the clown !
 
 THE FERRY. 131 
 
 THE FERRY. 
 
 Once across this river's flow 
 Have I ferried years ago ; 
 There the town in evening light, 
 Here the weir's brown waters bright. 
 
 In the skiff beside me then 
 Sat my two best-loved of men. 
 One was old, and wise in sooth, 
 One was rich in hope and youth. 
 
 Both have passed beyond earth's strife : 
 Quiet one in death as life ; 
 But the other passed away 
 In the stormy battle-fray. 
 
 So when I would sing the days 
 Gone and past, too sweet for praise, 
 Still my song in silence ends, 
 Breaking at the names of friends.
 
 1 32 UHLAN D. 
 
 All true friendships last for ever ; 
 And the bonds Death cannot sever 
 Bind the spirit, not the clay : 
 Mine they were, — are mine to-day. 
 
 Take, O ferryman, thy fee, 
 Passage-money this for three ! 
 For beside me on the strand 
 Unseen spirits twain now stand !
 
 THE BLIND KING. 135 
 
 
 THE BLIND KING. 
 
 Why stand upon the North Sea's shore 
 
 The Norsemen all a-ring ? 
 Why lingers there, with floating hair, 
 
 The old and grey-haired king ? 
 Leaning upon his sceptre, 
 
 So loud the king doth plain, 
 The far-off, green sea-islet 
 
 Echoes his words again : 
 
 
 
 " Give, robber, from thy stronghold, 
 
 My daughter back to me ! 
 I miss her sweet voice singing, 
 
 Her harp's sweet melody. 
 You lay in cruel ambush 
 
 And stole my child so fair ; 
 With you is shame eternal, 
 
 With me, a great despair."
 
 136 UHLAND. 
 
 Out stepped the wild sea-rover, 
 
 When thus the cry forth pealed ; 
 His broad blade brown he brought it down 
 
 Clashing upon his shield : 
 " Thou hast so many watchmen, — 
 
 None in her cause did stir ! 
 So many gallant swordsmen — 
 
 Will none cross swords for her ? " 
 
 None answered : and the Norsemen 
 
 Stood still as carven stone ; 
 The old blind king was muttering, 
 
 " Deserted, — and alone ! " 
 His young son clasped his right hand, 
 
 " The place is mine, I trow. 
 Grant me the right of combat. 
 
 Mine arm hath pith enow." 
 
 " O Son, the foe is giant-strong, 
 
 None may against him stand, 
 Yet the son of the king is no niddering, 
 
 I know by the clasp of his hand. 
 Take thou my blade of battle, 
 
 The Skalds have sung its praise ; 
 And, if thou fall, the waves shall end 
 
 Thy father's weary days."
 
 THE BLIND KING. 137 
 
 Hark ! there is sound of rowing, 
 
 The son's skiff puts to sea. 
 The blind king stands and listens, 
 
 They all wait silently. 
 Till o'er the lapping billows 
 
 Sounds the sword's griding screech, 
 And battle-cries of combat, — 
 
 Such is the foemen's speech. 
 
 Then to his knights the old man cried, 
 
 " Speak out, how goes the field ? 
 I hear mine own good sword ring out, 
 
 I hear it clash on shield ! " 
 " The robber-chief has fallen, 
 
 Hath won his felon's meed. 
 Hail to our own strong hero, 
 
 King's son in very deed ! " 
 
 Again there falls a silence, 
 
 The king doth listening stand : 
 "Who come across the swan-bath, 
 
 What boat draws near the land ? " 
 " Thy children come together, 
 
 Thy son in armour fair, 
 And there beside him gleaming, 
 
 Is Gunhild's golden hair."
 
 138 UHLAND. 
 
 " Welcome 1 " from off the cliff-top 
 
 The old man shouted down — 
 " Now shall mine age be joyful, 
 
 My grave shall honour crown. 
 Son, thou shalt lay beside me 
 
 The sword that made her free, 
 The singing of my requiem, 
 
 Gunhild, shall be for thee."
 
 THE THREE SONGS, 139 
 
 THE THREE SONGS. 
 
 King Sifrid sat in his palace-hall ; 
 "Who sings me the sweetest song of all ? " 
 A youth stept out at the royal command, 
 A sword at his girdle, a harp in his hand. 
 
 " Three songs can I sing : the first song that I know, 
 Thou hast known and forgotten long years ago : 
 Thou hast slain my brother through hell-black guile, — 
 Hast slain my brother through hell -black guile. 
 
 "And the second song I have muttered low 
 In the midnights black when the storm-winds blow : 
 Thou must fight his Avenger for life and death, — 
 Must fight his Avenger for life and death." 
 
 He set his harp on the dais-board, 
 White from the scabbard flashed either sword, 
 There was shriek of steel in that lofty hall, 
 Till before the minstrel the king did fall.
 
 140 UHLAND. 
 
 " Ha ! now is the sweetest song the third, 
 And ne'er on my lips shall weary the word : 
 ' King Sifrid lies in his red, red blood, 
 King Sifrid lies in his red, red blood ! ' "
 
 COUNT EBER HARD'S HAWTHORN. 141 
 
 COUNT EBERHARD'S HAWTHORN. 
 
 Count Eberhard the Bearded, 
 From Wurtemberg's fair land, 
 Went on a pious journey 
 To Palestine's far strand. 
 
 And as the Count was riding 
 In greenwood on a day, 
 He cut a branch of blossoms 
 From off a tree of May. 
 
 He placed it in his helmet, 
 Aloft for all to see, 
 He bore it in the battle, 
 He bore it over-sea. 
 
 And then the branch he planted 
 Within his native earth, 
 What time the spring-tide wakens 
 Each tiny seed to birth.
 
 142 UHLAN D. 
 
 The Count, so true and faithful, 
 Came thither every year 
 To see the growing hawthorn 
 He held so lief and dear. 
 
 The Count grew old and weary, 
 The branch was grown a tree : 
 The old man sat beneath it, 
 And dreamed of lands o'er sea. 
 
 The branches' gentle murmur, 
 The leaves that o'er him spanned, 
 Whispered of times long bye-past, 
 And of a foreign land.
 
 RICHARD THE FEARLESS. 143 
 
 RICHARD THE FEARLESS. 
 
 Count Richard, ruler of Normandie, 
 Never knew fear while on earth lived he. 
 
 He rode through the country by night and day, 
 And often spectres barred his way ; 
 
 Yet never knew he a touch of fear, 
 
 Alike were the day and the midnight drear, 
 
 And so fearlessly he at night did ride, 
 
 That the rumour ran through the country-side : 
 
 " Count Richard sees in the blackest night 
 More clear than we in the dayshine bright." 
 
 And, as he wandered throughout the land, 
 If he saw a Minster nigh at hand, 
 
 lie would enter in ; or, if shut the gate, 
 
 He would kneel without though the night were late.
 
 144 UHLAND. 
 
 And once at night, — so runs the tale, — 
 He came to a church in a lonely vale. 
 
 He ordered his squires to ride before, 
 He tied his steed at the chapel-door. 
 
 He entered the aisle so dark and grey, — 
 Within, on the bier, a dead man lay ! 
 
 He brushed close past the sweeping pall, 
 And knelt at the altar with candles tall. 
 
 On a seat he cast his iron glove, 
 
 He kissed the pavement in reverent love. 
 
 He had knelt in prayer but a little while, 
 When behind him something stirred in the aisle. 
 
 The corpse was moving each stiffened limb ; 
 Count Richard looked round, and cried to him : 
 
 " Now whether thou art a saint or a knave, 
 Lie still, and wait for thy quiet grave ! " 
 
 He still knelt on, and ended his prayer, 
 — I know not if short or long it were. —
 
 RICHARD THE FEARLESS. 145 
 
 But, for once, he said at the prayer's end : 
 " Into thy hands I my soul commend." 
 
 He buckled his sword, and turned to go ; — 
 Right in his path stood the spectre-foe ! 
 
 It stretched towards him a threatening arm ; 
 But the Count's stout heart knew no alarm. 
 
 It strove to clutch him in fingers cold, 
 To keep him for aye in the Minster old. 
 
 
 Count Richard had little time for thought, 
 But he bore himself as a brave man ought. 
 
 For straightway he struck at the ghostly shape ; 
 He clove its head from the crown to the nape. 
 
 And the Fearless passed on with unchecked stride, 
 To where his steed at the gate was tied. 
 
 At the churchyard gate did that good knight find 
 His iron gauntlet was left behind. 
 
 And back he went for the glove to search, 
 Again he passed up the aisle of the church. 
 
 IO
 
 146 UHLAND. 
 
 He lifted the glove from off the chair, 
 And out he strode to the open air. 
 
 He found the gauntlet that he did lack : 
 But few there be who would have gone back
 
 CHARLEMAGNE'S VOYAGE. 147 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE'S VOYAGE. 
 
 O Kaiser Karl he sails the sea, 
 And with him sail the Peers ; 
 
 A storm has broken on his ship 
 As to the land he steers. 
 
 Out spoke the brave Sir Roland then : 
 " I can both watch and ward; 
 
 Yet little doth my knowledge serve 
 When waves and winds blow hard." 
 
 Then Holger Dnnsk he took the word : 
 " I strike the harp right well; 
 
 Yet little boots my cunning now 
 When high the waters swell." 
 
 Sir Oliver was sad of mood, 
 Looked on his blade so fair : 
 
 "Ah, could I trust myself as much 
 As my good sword, Hauteclaire ! "
 
 148 UN LAND. 
 
 Then spake the traitor Ganelon ; 
 
 But stolenwise spake he : 
 " The fiend might take my comrades all, 
 
 Were I safe off the sea ! " 
 
 Archbishop Turpin sobbed right sore: 
 " We are God's knights, I wis, 
 
 O come, Sweet Saviour, o'er the sea, 
 Save from a fate like this." 
 
 Richard the Fearless shouted loud : 
 
 " Ye spirits out of hell, 
 Service and help I did you oft, 
 ^ Help me in need as well." 
 
 Sir Naims the Counsellor sighed out : 
 
 " Your counsellor is here, 
 But water fresh and counsel wise 
 
 Are oft on shipboard dear ! " 
 
 Grey-headed Riol spoke the next : 
 
 " I am a warrior old; 
 Liefer I'd have a dry earth grave, 
 
 Than one in water cold." 
 
 It was Sir Guy, that reckless knight, 
 
 Who sang in clear-set steven : 
 "O now would I fly to mine own sweet heart, 
 
 Were I a bird in heaven ! "
 
 CHARLEMAGNE'S VOYAGE. 149 
 
 The good Count Garin muttered low : 
 
 " May God our helper be; 
 Rather I'd drink the red, red wine, 
 
 Than water of the sea." 
 
 " God will not now forget his knights," 
 
 Up spake Sir Lambert free, 
 " For rather I'd eat a good sea-fish 
 
 Than fish should prey on me." 
 
 But noble Gottfried spoke the last : 
 
 " I care not what may fall ! 
 No worse will hap to me I trow 
 
 Than to my comrades all." 
 
 King Karl sat steady at the helm, 
 
 No word by him was spoken : 
 But his kingly hand on the tiller he kept, 
 
 Till the might o' the storm was broken.
 
 i do UHLAND. 
 
 ROLAND, THE SHIELD-BEARER. 
 
 'Twas Kaiser Karl at table sat 
 
 At Aix with prince and peer, 
 And fish and game were on the board, 
 
 And wine ran red and clear. 
 On gold they served both meat and bread, 
 And emeralds green and rubies red 
 
 Were there in right good store. 
 
 Out spake the hero-kaiser, Karl : 
 
 " I have but woe and dule 
 Of all my splendour, while there lacks 
 
 The whole world's crowning jewel. 
 The brightest jewel the world may yield, 
 A giant bears upon his shield, 
 
 Deep in the Ardennes' wood." 
 
 Richard the Fearless, Turpin good, 
 
 And Naims of Bayerland, 
 Haimon, Milon, and Count Garin, 
 
 On sword-hilt laid their hand.
 
 ROLAND, THE SHIELD-BEARER. 151 
 
 For steel they doffed their peaceful weeds, 
 And saddled straight their battle-steeds, 
 To hunt the giant down. 
 
 Out spoke young Roland, Milon's heir : 
 
 " A boon, my father dear ! 
 Though I be all too young to raise 
 
 Against the giant spear, 
 Yet would I fain, good father mine, 
 Bear after thee that lance of thine, 
 
 And bear thy knightly shield." 
 
 And to the Ardennes wood anon 
 The six brave peers did ride, 
 
 But when the forest-skirts they reached 
 They scattered far and wide. 
 
 Roland, behind his father dear, 
 
 Had joy to bear the hero's spear, 
 And bright and glittering shield. 
 
 The gallant knights they wandered wide 
 
 By night and eke by day, 
 But nowhere met the giant-foe 
 
 That they had sworn to slay. 
 Four days had passed ; in slumber deep, 
 At noon, Duke Milon lay asleep, 
 
 Beneath a spreading oak.
 
 152 VHLAND. 
 
 Young Roland in the distance saw 
 
 The flashing of a light, 
 Whose beams that shone throughout the glade, 
 
 Did hart and roe affright. 
 The rays from off a shield were cast, 
 Borne by a giant grim and vast, 
 
 Upon the mountain-side. 
 
 Young Roland's heart beat bold and high : 
 
 " I fear him not, I wis. 
 Nor will I wake my father dear 
 
 For such a foe as this. 
 The good steed wakes while sleeps his lord, 
 Awake are spear and shield and sword, 
 
 Roland is waking too." 
 
 Roland has girt him with the sword, 
 
 Sir Milon's weapon good, 
 Snatched up the spear and grasped the lance 
 
 With shaft of tough ash wood, 
 His father's destrier he bestrode, 
 And softly through the pines he rode, 
 
 Nor broke his father's sleep. 
 
 When to the mountain-side he came 
 Loudly the giant laughed : 
 
 " For reining such a steed as this 
 The child lacks pith and craft.
 
 ROLAND, THE SHIELD-BEARER. 153 
 
 His sword is twice as tall as he, 
 His spear will drag him down, perdie, 
 The shield will crush his arm." 
 
 Young Roland shouted: " To the fight ! 
 
 And thou shalt rue thy jest ; 
 For if my shield be broad and long 
 
 The better for my breast. 
 Together count both horse and man, 
 And arm and sword. Since time began 
 
 One helps the other's strength." 
 
 The giant raised his iron bar, 
 A fell stroke then struck he, 
 
 But Roland's charger swerved aside, 
 The blow fell harmlessly, 
 
 He hurled his spear against the shield, 
 
 Dut the enchanted target's field 
 Has hurled it back again. 
 
 With both hands Roland grasped his sword, 
 
 For heavy was its weight, 
 The giant fain would draw his blade, 
 
 But drew it all too late. 
 For Roland struck a mighty blow 
 Right at the left wrist of his foe, — 
 
 Down went both hand and shield 1
 
 154 UHLAND. 
 
 The shield fell clashing to the earth, 
 
 The giant's courage fled, 
 The jewel alone had given him strength, 
 
 His heart grew cold as lead. 
 The shield was gone, he fain would flee, 
 But Roland struck him on the knee, 
 
 He fell as falls an oak. 
 
 Then Roland seized him by the hair, 
 And from him hewed the head ; 
 "^ A stream of blood ran river-like 
 And o'er the valley spread. 
 From out the giant's shield he broke 
 The jewel whereof the Emperor spoke, 
 And joyed him in its light. 
 
 Beneath his vest he hid the stone 
 And sought the forest well, 
 
 To wash his weapons, so no spot 
 Might of the combat tell, 
 
 And back he rode. In slumber deep 
 
 Duke Milon still lay fast asleep 
 Beneath the oak tree's shade. 
 
 Down by his father's side he lay, 
 Sleep closed his weary eyes, 
 
 Till at his ear, at eventide, 
 Loudly Duke Milon cries :
 
 ROLAND, THE SHIELD-BEARER. 155 
 
 " Son Roland, it is time to wake, 
 And shield and lance in hand to take, 
 To seek our giant foe." 
 
 And up they rose, and through the woods 
 They sought both far and near, 
 
 Roland still rode behind iis sire, 
 And bore the shield and spear. 
 
 They reached the place right speedily 
 
 Where Roland won the victory, — 
 There lay the giant dead. 
 
 His eyes can Roland scarce believe, 
 
 In wonder doth he stand ; 
 There was the giant's bloody corpse, 
 
 Gone were both head and hand. 
 The mighty sword and spear were gone, 
 No shining harness gleamed thereon, 
 
 And trunk and limbs lay bare ! 
 
 Duke Milon looked upon the corpse, 
 And wildly out he broke : 
 
 " The giant sure ! for by the trunk 
 We well may judge the oak, 
 
 The giant, — is there need to ask ? 
 
 Another's hand has done the task ; 
 I slept away my fame."
 
 156 UHLAND. 
 
 King Karl he stood in anxious mood 
 
 Before his castle strong; 
 "Heaven send the Peers safe back to me ! 
 
 They tarry all too long. — 
 Upon my kingly word, I see 
 Duke Haimon riding o'er the lea, 
 
 A head upon his spear ! " 
 
 In dreary mood Sir Haimon rode 
 
 His kingly lord to greet, 
 And, sinking spear-point, laid the head 
 
 Before the monarch's feet. 
 " The head within a copse I found, 
 And near upon the bloody ground, 
 
 The giant's body lay." 
 
 The giant's gauntlet back was brought, 
 
 By Turpin good and true. 
 The stiff cold hand was still within, 
 
 Which forth the bishop drew : 
 "A goodly relic, by my fay ! 
 I found it idly cast away, 
 
 Hewn off within the wood." 
 
 Then Naims the Duke of Bayerland, 
 
 The iron bar brought back ; 
 " See there ! the arm that swung that bar 
 
 Had sure of strength no lack.
 
 ROLAND, THE SHIELD-BEARER. 157 
 
 I' the wood I found the burden great, 
 I sweat beneath its heavy weight ; 
 Give me a cup of wine." 
 
 Count Richard he on foot fared back, 
 
 Beside his burdened steed, 
 Laden with sword and scabbard fair, 
 
 And harness good at need : 
 " There's more for gathering in the wood, 
 If any man the search pursued, 
 
 /have too much, I wis." 
 
 They saw Count Garin ride afar, 
 He swung the giant's shield. 
 
 " Now shall we see the glorious gem 
 That flashes in its field." 
 
 "The shield I have, my masters all, 
 
 The jewel is gone beyond recall, 
 For see its place is blank." 
 
 But, last of all, Duke Milon came, 
 He rode full sad and slow ; 
 
 With reins upon his charger's neck, 
 And plumed head bending low. 
 
 Roland, behind his father dear, 
 
 Was bearing still the tough ash spear, 
 And still the glittering shield.
 
 158 UHLAND. 
 
 But when they to the castle came, 
 To tell of honour's loss, 
 
 Then Roland from his father's shield 
 Loosened the central boss, 
 
 Set in its place the jewel so bright, 
 
 It flashed and shone in glorious light, 
 As doth the sun in heaven. 
 
 The jewel burnt in Milon's shield, 
 
 And made the sunlight pale ; 
 Now to his vassal shouts King Karl : 
 
 " Milon of Anglante, hail ! — 
 For he has met the giant foe, 
 Hath struck the right good sweeping blow 
 
 That made the jewel mine." 
 
 Sir Milon turned, and saw the jewel 
 
 Spread light o'er all the land : 
 " Roland, — how hast thou won the gem ? — 
 
 How came it to thine hand?" 
 " Nay, father, be not wroth I pray. 
 I slew the giant while you lay 
 
 Asleep beneath the oak."
 
 HEINE.
 
 IN A DREAM. 161 
 
 IN A DREAM. 
 
 In a sweet, sweet dream, at dead of night, 
 There came to me by magic sleight, 
 By magic sleight mine own sweet heart, 
 In the chamber where I lay apart. 
 
 I looked at her face in the quiet there, 
 
 A soft smile played on the lips so fair, 
 
 She smiled till my heart with passion swelled, 
 
 And from my lips the words upwelled: 
 
 "All things that I have would I give so free, 
 All things that are dear would I give for thee, 
 If I in thine arms love's joys might know 
 From midnight's hour till the red cock crow." 
 
 The maiden fair she gazed at me 
 So sweetly, strangely, wofully, 
 And spake to me in pleading-wise : 
 " Give me thine hopes of Paradise ! "
 
 j 62 HEINE. 
 
 " My life at its sweetest, my heart's blood best, 
 I would give with joy, and passion's zest, 
 O angel-maiden with thee to live, — 
 But the kingdom of heaven I will not give." 
 
 My words rang out in the chamber lone, 
 Yet ever the lovelier has she grown, 
 And ever she spake in pleading-wise : 
 " Give me thine hopes of Paradise ! " 
 
 In my ear there echoed these words of sin, 
 And straight on my soul a sea broke in ; 
 Its waves of passion broke over me, 
 Till my breath came thick and pantingly. 
 
 There were angels clad in clear white stoles, 
 With their bright heads ringed with aureoles ; 
 But the angel-band was broken through 
 By a dark and gruesome Kobold crew. 
 
 They battled with the angels white, 
 They chased them forth into the night, 
 And next the troop of Kobolds there 
 Evanished into empty air. 
 
 But I was rapt in my happiness, 
 In my arms I held her to clasp and press ; 
 She was nestling near and close at my side, 
 Yet ever she sobbed and bitterly sighed.
 
 IN A DREAM. 163 
 
 I knew why my darling wept so sore, 
 I kissed her till she could sob no more, — 
 "Cease weeping, my dearest, — O Sweet, lie still! — 
 Now give yourself to your lover's will."' — 
 
 " Now give yourself to your lover's will," — 
 Like ice my blood grew frozen-chill, 
 The earth it quaked, and a cavern wide 
 Yawned open at our couch's side. 
 
 And, from the gulf that yawned so black, 
 The Kobold crew came swarming back, 
 From out my arms slipped the white bride ; 
 Alone I stood with none beside. 
 
 The dancing mazes round me wove, 
 And closer still the circles drove ; 
 They seized me in a clutch of fear, 
 And howled hell-laughters in my ear. 
 
 And narrower grew the circles still, 
 A dreadful chant the air did fill : 
 "Thou barteredst Heaven's bliss away, 
 Now thou art ours, and ours alway 1 "
 
 164 HEINE. 
 
 LOVE'S BURIAL. 
 
 My songs that have stirred the nation 
 To its passionate heart of thought, 
 
 Are dead to the soul of their singer ; 
 Let a coffin now be brought. 
 
 I will lay my dead within it, 
 At the darkest hour of night, 
 
 I will kiss them with soft slow kisses, 
 And shut them from my sight. 
 
 Bring me a death-bier hither, 
 Made of white Norway pine ; 
 
 See that its planks be longer 
 
 Than the bridge that spans the Rhine. 
 
 Send me twelve giant-bearers, 
 
 And each must stronger be 
 Than the holy saint St. Christopher. 
 
 They must enter silently,
 
 LOVE'S BURIAL. 165 
 
 And, lifting the coffin, cast it 
 
 Into the salt sea-wave, 
 For the burden that they carry 
 
 Has need of such a grave. 
 
 Well may they plunge the coffin 
 
 So deep beneath the tide, 
 For it holds the love of my manhood 
 
 And my sorrow, side by side.
 
 1 66 HEINE. 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR. 
 
 The mother she stands at the window, 
 The son in bed he lies. 
 "To see the procession passing, 
 My boy, you will surely rise ? " 
 
 " I am so sick, O mother, 
 I would hear and see no more ; 
 I think of my poor dead Gretchen 
 Till the heart in me is sore." 
 
 ' ' With rosary and with missal, 
 With them our way will we take ; 
 There shall thy sick heart be cured thee 
 For the Mother of God's sweet sake."
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR. 167 
 
 The holy banners flutter, 
 In the chant the voices blend ; 
 To Cologne, the Rhine-land city, 
 The pilgrims and sick folk wend. 
 
 The mother and sick son join them, 
 His weight on her arm he lays, 
 Both Stevens swell the chorus : 
 " To Maiden Mary, praise !" 
 
 The Mother of God at Kevlaar 
 Is decked in her best array ; 
 Round her the sick are thronging, 
 She has work to do this day. 
 
 Strange things the sick folk bring her, 
 That round her altar stand, 
 Wax limbs for votive offerings, 
 And waxen foot and hand. 
 
 And the man who offers a wax hand 
 His own shall grow sound and clean; 
 And he who a wax foot offers, 
 His foot shall be healed, I ween.
 
 HEINE. 
 
 To Kevlaar go many on crutches 
 Who afterwards dance on the rope; 
 Men's hands are blithe on the fiddle 
 Who of finger and hand lost hope. 
 
 The mother she took a wax-light, 
 From the wax she shaped a heart. 
 " Give that to the sweet God's Mother, 
 She will heal thine own from smart." 
 
 The son took the wax-heart, sobbing; 
 As Mary's face he beheld, 
 The tears to his eyes came welling, 
 The words from his heart upwelled : 
 
 " Thou Blessed above all women, 
 God's holy maiden pure, 
 Listen, thou Queen of Heaven, 
 To the heart-pain I endure ! 
 
 " Mother and I live together 
 At Cologne in the Rhenish land, 
 The town where hundreds and hundreds 
 Of churches and chapels stand. 
 
 "And Gretchen she lived beside us, 
 But Gretchen she is dead — 
 O Mary, a wax-heart I bring thee, 
 For mine own heart weighs like lead !
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR. 169 
 
 "Heal my heart's-wound I pray thee, — 
 
 And ever will I upraise 
 
 My voice in praying and singing : 
 
 ' To Maiden Mary, praise 1 ' " 
 
 III. 
 
 The ailing son and his mother 
 In their chamber lay asleep; 
 Softly God's Mother entered, 
 Nor broke their slumber deep. 
 
 Over the youth the Figure 
 
 Stooped, and its hand did lay 
 
 Like snow on the heart scarce beating, - 
 
 She smiled and passed away. 
 
 In a dream the mother saw her, 
 And she longed to see yet more ; 
 She wakened from her slumber, — 
 A dog howled at their door. 
 
 .Stretched out and very quiet 
 Lay the son, and he was dead; 
 On the features white and placid 
 The dawning-light shone red.
 
 i 7 o HEINE. 
 
 The hands on the breast she folded, 
 Then stood as one at gaze; 
 But under her breath she whispered, 
 " To Maiden Mary, praise ! "
 
 THE BRIDAL. 171 
 
 THE BRIDAL. 
 
 Why doth my blood so eddy and spin, 
 And my heart burn hot my breast within ? 
 My blood doth throb, and eddy, and pour, 
 And a fire-flame frets my heart at the core. 
 
 The blood in my veins doth so madly stream 
 Because I have dreamt an evil dream ; 
 There came the darksome Son of Night 
 And bore me forth by magic sleight. 
 
 He set me down at a lighted door, 
 There was sound of feasting and wild uproar, 
 And torches' glimmer and candle-shine ; 
 I entered into the hall so fine. 
 
 A wedding it was, as gay as the best ; 
 At the table sat full many a guest. 
 I looked at the pair who sat side by side— 
 O woe ! my true love was the bride.
 
 172 HEINE. 
 
 My sweetheart smiled in her bliss and bloom, 
 
 A stranger sat there as her gay bridegroom ; 
 
 I stood behind the bridal pair, 
 
 Yet no sound could have told her that / stood there. 
 
 The music broke out, but I stood still, 
 
 Their joy with sorrow my heart did fill. 
 
 The bride was radiant with happiness, 
 
 The bridegroom her hands in his own did press. 
 
 The bridegroom filled the beaker up, 
 He drank, to the bride he passed the cup, 
 And the bride she smiled in courteous thank, — 
 O woe ! my heart's red blood she drank. 
 
 The bride a ruddy apple took, 
 And gave to her groom with tender look. 
 With his knife-point sharp he clave it apart — 
 O woe ! what he cleft in twain was my heart. 
 
 They look at themselves in each other's eyes, 
 Then boldly to clasp her waist he tries. 
 On her cheeks he kissed her with passionate breath- 
 O woe ! what kissed me was icy Death.
 
 THE BRIDAL. 173 
 
 My tongue in my mouth seemed heavy as lead, 
 All power of speaking from me had fled ; 
 The music struck up, the dancing began; 
 She danced on the floor with the happy man. 
 
 I stood like a corpse, like a corpse was dumb, 
 While round me floated the dancers' hum ; — 
 A word in her ear the bridegroom speaks 
 And she is not wroth, yet flame her cheeks.
 
 174 HEINE. 
 
 THE STORY OF A NIGHT. 
 
 Strange was the dream that came one night, 
 A dream of horror, and delight ; — 
 Weird visions float before me yet, 
 Wild memories in my heart are set. 
 
 A garden lay before my eyes, 
 
 I walked within its paradise, 
 
 Thick crushed the blossoms round my feet, 
 
 Upturning all their faces sweet. 
 
 The birds they sat and sang above, 
 
 And all their song was " Love — love — love ! " 
 
 The golden sun o'er all did glow, 
 
 The flowers were thick and sweet below. 
 
 The trees wept drops of fragrant balm, 
 The winds were low, the winds were calm. 
 And all was laughing, fair, and bright, 
 Jocund and lovely in my sight.
 
 THE STORY OF A NIGHT. 175 
 
 Amidst that bright and flowery land, 
 I saw beside a fountain stand, 
 A gold-locked maiden strangely fair, 
 Who seemed to wash a white robe there. 
 
 Her cheeks were soft, her eyes were sweet, 
 As some Madonna's are to meet ; 
 She seemed, beside that fount of stone, 
 As one well known, and yet unknown. 
 
 The maiden sang an ancient rhyme, 
 Crooning a song of bygone time ; 
 " Run and ripple; brooklet bright, 
 Wash my linen clean and white." 
 
 Then rose I up and drew anear, 
 
 In idle mood, without a fear, 
 
 And lightly spoke, "O damsel, say 
 
 Whose the white robe you wash to-day ?" 
 
 Then spake she quick, " Be ready soon, 
 Thy shroud I wash, and sing my rune ! ; ' 
 And ere the words had stricken home, 
 The maiden disappeared like foam. — 
 
 The garden vanished. Next I stood 
 In the dark shadows of a wood. 
 The tall green trees above me towered — 
 Strange thoughts my spirit overpowered.
 
 176 HEINE. 
 
 I listened. And upon the breeze 
 Came an axe sound and crash of trees ; 
 Striving by ear the sound to trace, 
 I found at length an open space. 
 
 Between me and the summer sky 
 A giant oak-tree towered on high, 
 And there my fair dream-maiden stood, 
 With ringing strokes the trunk she hewed. 
 
 As the axe rose and fell, each blow 
 Went to song-cadence sweet and low : 
 " Good steel gleaming, good steel bright, 
 Square me the coffin-boards to-night." 
 
 Then to the Form I drew anear, 
 And whispered softly in her ear, 
 " O sweetest maiden, say to me 
 Whose may this oaken coffin be ? " 
 
 Then spake she quick, " The time is short. 
 Of thine own coffin mak'st thou sport ! " 
 And ere the words had stricken home, 
 The maiden disappeared like foam. — 
 
 The forest vanished. And, beneath 
 My eyes, an eerie, darkened heath 
 Lay ghastly in the evening light ; 
 I shuddered at the dreary sight.
 
 THE STORY OF A NIGHT. 177 
 
 One figure turned on that lone wold 
 
 The clods, red-rank like blood-soaked mould ; 
 
 Scarce did I dare to draw anear, 
 
 She was so lovely, yet a Fear. 
 
 Still on the ear her singing came, 
 The words were changed, the tune the same : 
 " Spade, our work is well-nigh done, 
 The grave-mouth gapes, I ween, for one ! " 
 
 Then to the Form I drew anear, 
 
 And whispered softly in her ear, 
 
 " Sweetest, what may this singing mean? 
 
 What means this grave that yawns between ?" 
 
 Then spake she straight, " Be still, nor rave. 
 Here at thy feet lies thine own grave ! " 
 And, as she spoke, there at her side 
 A deep abyss yawned open wide. 
 
 With horror that I may not tell 
 I staggered on the verge, and fell 
 Into the grave with one wild scream — 
 And wakened from that ghastly dream.
 
 178 HEINE. 
 
 THE ASRA. 
 
 Daily, in the cool of evening, 
 Went the lovely Sultan's daughter 
 To the seat beside the fountain, 
 Where white waters plash and sparkle. 
 
 Daily stood her slave at evening, 
 Stood beside the springing fountain, 
 Where white waters plash and sparkle. — 
 Pale he grew, and ever paler. 
 
 And one evening stepped the princess 
 Softly to him, saying gracious, 
 " Of thy name I would have knowledge, 
 Of thy home, and of thy kindred." 
 
 Spake the youthful slave, " Men call me 
 Mahomet ; I come from Yemen ; 
 And my race is of the Asra, — 
 They who die when once they love."
 
 DON RAMIRO. 179 
 
 DON RAMIRO. 
 
 " Donna Clara ! Donna Clara ! 
 Best-beloved for years a-many, 
 Thou hast worked my soul's destruction, 
 And hast worked it without pity. 
 
 " Donna Clara ! on the morrow 
 Will Fernando at the altar 
 Greet thee as his wedded consort : 
 Wilt thou bid me to the bridal ? ; ' 
 
 " Don Ramiro ! Don Ramiro ! 
 Cruel are thy words and bitter, 
 Crueller than the stars above us, 
 Mocking us with glitter stony. 
 
 " Don Ramiro ! Don Ramiro ! 
 Naught is left but to forget me. 
 Earth has many another maiden, 
 But we twain by God are sundered.
 
 180 HEINE. 
 
 " Don Ramiro ! in the combat 
 Many a Moor thy sword hath conquered, 
 Conquer now this fatal passion ; 
 Come to-morrow to my bridal." 
 
 " Donna Clara ! Donna Clara ! 
 Yes, I will be there, I swear it, 
 Tread with thee the dances' mazes. 
 Now, good-night. I come to-morrow." 
 
 " Farewell, friend." She closed the lattice, 
 But beneath Ramiro lingered, 
 Lingered long like one enchanted, 
 Till the darkness fell and hid him. 
 
 Soon the east-grey changed to crimson, 
 Slowly broke the bridal morning, 
 Like a garden, starred with blossoms, 
 Was the town of fair Toledo. 
 
 Look ! and watch the throng of people 
 Streaming from the Virgin Chapel, 
 Floral arches are above them, 
 And their feet crush summer roses. 
 
 Knights in armour, lovely women, 
 Walk in festival procession, 
 And the bells ring out their music, 
 And the organ rolls between them.
 
 DON RAMIRO. 1S1 
 
 Who are these who cross the portal, 
 While the crowd gives way before them ? 
 'Tis the new-made wife and husband, 
 Donna Clara, Don Fernando. 
 
 To the bridegroom's stately palace 
 Onward pass the guests and enter, 
 Where the wedding banquet waits them, 
 After ancient princely fashion. 
 
 Knightly game, and joyful music, 
 Fill the hall with jest and pleasure, 
 And they wear the hours in revel, 
 Till the night comes down upon them. 
 
 For the dance at last assemble 
 
 In the hall the guests and kinsmen, 
 
 On the wall the silver sconces 
 
 Flash and gleam, and shine and glitter. 
 
 On the dais bride and bridegroom 
 Sit and watch the crowd together, 
 Donna Clara, Don Fernando, — 
 Ah ! the magic in " Together." 
 
 " Wherefore is it, O my darling, 
 That you ever bend your glances 
 On the window's deep embrasure ?" 
 Said the bridegroom, half in wonder.
 
 182 HEINE. 
 
 " Seest thou not, Don Fernando, 
 Yonder form in sable mantle ? " 
 Playfully he smiles and answers, 
 " Darling, it is but a shadow ! " 
 
 But the shadow nears them closer, 
 'Tis a guest in sable mantle. 
 Don Ramiro keeps his promise — 
 Clara greets him, blushing scarlet. 
 
 " I will join the dancers' circle, 
 As I promised, Don Ramiro ; 
 Yet this mantle, long and night-black, 
 Scarce is suited for a wedding." 
 
 With a gaze that chills and freezes, 
 Don Ramiro looks upon her, 
 Clasps her slender waist, and whispers, 
 ' ' I have come, and at thy bidding ! " 
 
 With the waltzers whirling round them, 
 They have mixed ; we lose their figures, 
 And the music shrilleth louder, 
 Till the rafters shake and quiver. 
 
 ' ' Why, thy cheeks are pale as sea-foam ! " 
 Whispers Clara, half a-tremble ; 
 " I have come, and at thy bidding !" 
 Says the voice that was her lover's.
 
 DON RAMIRO. 
 
 " Ah ! thy hand is cold and deathly," 
 Murmurs Clara, pale and shuddering ; 
 " I have come, and at thy bidding ! " 
 Are the only words vouchsafed her. 
 
 " Leave me, leave me ! All thy garments 
 Breathe the odour of the charnel ! " 
 "I have come, and at thy bidding ! " 
 And the voice is choked and hollow. 
 
 " Leave me, leave me, Don Ramiro ! ' 
 But the crowd grows ever thicker; 
 Don Ramiro answers only, 
 " I have come, and at thy bidding ! " 
 
 " In the name of God I charge thee ! " 
 Clara shrieks her adjuration, 
 And the word was hardly spoken 
 When the phantom lover left her. 
 
 Clara hardly knew it. Fainting, 
 Sank she powerless, sick and swooning, 
 For a time her senses left her, 
 And she lay in death-like semblance. 
 
 Yet at last her eyelids open, 
 And she lifts her long black lashes, 
 Screams in terror and amazement, 
 Falls again in faintness backward.
 
 1 34 HEINE. 
 
 Still the waltzers float around her, 
 Still the music shrills and quivers, 
 Still she sits beside her bridegroom, 
 And the knight is asking anxious: — 
 
 " Wherefore are thy cheeks so pallid ? 
 Wherefore are thine eyes so troubled ?" 
 "And Ramiro ? " stammered Clara, 
 Looking at him with strange horror. 
 
 But a frown of fearful meaning, 
 Blackened on the bridegroom's forehead, 
 " Askest thou his fate, fair mistress ? 
 Six hours since died Don Ramiro."
 
 RUCKERT.
 
 BARBAROSSA. 187 
 
 BARBAROSSA. 
 
 The ancient Barbarossa, the Kaiser Frederick old, 
 In subterranean castle cnsorcelled state doth hold. 
 
 Dead was the Kaiser never, he lives in mystic sleep. 
 Long has he slumbered lonely in that enchanted keep. 
 
 The glory of the Empire with him has passed away ; 
 But Emperor and Empire shall have one wakening-day. 
 
 The throne is all of ivory where sits the Kaiser dread, 
 Of porphyry the table whereon he leans his head. 
 
 Like fire not flax the beard is, that thick and long has 
 
 grown 
 Right through the propping table that is of marble stone. 
 
 He nods as if a-drcaming, half-closed his eye of fire. 
 After long space of silence he beckons to a squire.
 
 i88 RUCKERT. 
 
 To him in sleep he mutters, " Around the castle-hill 
 See if the ravens flutter, and soar in circles still. 
 
 " And if the ancient ravens still circle far and near, 
 So must I sleep enchanted another hundred year."
 
 CHRIST CAME TO A LONELY CHILD. 189 
 
 HOW CHRIST CAME TO A LONELY CHILD. 
 
 A POOR forsaken child 
 Went, on one Christmas Eve, 
 Through the bright city-streets, 
 To see the Christmas trees 
 That shone in every home. 
 
 Before each house he stands, 
 And sees the cosy rooms, 
 Whose cheerful light streams out, 
 He sees the lamp-lit trees; 
 But he alone is sad. 
 
 The child he sobbing speaks, 
 " For every little child 
 There shines a lighted tree, 
 To give him Christmas joy — 
 But I have none to-night.
 
 r 9 o RUCKERT. 
 
 " Ah, when I had a home, 
 Sisters and brothers too 
 Lighted a tree for me. 
 Forgotten now am I, 
 In this strange, foreign land. 
 
 " Will no one let me in ? 
 Is there no place for me ? 
 In all these houses here 
 Is there no corner small 
 Where I might nestle down ? 
 
 " Will no one let me in ? 
 I shall have nothing then 
 Except the distant shine 
 Of other children's trees ; 
 That will be all I have." 
 
 He knocks at door and gate, 
 At window and at stall, 
 But no kind soul steps out 
 To ask the child within, — 
 They have no ear for him. 
 
 For every father thinks 
 Of his own little ones ; 
 Each mother gives them gifts, 
 And thinks of naught outside 
 None have a thought for him.
 
 CHRIST CAME TO A LONELY CHILD. 191 
 
 " O dear and holy Christ, 
 I have no father now 
 Except the One in Heaven ! 
 
 take me in to-day, 
 For all forget me here ! " 
 
 He chafes his little hands, 
 All blue and numb with cold ; 
 He shivers in his rags, 
 And tarries cowering there, 
 Looking adown the street. 
 
 Then with a light there came, 
 Gliding down that dark lane, 
 All dressed in raiment white, 
 Another child, — how sweet 
 The voice in which he speaks ! 
 
 "I am the Holy Christ ! 
 
 1 was a child like thee, 
 My poor forsaken child ; 
 And I forget thee not, 
 Though all the folk forget. 
 
 " My promise is to all, 
 To all in equalness; 
 And I can give my gifts 
 Here, in the open street, 
 Even as in chambers bright.
 
 192 RUCKERT. 
 
 " And I will light thy Tree, 
 My lonely little one, 
 Here in the open street. 
 It shall shine brighter far 
 Than those that gleam within." 
 
 The Christ -child raised his hand 
 And pointed up to heaven, 
 And there above them stood 
 A Tree with branches broad, 
 Heavy and thick with stars. 
 
 So far and yet so near, 
 How the bright tapers shone ! 
 The stranger-child looked up- 
 Still grew his little heart, 
 Seeing his Christmas-tree. 
 
 He saw as in a dream, 
 
 While from that strange high tree 
 
 White angels glided down, 
 
 And bore the little child 
 
 To that bright place above. 
 
 The lonely little child 
 Is safe and warm at Home, 
 Safe with his Holy Christ ; 
 And all his troubles here 
 He has forgotten quite.
 
 TOLD BY A BRAHMIN. 193 
 
 TOLD BY A BRAHMIN. 
 
 Gold weighed 'gainst Honour is naught in the scale, - 
 Hear of an Arab the ancient tale : — 
 
 The eye of a robber was set on the steed 
 
 That was dearer to him than wife or than creed. 
 
 The steed was his joy both day and night, 
 Her course was as swift as an arrow in flight. 
 
 At night she was chained with a chain whose twist 
 Through the tent-walls went to his sleeping wrist. 
 
 But the robber-snake in the douar crept, 
 While he and the men of his tribe all slept. 
 
 He loosened the chain with which she was tied, 
 He sprang on the mare and loudly cried: 
 
 " Wake, fool, and know that I have thine horse; 
 Race after, and take her back by force." 
 
 13
 
 1 9 4 RUCKERT. 
 
 The robbed and his tribe race hard behind, 
 As fast as the simoom's desert wind. 
 
 They are neck to croupe — he will overtake ! — 
 
 Like a flash came the thought, " Her fame is at stake. 
 
 " If I overtake her she's mine again, 
 If not, with her robber she will remain. 
 
 " Yet ten times rather lose her than she 
 Should be over -matched were it even by me." 
 
 To the robber he shouted loud and clear, 
 
 " Fool, press your mount in her pricked right ear ! " 
 
 For that was the spot that he touched at need, 
 The secret sign for the mare's full speed. 
 
 The robber obeyed, and swift with him 
 She vanished in dust o'er the desert's rim. 
 
 Each man of the tribe turned round to upbraid : 
 " Thou hast thyself and thine horse betrayed. 
 
 " Thou hast lost the best steed man ever crossed." 
 Said he, " Her honour remains unlost ! 
 
 " Unconquered,— though lost for her honour's sake, 
 That triumph no robber from me can take."
 
 PLATEN.
 
 THE DEATH OF CARUS. 197 
 
 THE DEATH OF CARUS. 
 
 Persia heard Rome's war-worn legions knocking at her 
 
 western gate ; 
 In his tent the Imperator, Cams, clothed in purple sate. 
 
 Satrap-messengers of Persia bow to Rome's ascendant 
 star, 
 
 for peace 1 
 chooses war. 
 
 star, 
 Sue for peace unto her Emperor, — but the Emperor 
 chooses war. 
 
 And his hosts are all one-hearted, and that heart for 
 strife beats high, 
 
 Through the legions of his warriors goes the thousand- 
 throated cry : 
 
 " Woe to Persia ! She may shiver at the Eagles in our 
 
 van, 
 \Yc avenge our Imperator, we avenge Valerian !
 
 198 PLATEN. 
 
 " Treachery and mischance once gave him to these 
 
 hounds' barbarian mirth ; 
 He has died in Persia's dungeons, — his Avengers walk 
 
 the earth. 
 
 " Once the sun saw Artaxerxes, that insulting tyrant 
 
 proud, 
 Spring to saddle as from footstool, from Valerian's neck 
 
 low-bowed ! 
 
 "Rome the shamed and Rome the trampled, — Rome, 
 
 that once the world had won, — 
 Prayed the Olympians for a leader, — prayed to Zeus for 
 
 only one. 
 
 ' ' Ay, and men the Gods have given us, men to crush 
 
 these Persian slaves ; 
 Scipio, Marius, and Pompey, — they have risen from out 
 
 their graves ! 
 
 " By our Emperor, brave Aurelian, have the Gothic hosts 
 been crushed, 
 
 They who laid the Ephesian temple level with the desert- 
 dust. 
 
 " Brave Aurelian broke the terror of Zenobia's queenly 
 
 name, 
 She who now in lonely Tibur weeps her downfall and her 
 
 shame.
 
 THE DEATH OF CAR US. 199 
 
 " Probus' legions through the Northland scattering fear 
 
 and terror went, 
 Nine of Germany's brave princes knelt before the 
 
 Emperor's tent. 
 
 " Cams now shall count with Persia, and Rome's shield 
 
 no shame shall dim ; 
 He goes first, our hero-leader, — hero-steps shall follow 
 
 him." 
 
 So their song resounds. But straightway heaven's face 
 
 is black with cloud, 
 Cloud that hides the sun in darkness, like the blackness 
 
 of a shroud. 
 
 On them bursts the wild tornado, thunder-gusts of rain 
 
 and wind, 
 Each man gropes within the darkness, no man can his 
 
 fellow find. 
 
 Ha, a bolt hath cleft the blackness, 'tis the lightning's 
 
 forked gleam, 
 From the Emperor's tent of purple comes a wild, unearthly 
 
 scream. 
 
 Slain is Carus ! and his soldiers cast away their war-gear 
 
 fair, 
 All their lofty hopes have vanished, o'er the army broods 
 
 despair.
 
 200 PLA TEN. 
 
 All men fled. Like a deserted house the soldiers' camp 
 
 appeared, 
 And the war-worn legionaries muttered grimly in their 
 
 beard : 
 
 " Now the Immortals hold the balance, and Destruction 
 
 weights our scale ; 
 Zeus has sent his bolt and stricken. Even Romans now 
 
 may quail. 
 
 " Shame and dark submission near us swell like streams 
 
 that chafe and foam : 
 Bow, O bow thy haughty frontlet to the grave, Imperial 
 
 Rome 1 "
 
 THE PILGRIM OF ST. JUST. 201 
 
 THE PILGRIM OF ST. JUST. 
 
 Without the storm-winds rave and roar ; 
 Ye Spanish monks, shut to the door ! 
 
 I will rest till the bell at break of day 
 Shall call me down to the chapel to pray. 
 
 Prepare me such gifts as your Order may, — 
 A coffin black and a gown of grey. 
 
 Choose me a cell in the common line, — 
 More than half of the world was mine ! 
 
 The head that bows to the tonsure's shears, 
 Wore the crowns o' the world for years. 
 
 I have laid Imperial ermine down, 
 To wear the Order's cowl and gown. 
 
 Now am I dead like the dead folk all, 
 And the Empire to ruin and wrack may fall.
 
 202 PLA TEN. 
 
 THE GRAVE IN THE BUSENTINUS. 
 
 Where the Busentinus ripples by Cosenza's quiet town, 
 There is nightly sound of singing rising from the waters 
 brown. 
 
 Mighty shadows of the Goth-folk stalk by night upon its 
 
 banks, 
 Alaric the King they weep for, once the mightiest in their 
 
 ranks. 
 
 All too early did they lose him, far from home they laid 
 
 him there ; 
 Still upon his mighty shoulder waved the locks of thick 
 
 gold hair. 
 
 On the shore of Busentinus there they laboured for his 
 
 sake, 
 Turned the river from its channel, in its bed his grave to 
 
 make.
 
 GRAVE IN THE BUSENTINUS. 203 
 
 In the void and vacant stream-bed deep they dug the 
 
 yawning grave, 
 In it on his steed they placed him, armed as fits a hero 
 
 brave. 
 
 Spoils of war were buried with him, Lombard gems and 
 
 Roman gold, — 
 So they gave the flood the treasure of his tomb to keep 
 
 and hold. 
 
 Then they turned the chafing waters back into their olden 
 
 home. 
 Down the channel rolled, rejoicing, Busentinus' tawny 
 
 foam. 
 
 And the Gothic chant resounded, "Sleep in peace, our 
 
 hero brave, 
 While the swift and shining waters guard the secret of thy 
 
 grave ! " 
 
 Such the requiem sung by champions, fit for such an one 
 
 as he ! 
 And the bright Busento waters still speed onward to the 
 
 sea.
 
 204 PLA TEN. 
 
 HARMOSAN. 
 
 Persia's Sassanids saw crumble into dust their ancient 
 throne, 
 
 Impious Moslem-hands had plundered rich and glorious 
 Ctesiphon ; 
 
 Omar's troops had reached the Oxus, after many a well- 
 fought fray, 
 
 Where Chosroes' scion Jesdegerd a corpse on corpses 
 lay. 
 
 And when Medina's prince to count and tell the spoil 
 began, 
 
 They led a satrap to his sight, his name was Harmosan, 
 
 The last who 'gainst the invader the combat had main- 
 tained ; 
 
 Alas, the hand that wielded sword now heavily was 
 chained !
 
 HARMOSAN. 205 
 
 Then Omar looks at him and says, with dark and heavy 
 
 frown, 
 "Hast thou yet seen, before our God, idolaters go 
 
 down?" 
 And Harmosan makes answer, " In thine hand is laid the 
 
 power, 
 Who speaks against the victor's word he speaks in evil 
 
 hour. 
 
 "Only one slight request I make, — 'tis not for life of 
 
 mine, — 
 Three days it is since I have drunk, reach me a cup of 
 
 wine ! " 
 At Omar's beckoning wave they bring the red wine in a 
 
 cup, 
 But, fearing poison, Harmosan delays to lift it up. 
 
 " No Moslem e'er deceives his guest," cries Omar. 
 " Friend of mine, 
 
 Thou shalt not die ere thou hast drunk that cup of blood- 
 red wine." 
 
 The wily Persian seized the glass and straightway down 
 he threw 
 
 The precious beaker, shattering it, " Now hold thy 
 promise true ! "
 
 2 o6 PLA TEN. 
 
 And out the sword came flashing from the sheath of every 
 
 man, 
 They would avenge the treachery of the cunning 
 
 Harmosan ; 
 But Omar said, " Nay, take thy life ! Sheathe every 
 
 loyal sword ! 
 If aught on earth is sacred, 'tis a king and hero's word."
 
 FREILIGRA TH.
 
 HURRA, GERMANIA! 209 
 
 HURRA, GERMANIA! 
 
 Hurra, thou woman proud and fair, 
 
 Hurra, Germania 1 
 
 Upon the Rhine thou standest there, 
 
 To keep the foe in awe. 
 
 The July-heat where thou dost stand, 
 
 Upon thy head is poured, 
 
 And thou hast drawn for hearth and land, 
 
 The splendours of thy sword. 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 No thoughts were yours of war and fight ; 
 
 In joy, and rest, and peace, 
 
 Where harvest-fields lie broad and bright, 
 
 You reaped their rich increase, 
 
 The sickles flash, the golden ears 
 
 In sheaves and garners shine. 
 
 14
 
 2 io FREILIGRATH. 
 
 When hark ! the martial sound that nears, 
 The war-horns over Rhine ! 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 You cast the sickle where the corn 
 
 In golden waves did bow ; 
 
 And rose in noble wrath and scorn 
 
 To face the danger's Now ; 
 
 You smote your hands together then, 
 
 " Now, if you will, you may ! — 
 
 Up now, for Germany needs men I 
 
 Across the Rhine ! Away ! " 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 The Havens heard, and heard the Belt, 
 And heard the Northern Sea ; 
 The Oder at her sword-hilt felt, 
 The Elbe armed speedilie. 
 Neckar and Weser by them stood, 
 Main gripped at sword and gun. 
 Forgotten is the ancient feud ; 
 The German folk is One ! 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania !
 
 HURRA, GERM AN IA! 
 
 Swabia and Prussia hand in hand ! 
 
 One army, joined for aye ! 
 
 " What is the German Fatherland ? " 
 
 We ask not that to-day ! 
 
 One arm, one heart, has all the crowd, 
 
 One will, one soul, have we ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania, fair and proud, 
 
 A glorious time to see ! 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 Now, let the fight go as it may ; 
 
 Fast stands Germania ! 
 
 This is Our Country's festal day, 
 
 Woe to thee, Gallia ! 
 
 A robber placed the battle-blade 
 
 In thy presumptuous hand; 
 
 The German sword has been displayed 
 
 For Home and Fatherland ! 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 For home and hearth, for child and wife, 
 
 For all dear things we know, 
 
 We stand to jeopard limb and life 
 
 Against a foreign foe. 
 
 For German laws, and German tongue, 
 
 For Letters and for Art,
 
 FREILIGRA TH. 
 
 For hearths where German hymns are sung, 
 We fight with soul and heart. 
 
 Hurra, hurra, hurra ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 Up, Germany, and God with thee ! 
 
 War's die will soon be cast ! 
 
 Lace on thy corslet speedilie, 
 
 For blood will flow right fast I 
 
 Thy brave eyes glance the combat o'er 
 
 As if they victory saw, 
 
 Great, splendid, free, as ne'er before. 
 
 Hurra, Germania ! 
 
 Hurra, Victoria ! 
 
 Hurra, Germania !
 
 BEFORE THE GATES OF MECCA! 213 
 
 WERE I BEFORE THE GATES OF MECCA ! 
 
 Were I before the gates of Mecca, 
 Were I on Yemen's burning sand, 
 Were I on Sinai's mountain standing, 
 A yataghan within my hand ! 
 
 Through Jethro's land of heat, my horses 
 Swift as the winged wind should flee ; 
 The bush that Moses saw a-flaming 
 Should shadow o'er my herds and me. 
 
 At evening, with my tribe around me, 
 Beneath the house of camel's hair, 
 The singer-flame that burns within me 
 Should break in song upon the air. 
 
 And, as my lips broke into music, 
 The folk, the land, should hang thereon, 
 As if upon my hand there glistened 
 The magic ring of Solomon. 
 
 With these wild souls the waste holds converse ; 
 
 My hearers are the nomad race 
 
 Who oft before the destroying Simoom 
 
 Cast themselves prone upon their face.
 
 2i 4 FRE1L1GRATH. 
 
 Who, daylong, sit their stallions' saddle, 
 Save where some desert-stream may run, 
 Who ride a-stretch with loosened bridle, 
 From Aden unto Lebanon. 
 
 Who all night long, like seers unwearied, 
 Lie with their flocks on cliffs storm-riven, 
 Reading as did the old Chaldaeans, 
 The golden runes of mystic heaven. 
 
 Who hear a strange terrific murmur 
 Sounding from Sinai's levin-split height, 
 Who see the Desert-Spirit's shadow 
 In fiery pillars walk the night. 
 
 Men, — who have seen an awful countenance 
 In sevenfold glare of flame and heat ; 
 Men, — in whose foreheads fiery pulses, 
 Even as mine own pulse, throb and beat. 
 
 O Land of Tents, and gleaming rifles 1 
 O desert-people fiercely-shy 1 
 
 Bedouin, in thy black steed's saddle, 
 A poem of the phantasy ! 
 
 On darkling coasts I wander, 
 The North is cold and dank : 
 
 1 would that I sang in the desert-sand, 
 Leant on my stallion's flank !
 
 HERDER.
 
 SIR OLAF. 217 
 
 SIR OLAF. 
 
 Sir Olaf he rideth west and east 
 To bid the folk to his bridal feast. 
 
 On the wold are dancing an elvish band, 
 And Erl-king's daughter proffers her hand. 
 
 " Now welcome, Sir Olaf : what haste's with thee? 
 Step into our circle and dance with me." 
 
 " To dance I neither will nor may, 
 To-morrow's dawn is my bridal-day." 
 
 " Nay, stay, Sir Olaf, and dance with me, 
 And golden spurs will I give to thee." 
 
 " To dance I neither will nor may, 
 To-morrow's dawn is my bridal -day." 
 
 " Nay, stay, Sir Olaf, and dance with mc, 
 A heap of gold will I give to thee."
 
 218 HERDER. 
 
 " For all thy gold I will not stay, 
 And dance I neither will nor may." 
 
 " If thou wilt not dance, Sir Olaf, with me, 
 Then Pest and Sickness shall follow thee." 
 
 She touched Sir Olaf upon the heart — 
 Ne'er in his life had he felt such smart. 
 
 She lifted him up on his steed that tide, 
 
 " Ride home ! ride fast to thy troth-plight bride !" 
 
 And when he came to his castle-door, 
 His mother stood there, and trembled sore. 
 
 " Now say, sweet son, right speedilie 
 Why art thou wan, and white of blee ? " 
 
 " Well may my face be wan and white. 
 I was in Erl-king's realm last night." 
 
 " Now tell me, my son so true and tried, 
 What thing shall I say to thy plighted bride ? " 
 
 " Say that I hunt in the good greenwood, 
 With hound and horse as a good knight should."
 
 SIR OLAF. 219 
 
 When scarce the dawn in heaven shone red, 
 Came the train with the bride Sir Olaf should wed. 
 
 They sat at meat, they sat at wine ; 
 
 " Now where is Sir Olaf, bridegroom of mine ?" 
 
 " Sir Olaf rode out to the greenwood free, 
 With horse and hound to the hunt rode he." 
 
 The bride she lifted a cloth of red: 
 Beneath, Sir Olaf was lying dead.
 
 HERDER. 
 
 THE CHILD OF SORROW. 
 
 Once beside a murmuring stream 
 Sorrow sat in thoughtful mood, 
 
 And her dreaming fingers shaped 
 Out of clay an image rude. 
 
 Zeus passed by, and paused to see, 
 " What is this that thou hast made ? ' 
 
 " 'Tis a figure shaped from clay — 
 Give it life," the goddess prayed. 
 
 " Be it so. Live ! See, it lives. 
 
 Mine shall this creation be." 
 Sorrow spake with pleading eyes, 
 
 ' • Nay, I pray thee ; leave it me. 
 
 " Twas my fingers moulded it." 
 " And I gave thy clay its life," 
 
 Said Kronion. As they spake, 
 Tellus stepped between their strife.
 
 THE CHILD OF SORROW. 221 
 
 " Mine it is. Beneath my breast 
 This thy child of clay hath lain." 
 
 " In good hour comes Saturn here: 
 He shall judge between us twain." 
 
 Saturn spoke, " Ye all have part. 
 
 Heaven and Fate have willed it so. — 
 So the spirit Zeus hath lent 
 
 After death to Zeus shall go. 
 
 " Take and keep his bones, O Tellus: 
 Naught but that belongs to thee. 
 
 Thou his mother art, O Sorrow, 
 And through life he thine shall be. 
 
 " Nor wilt thou, O Mother Sorrow, 
 Through his life thy rights resign. 
 
 He shall bear thy face and features 
 To the grave, this child of thine." 
 
 True is Destiny's dark saying. — 
 
 While Man breathes with mortal breath, 
 
 'Longeth he through Life to Sorrow,— 
 To the Earth and God at Death.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS.
 
 SWORD-SONG. 225 
 
 SWORD-SONG. 
 
 " Sword, at my left side gleaming, 
 Why are thy glances beaming 
 
 Upon me, shyly-sweet ? 
 
 With joy thine eyes I greet.' 5 
 
 " My heart for joy is leaping : 
 Within a brave knight's keeping 
 
 How should my glance be staid ? 
 
 I am a free man's blade." 
 
 " Yea, my good sword, I love thee: 
 Nothing I hold above thee, — 
 
 As if by troth-plight tied, 
 
 As a beloved bride." 
 
 " To thee I give in lightness 
 
 All my old life of brightness. 
 
 Ah, were our troth-knot tied I 
 When wilt thou claim thy bride?" 
 
 '5
 
 226 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 ' ' When trumpets bray a warning 
 Shall break our bridal morning. 
 'Mid cannon-smoke and flame, 
 Come I my bride to claim." 
 
 " Ah, blest shall be our marrying ! 
 
 Scarce can I bide the tarrying — 
 Bridegroom, I wait for thee, 
 When wilt thou come for me ? " 
 
 " With battle-joy thou'rt flashing; 
 Why in thy scabbard clashing 
 
 Thus moving to and fro ? 
 
 Sword, wherefore clashest so?" 
 
 " Good reason for the clashing ! 
 Fain, from my scabbard flashing, 
 
 Would I the fight-joys know. 
 
 Therefore my heart throbs so. " 
 
 " Stay still in thine own strait chamber, 
 Nor strive so forth to clamber: 
 Wait still i' the narrow room, 
 Soon shalt thou leave its gloom." 
 
 " Tarrying I may not pardon. 
 
 O, for Love's lovely garden 
 With roses bloody-red, 
 And blossoming thick with dead ! "
 
 SWORD-SONG. 227 
 
 " Now leave that sheath unsightly, 
 Thou joy to all the knightly ! 
 
 Flash out, my sword, flash free ! 
 
 I lead thee forth with me." 
 
 " The wooing long has ended: 
 
 Ah, the bride-feast is splendid ! 
 How glances in the sun 
 The bride-steel thou hast won ! " 
 
 " Ha, knights, a German greeting! 
 
 Luck to our happy meeting ! 
 
 Each holds his bride in arm : 
 Should not each heart beat warm ? 
 
 " First at the left hand gleaming, 
 Stolen-wise her glance was beaming. 
 
 Now at the right, unloath, 
 
 God doth the bride betroth ! 
 
 " Still your salute she misses. 
 Press your hot, burning kisses 
 
 Upon her face and side. 
 
 Say, will you fail your bride ? 
 
 " Now let her voice's singing 
 Throughout the field be ringing ! 
 
 The wedding-dawn shines wide — 
 
 Hurrah, thou iron bride ! " 
 
 {Korner.)
 
 !28 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 A NIGHT OF SPRING. 
 
 It is sultry hot in the chamber small, 
 The sick man lies with his face to the wall. 
 
 The fever has burned in his veins all night, 
 His heart is weary, his eyes are bright. 
 
 He looks at the hour-glass' falling sand, 
 He holds a watch in his thin white hand. 
 
 He counts the weary hours that have gone, 
 He watches the hours creep slowly on. 
 
 He wonders, " Shall I be living yet 
 When the slow hour-hand on three is set ? " 
 
 And the nurse by his side sits patiently 
 Waiting till over with him it be. 
 
 Within at his heart is the touch of death, 
 Without, the first hint of the morn's sweet breath.
 
 A NIGHT OF SPRING. 229 
 
 On his window the earliest light-rays break, 
 Maidens and birds are astir and awake. 
 
 The earth is laughing in bright Spring-tide, 
 The Whitsun-bells ring in a bride. 
 
 The students they wander out and sing, 
 The world is so fair in its blossoming. 
 
 But stiller and stiller within it grows, 
 To the sick man's side the old nurse goes. 
 
 She has folded the hands in peaceful wise, 
 She has drawn the sheet o%-er mouth and eyes. 
 
 She leaves the room. It is still, I trow, 
 No weary eyes wake within it now. 
 
 {Storm.)
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 THE SUBMERGED TOWN. 
 
 Under the sea lies Biisum old, 
 O'er it the waters wild have rolled. 
 
 For inch by inch they devoured the dry, 
 Till the isle did under the waters lie. 
 
 No stone or tree marks where Biisum stood, 
 It has all been eaten away by the flood. 
 
 No cattle to low, no hound to bark ; 
 All lies beneath the waters dark. 
 
 Once there was life and laughter bright : 
 The sea has covered it all with night. 
 
 'Neath the green of the wave, when ebbs the tide, 
 Men say the roofs of the houses are spied,
 
 THE SUBMERGED TOWN. 231 
 
 And the church-tower points through the brown 
 
 sea-sand, 
 Like the ringer of a buried hand. 
 
 Men hear the death-bells faintly ring, 
 And hear the grave precentor sing. 
 
 And a sound of singing comes through the wave : 
 " Let us lay the corpse in its quiet grave." 
 
 {Klaus Grolh.)
 
 232 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 FAIR ROHTRAUT. 
 
 ' ; How call they old King Ringang's child ? " 
 
 "Rohtraut, fair Rohtraut." 
 " What does she do the live-long day, 
 For she cannot spin and broider alway ? " 
 " She hunts and fishes, so they say." 
 " O were I but her huntsman good, 
 To fish and hunt in the fair greenwood ! " 
 
 — So keep thy secret, Heart ! — 
 
 And it is only a short short space 
 
 (Rohtraut, fair Rohtraut) 
 Till the squire is serving in Ringang's hall, 
 Has a noble steed, and is first of all 
 To ride to the chase at Rohtraut's call. 
 " Were I a king's son, and her peer ! 
 For O, I hold my lady dear. " 
 
 — So keep thy secret, Heart 1
 
 FAIR ROHTRA UT. 233 
 
 Once they were resting beneath an oak, 
 
 Then laughed fair Rohtraut : 
 " Why look in mine eyes ? There is greater bliss, 
 If thou hast heart, I have lips to kiss." 
 He cannot believe such a word as this : 
 Yet he thinks : " She grants my longing there." — 
 On her lips he kisses the princess fair. 
 
 — So keep thy secret, Heart ! 
 
 And then they ride in silence home 
 
 (Rohtraut, fair Rohtraut), 
 But the squire in his heart exulting cried : 
 " If the Kaiser chose her to-day for bride 
 I should not sorrow a whit this tide. 
 For the leaves in the greenwood know, I wis, 
 I had Rohtraut once to clasp and kiss ! " 
 
 — So keep thy secret, Heart ! 
 
 (Morike.
 
 234 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 THE HORSE OF VEVROS. 
 
 On the lush green grass where the Vardar rolled, 
 Lay Vevros dying, that hero bold. 
 
 Whose was the blame of the bloody work ? 
 Whose but the cowardly hidden Turk. 
 
 They levelled their matchlocks as he did pass : 
 Now he lay at length in the blood-stained grass. 
 
 And by his side stood his sorrowing steed, 
 That had ever been helpful and true at need. 
 
 But why did his warlike master lie 
 Helpless and still with face to the sky ? 
 
 " Rise up, my master, and hear what I say ; 
 The Turks are abroad, and we must away. 
 
 " No man of our comrades is here at our side : 
 
 An thou wilt not be taken, mount, mount, and ride ! '
 
 THE HORSE OF VEVROS. 235 
 
 " My days for snaffle and sword are done, 
 No more shall I ride in the light of the sun. 
 
 "The balls are in my breast and brain, 
 I shall never sit saddle on earth again. 
 
 " Listen, my steed that wert ever true, 
 To the last commands I shall lay on you. 
 
 " Paw with thy hoof till thou scoop a grave 
 For me on the edge of Vardar's wave. 
 
 "When glazed are the eyes these lids beneath, 
 Take my waist-sash of silk in thy teeth. 
 
 "And holding me so by the sash thrice-looped, 
 Lower me into the grave thou hast scooped. 
 
 "And when thou hast covered my corpse with earth, 
 Hasten thee back to the home of my birth. 
 
 " Seek out my brother : when ye are met, 
 Give him my yataghan silver-set. 
 
 " Give him the gun that I bore in the fight, 
 That he may treasure my memory aright. 
 
 " And take my sweetheart this kerchief white, 
 That I wore for her sake in all men's sight.
 
 236 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 " Let her shed hot tears on the thing she gave :— 
 I shall know it, and better will rest in my grave. 
 
 " Farewell — I am dying — my steed, farewell ! 
 Now leave me not to the infidel." 
 
 So the hero sobbed with his latest breath. 
 As served in life he was served in death. 
 
 The steed dug a grave on the river-strand, 
 O'er his master's corpse he piled the sand. 
 
 Straightway, full speed, the good horse went 
 To the distant place of Vevros' tent. 
 
 He brought the weapons, the kerchief he brought 
 To those of whom, dying, Vevros thought. 
 
 The silken scarf, at the feet of the maid, 
 Softly the gallant stallion laid. 
 
 She held the scarf in her quivering hold, 
 She veiled her weeping eyes in its fold, 
 
 But the noble horse lay dead at her feet, 
 For the dead man's mission was complete. 
 
 {Schmidt- Fhiseldeck. )
 
 THE DRINK FROM A JACK-BOOT. 23; 
 
 THE DRINK FROM A JACK-BOOT. 
 
 In the ancient knightly hall 
 The knights sat drinking one and all, 
 The hall it shone with torches' light 
 That shimmered out into the night. 
 
 The Rhinegrave spoke : "A courier 
 Yestreen has left his jack-boot here ; 
 lie who empties it at a draught 
 Wins Dorf Huffelsheim by his craft." 
 
 Laughing he set it on the board, 
 
 Up to the edge red wine he poured, 
 
 He lifted it up among them all : 
 
 " Let's see to whom the prize will fall ! " 
 
 Johann von Sponnheim held him still, 
 Wished the next man luck with right good will, 
 Meinhart von Dhaun, who sat the next, 
 Drew down his brows like one perplexed.
 
 238 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 • And Karl of Florsheim stroked his beard, 
 Stromberg sat still, as one who feared, 
 And even the thirsty chaplain good 
 Looked out askance beneath his hood. 
 
 But Boos von Waldeck shouted then: 
 
 " Give me the cup ! Healths, gentlemen ! " 
 
 He emptied the boot at a single draught, 
 
 And then leaned back on the settle, and laughed— 
 
 " Sir Rhinegrave, has the courier 
 Not left the jack -boot's fellow here ? 
 There might have been another bet 
 With Roxheim on the wager set." 
 
 They laughed, and praised him all around, 
 As one whose thirst no bottom found : 
 Yet Hiiffelsheim with man and mouse 
 Was won in that one night's carouse. 
 
 (Pfarrius.)
 
 THE ROBBER-BROTHERS. 239 
 
 THE ROBBER-BROTHERS. 
 
 " Now that the bloody fight is past, 
 Lay thyself down and rest at last." 
 
 " From the valley comes blowing the wind so free. 
 Harken! our mother calls for me." 
 
 " Nay, nay, our mother has long been dead, 
 'Tis a dawn-bell chiming," the brother said. 
 
 " Sorrow not so, O mother dear, 
 Now I repent me lying here." 
 
 " But why do thy limbs beneath thee fail ? 
 Thine eyes are darkening, thy lips are pale ! " 
 
 The fair green grass with blood was red, 
 The robber's brother lay stark and dead. 
 
 lie kissed the lips that were growing cold : 
 " I loved thee more than I ever told ! "
 
 24o MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 He fired the last charge from his rifle good, 
 And cast it from him into the wood. 
 
 He strode through the town to the judges' hall : 
 " Of life am I weary, my masters all. 
 
 " Here is my head : do justice meet, 
 Then bury me at my brother's feet." 
 
 (Eichtncfarff. )
 
 ATT/LA'S SWORD. 241 
 
 ATTILA'S SWORD. 
 
 Buried deep beneath an oak-tree 
 Lies an ancient giant's sword ; 
 
 So it throbs within the scabbard 
 
 Through the grass its point hath bored. 
 
 Gnomes and elves keep watch beside it, 
 Hidden treasure all unknown, 
 
 Wolf and wild-boar of the forest 
 Haunt the secret place alone. 
 
 Huns have found it, and have brought it 
 
 Unto Attila their lord, 
 And he shouts, " World-conqueror am I! 
 
 God salutes me by this sword." 
 
 Round above his head he swung it, 
 Like a circling flash it gleamed, 
 
 To the Huns and the Alani 
 As a meteor it seemed. 
 
 [6
 
 2^2 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Ominous light o'er heaven went spreading, 
 
 Like a comet's fiery trail. 
 And the Emperor in Byzantium 
 
 Hears a sound of war and wail. 
 
 And he calls his great star-prophets, 
 Heaven is dumb to every seer ; 
 
 On the Bosphorus are shining 
 Planets pale, star-stricken, drear. 
 
 " Cresar, Gods and God are silent, 
 None will help thee 'gainst thy foe, 
 
 Thou hast skill of bowl and dagger, 
 None of manly sword or bow." 
 
 {Lingg.)
 
 THE HORSES OF CRA VELOTTE. 243 
 
 THE HORSES OF GRAVELOTTE. 
 
 Hot was the battle, and bloody the fight, 
 Cool was the evening and peaceful the night. 
 
 From the camp in the wood where the valley lies lone, 
 Three times the signalling trumpet has blown. 
 
 Loud and ringing its clear notes fall, 
 
 Over wood and field they hear the " Recall." 
 
 In troops and by knots, by three and by two, 
 Back they straggle, the valiant few. 
 
 Ah ! not all are returning back ; 
 
 Full many a man doth the regiment lack. 
 
 They were there in their places at reveille, 
 At night they lie cold, and pallid to see. 
 
 And horses whose saddles are empty to-night, 
 Are galloping wildly to left and to right.
 
 144 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 But the bray of the trumpet that sounds the recall, 
 For the third time summoneth one and all. 
 
 See the black stallion is pricking his ear, 
 And neighs at the sound he is wont to hear. 
 
 Look, how the brown ranges up to his side, 
 It was ever his place when the trumpet cried. 
 
 And next the blood-flecked dapple-grey 
 Limps up to his place in the ranks to-day. 
 
 By troops, by knots, by three and by two, 
 Come riderless horses, to signal true. 
 
 For horses and riders both know the " Recall," 
 And the trumpet-blast it is summoning all. 
 
 And over three hundred came back that day, 
 With empty saddles from that fierce fray. 
 
 Over three hundred ! How bloody the fight 
 That emptied so many saddles that night ! 
 
 Over three hundred ! The struggle was sore : 
 One man had fallen out of every four.
 
 THE HORSES OF GRAVELOTTE. 245 
 
 Over three hundred ! When trumpets blew, 
 The riderless steeds to the flag were true. 
 
 When ye talk of Gravelotte's noble dead, 
 Praise the horses that answered in their stead. 
 
 {Gerok.)
 
 > 4 6 M ISC ELLA NEO US. 
 
 THE CONFESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 Charlemagne had sinned a heavy sin, 
 
 And on his soul it lay. 
 For its sake he feared to be outcast 
 
 From the mercy of God alway. 
 
 To none would he confess it, 
 
 He would die in mortal sin. 
 Nor from the blessed Sacrament 
 
 Could he any comfort win. 
 
 Then came the holy hermit, 
 
 Egidius to Aix, 
 The blind folk sang to the fiddle 
 
 Of the holy hermit grey. 
 
 And before the holy hermit 
 
 The Kaiser knelt him down, 
 He sought to rewin by confession 
 
 His hope of the heavenly crown.
 
 CONFESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 247 
 
 He told the sins that were venial ; 
 
 But when he at last would seek 
 To confess the sins that were mortal, 
 
 The tears streamed down his cheek. 
 
 The heavy tears came welling 
 
 From his heart up to his eyes, 
 He could speak no word of confession 
 
 So thick came the tears and sighs. 
 
 He sought God's favour and blessing, 
 His sins he would fain confess, 
 
 Vet sobs forbade his revealing 
 I lis deadly sinfulness. 
 
 The priest he spake : " What see I ? 
 
 Ye weep as a woman might ! 
 If thy tongue will not frame confession, 
 
 So take thee a pen and write." 
 
 " Ah, woe the day, thou holy saint, 
 
 Of writing I have no skill ! 
 In youth I learnt nothing clerkly, 
 
 But followed mine own wild will. 
 
 " Ah, then with my squires and huntsmen, 
 
 I rode to the greenwood free, 
 I loved the hound and the falcon 
 
 And the things <>f venerie.
 
 248 MIS CELL A NEO US. 
 
 " T loved the sports of the greenwood, 
 And the war-game best of all, — 
 
 But now the brachs are coupled, 
 And the piebalds rest in stall." 
 
 ' ' Nay, far from me now be it 
 To speak the greenwood shame ! 
 
 Thou canst learn : and in man's new learning 
 Shall forget thine idlesse' blame. 
 
 " Once learning had been right easy, 
 
 'Tis harder for thee to-day ; 
 Thou shalt say by these three fingers 
 
 What thy lips refuse to say. 
 
 ' ' Three fingers they serve for writing, 
 
 Three fingers for exorcism ; 
 No sin by thine can be written 
 
 Which mine cannot pardon and chrism. 
 
 " In the Holy Book it is written, 
 
 ' Swear not without a cause.' 
 And ' Write not without good reason ' 
 
 Should be one of learning's laws. 
 
 " But the Kaiser should stand in learning 
 
 As power before us all : 
 Now, take the pen in thy fingers, 
 
 Have cane that it may not fall."
 
 CONFESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 249 
 
 To hold the pen he taught him, 
 To make the strokes and the lines, 
 
 He taught him the forms of the letters, 
 And the names of the strange new signs. 
 
 And syllables, words, and sayings 
 He taught him to frame as he ought, 
 
 And how the words are twisted 
 To cover the hidden thought. 
 
 At first it cramped the fingers 
 That had held the sword-hilt fast, 
 
 Vet the Emperor strove for learning, 
 And the whole was learnt at last. 
 
 " Now canst thou write, O Kaiser, 
 Thou hast learnt the school-craft well ; 
 
 Yet strive once more, — it is wiser, — 
 Thy sin in words to tell." 
 
 Then before the holy hermit 
 
 The Kaiser knelt him down, 
 He sought to rewin by confession 
 
 His hope of the heavenly crown. 
 
 He told the sins that were venial ; 
 
 But when he at last would seek 
 To confess the sin that was mortal, 
 
 The tears ran down his cheek.
 
 250 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The heavy tears came welling 
 From his heart up to his eyes ; 
 
 He could speak no word of confession 
 So thick came the tears and sighs. 
 
 The priest he spake : " What see I ? 
 
 Ye weep as a woman might ! 
 If thy tongue will not frame confession, 
 
 So take thee a pen and write." 
 
 Said Charles : " I will do it gladly," 
 And he wrote the mortal sin ; 
 
 The saint he saw him tracing 
 The words on the paper thin. 
 
 He wrote it short and clearly, 
 
 For Christ's sweet grace he prayed. 
 
 Now rose the holy hermit, 
 
 And the sheet in his hands was laid. 
 
 He might turn and twist the leaflet, 
 No word he found thereon : 
 
 " Is it jesting, or is it sorcery? 
 The words thou hast written are gone ! ' 
 
 "No jesting, holy father, 
 
 But a miracle to thank; 
 I wrote my sin's confession, 
 
 And now the page is blank/*
 
 COAFESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 251 
 
 " I saw that thy sin was written, 
 
 And lo ! a blank white space : 
 Thy bitter tears of repentance 
 
 Have won thee heaven's sweet grace. 
 
 "The page, like the sin heart-hidden, 
 Has been cleansed by thy bitter tears. — 
 
 See, on the whitened parchment, 
 What writing new appears ! " 
 
 The Emperor looked upon it, 
 
 These were the words it bore : 
 •' Repentance with God is confession; 
 
 Go thou, and sin no more." 
 
 (Siuirock. )
 
 252 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 PETRUS. 
 
 " Domine, quo vadis ?" 
 " Venio item tu crucifigi." 
 
 "As this Jew, this Simon Peter, doth the Gods of Rome 
 
 blaspheme, 
 Sows division in the kingdom, turns men's hearts to this 
 
 new dream, 
 Names a traitor to the Empire ' Lord of lords and King 
 
 of kings,' 
 Shall he on the cross to-morrow feel the pang that rends 
 
 and wrings." 
 
 So was Nero's edict published. Peter kneeleth in the 
 
 prison, 
 And his faith and aspirations on the wings of prayer have 
 
 risen ; 
 Now the word shall be accomplished spake by Christ in 
 
 Galilee, 
 " Strangers' hands in age shall gird thee. Simon, follow 
 
 after me."
 
 PETRUS. 253 
 
 There, — a knocking low and cautious ! On the bolt the 
 
 file doth grate, 
 And the axe-edge used as lever, forces in the inner gate. 
 Is the time too long to Nero, — come his hirelings even 
 
 now? 
 Nay, his rage is bid defiance by a brave band's secret vow. 
 
 Friends are standing at the portal. They have agonised 
 
 in prayer 
 That the Lord as once aforetime would his servant save 
 
 and spare. 
 Vain their tears and prayers. No angel oped the prison 
 
 doors at need : 
 Three brave Christians broke the prison and the aged 
 
 saint is freed ! 
 
 Strong and tall the legionaries that are stationed at his 
 
 door, 
 Stronger still the wine of Chios that the Christians for 
 
 them pour, 
 Thick the bolts of hammered iron, yet they yield before 
 
 their hand, 
 In the darkness of the prison, joy-shine in their eyes, 
 
 they stand. 
 
 " Rescue — thou art rescued, father ! Fear no death 
 
 while we arc true. 
 To Christ's Church and us that love thee has thy life been 
 
 saved anew.
 
 254 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Death still hovers close above thee, up then, gird thy 
 
 loins and flee ! 
 Ships stand ready, outward -going, riding at Puteoli." 
 
 Dost thou waver, old disciple, thou whom Christ once 
 
 named the Rock ? 
 Thou, but now upon heaven's threshold turn'st with 
 
 hand upon the lock ? 
 Yea, he wendeth with his saviours, half awake and half 
 
 in dream, 
 Free he stands upon the Forum, as a vision all doth 
 
 seem. 
 
 Through the dark in haste and silence to the gates press 
 
 on the four, 
 Kiss farewell beneath the gateway, then they part to 
 
 meet no more. 
 To their brethren go the rescuers, to announce the news 
 
 aright, 
 While the Apostle's form is hidden in the friendly shroud 
 
 of night. 
 
 On the Appian Way he hastens, o'er him the directing 
 
 star, 
 Nero's Golden House behind him looms in distance 
 
 vague and far. — 
 Hath the midnight other wanderers, shrinking from the 
 
 light of day ? 
 See, another comes towards him, hastening swift upon 
 
 the way.
 
 PETRUS. 255 
 
 Peter shudders in the darkness, turns aside with faltering 
 
 foot, 
 Fain would hasten past the stranger with a salutation mute, 
 Looks in passing on the countenance, sees it by the 
 
 stars' pale light — 
 Say what chills thy blood, Apostle? Say what now 
 
 delays thy flight ? 
 
 On the forehead of the Stranger stand the drops of bloody 
 
 sweat, 
 — Not the way makes Peter's heart throb, but the 
 
 traveller he has met. — 
 White as death the saddened countenance. Peter, dost 
 
 thou know him now ? 
 Tis the Form that stood at judgment on the day thou 
 
 brok'st thy vow. 
 
 And he greets his old disciple. In the strange clear- 
 searching eyes 
 
 Tears of silent-speaking sorrow slowly from their fountains 
 rise. 
 
 On the midnight traveller looks he. Peter, dost thou 
 know that look 
 
 Which recalled the wavering weakling when his duty he 
 forsook ? 
 
 Yea, the Christ now stands before thee! So in Pilate's 
 
 hall he stood, 
 So divinely-still his countenance when they raged id 
 
 angry mood.
 
 2 56 M ISC ELLA NEO US. 
 
 The disciple's heart hath known him, he his face to earth 
 
 doth bow, 
 And he calls: "My Lord and Saviour! Tell me 
 
 whither goest thou?" 
 
 Saith the Christ, with eyes on Peter shining through the 
 
 midnight gloom, 
 With the look shall sever Falsehood from the Truth at 
 
 Day of Doom : 
 " Now My church is desolated, My tried followers prove 
 
 untrue, — 
 I to Rome have bent My footsteps, to be crucified anew." 
 
 Straightway then the Vision vanished. Swifter than he 
 
 fled from death 
 Now the Apostle hastes to torture. " Christ demands 
 
 my life," he saith. 
 Back he turns his eager footsteps. Over Hellas dawns 
 
 the day, 
 Nero's Golden House is glittering like the sun's throne, 
 
 glancing gay. 
 
 And the sun in strength and glory over all the lands has 
 
 risen, 
 Finds the Christian folk rejoicing, the Apostle in his prison. 
 As it sinks it saw Christ's people weeping o'er the 
 
 Church's loss, 
 But its last rays touched an upturned, happy face upon 
 
 the Cross. 
 
 (JCinkel.)
 
 THE SPECTRE REVIEW. 257 
 
 THE SPECTRE REVIEW. 
 
 From out his grave the drummer, 
 When midnight's chime hath tolled, 
 
 Rises, and wanders nightly, 
 The drum within his hold. 
 
 With armbones white and lleshless 
 
 He moves the drumsticks two, 
 Plays many a wild reveille, 
 
 And many a weird tattoo. 
 
 And througli the dark, loud calling, 
 The drum-taps beat and shake ; 
 
 The dead forgotten soldiers 
 Within their graves awake. 
 
 Those buried in the Northland, 
 Stark beneath ice and snow, 
 
 And those whose bones are sweltering 
 [talia's earth below. 
 
 17
 
 2 5 8 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Those whom the Nile stream covers 
 And the Arabian sand, — 
 
 All from their graves are rising, 
 With weapons in their hand. 
 
 Then from his grave the trumpeter 
 
 At midnight rises slow, 
 And ever at the midnight 
 
 The ghostly trumpets blow. 
 
 Next come, on prancing horses, 
 The brave dead cavalry. 
 
 The bloody shot-pierced squadrons 
 All weaponed diversely. 
 
 Skulls grin beneath the shadow 
 Each dinted helm affords ; 
 
 Hands that are dry and fleshless 
 Brandish long, rusty swords. 
 
 And last, his grave forsaking 
 
 When strokes of midnight sound, 
 
 Comes the General, slowly riding, 
 With his phantom staff around.
 
 THE SPECTRE REVIEW. 259 
 
 Cocked and small the hat he weareth, 
 
 And his coat is grey and wide, 
 And he bears a small-sword hanging 
 
 In the sheath at his left side. 
 
 The moon with yellow glances 
 
 O'er the wide plain doth shine ; 
 The General watches mutely, 
 
 The troops they form in line. 
 
 The ranks present and shoulder 
 
 Their arms right soldierly, 
 With regimental music 
 
 The army passes by. 
 
 The marshals and the generals 
 
 Gather around him near ; 
 A word the leader whispers 
 
 Within his neighbour's ear. 
 
 " The Word" goes round the circle, 
 
 Resounds o'er all the plain : 
 " La France " the ringing password, 
 
 The answer "St. Helene." 
 
 Thus at the hour of midnight, 
 
 In the Champs Elys^es, 
 The long-dead Caesar holdeth 
 
 His weird review, men say. 
 
 (Zedlitz.)
 
 2 6o MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 EST, EST. 
 
 With Bolsena's lake in sight, 
 On the Flaschenberges* height, 
 Is a monumental stone 
 Bearing these short words alone : 
 Propter niniium Est Est 
 Dominus metis mortuus est. 
 
 And, this monument below, 
 Though his name we may not know, 
 Rests a knight, a German good, 
 German throat, and heart, and mood ; 
 Here he died, that knight of worth, — 
 God forgive his sins on earth ! 
 
 Travelling down to Italy 
 Many a sour wine did he dree, — 
 Sour, to twist his mouth awry, — 
 He would rather have gone dry ; 
 And he cried : " I taste no more ! 
 Squire of mine ride on before. 
 
 * Monteriascone, on the Lake of Bolsena.
 
 EST, EST 261 
 
 " In each house, good squire of mine, 
 Thou shalt try and taste the wine : 
 Where it seems good wine to thee, 
 Straightway lay a place for me ; 
 So that I may find the nest, 
 Write upon the door an ' Est ! ' " 
 
 And the squire rode on before, 
 Bridle drew at each inn door, 
 Tried each vintage of renown : 
 Was it good ? — he lighted down ; 
 Was it bad ? — he forth did pace, 
 Till he reached some better place. 
 
 So he came to where folk sell 
 Yellow wine of Muscatel, 
 Which in all Italia's land 
 Still the first of all doth stand. 
 When the happy squire drank this, 
 "Est!" seemed scanty praise I wis. 
 
 On the tavern door the squire, 
 In great letters red as fire, 
 Painted, after that wine's price, 
 "Est, Est ! " — so repeated twice ; 
 Nay, another record saith, 
 " Est, Est, Est ! " to mark his faith.
 
 262 M ISC ELLA NEO US. 
 
 Then his master came, saw, drank, 
 Until dead to earth he sank. 
 Squire, and cellarer, and knave 
 Dug for that good knight a grave, 
 On the Flaschenberges height 
 With Bolsena's lake in sight. 
 
 And his squire for him made moan, 
 O'er him set a rude grey stone, 
 Naught upon it marks a knight, 
 And on it these words did write : 
 " Propter nimium Est Est 
 Dominus mens mortuns est!" 
 
 When I climbed that mountain's flank, 
 
 In the inn one flask I drank, 
 
 And another carried out 
 
 To the famous place without, 
 
 Where that good knight lies at rest, 
 
 Conquered by the great Est Est. 
 
 Ah, good knight of days of old, 
 Thine a happy fate I hold, 
 Though thou fallen here didst sink, 
 Conquered by this glorious drink, 
 Best of all the folk may sell, 
 Bright and golden Muscatel !
 
 EST, EST. 263 
 
 Every year upon the day 
 When thy spirit passed away, 
 Thirsty souls this roof below 
 To thy grave with glasses go, 
 And that noble wine they pour 
 Solemnly thy grave-mound o'er. 
 
 But each lucky German man 
 Who his Est Est swallow can, 
 In his cups must think of thee ; 
 Nor is in his conscience free 
 Till libation he hath paid 
 To that good knight's thirsty shade 
 
 Neither have I done it wrong, 
 Therefore have I writ this song. 
 Uctter sing it o'er the wine 
 Than within a grave like thine. 
 Ah, full many lie at rest 
 " Propter nimium Est Est ! " 
 
 (Wilhelm Mulhr.)
 
 264 M ISC ELLA NE US. 
 
 SCHWERTING THE SAXON. 
 
 Tvvas Schwerting, Duke of Saxons, was feasting in his 
 
 hall, 
 The blood-red wine was foaming in cups of iron all, 
 The meats befitting princes in iron plates were seen, 
 And iron corslets' clashing rang wild and shrill, I ween. 
 
 'Twas Frotho, King of Denmark, beside Duke Schwerting 
 
 sate, 
 lie gazed with wondering glances upon his princely mate, 
 For iron chains were hanging on neck and hand and 
 
 breast, 
 And iron buckles clasping his sable mourning-vest. 
 
 " Say what may this betoken ? Now, kingly brother, say 
 Why at so strange a table my presence you did pray ? 
 For when I travelled hither from Denmark by the sea, 
 I thought my host would greet me in golden raiment 
 free."
 
 SCHWERTING THE SAXON. 265 
 
 " Lord King, red gold for freemen, but iron for the slave ! 
 Such is the Saxon custom, the reason that you crave. 
 You bound in chains of iron the Saxon arm and heart, 
 Had but the links been golden they had been wrenched 
 apart. 
 
 "Yet even chains of iron men loose by strength and art ; 
 It needs a faith straightforward, a free and manly heart. 
 These two shall break the fetters, though massy be their 
 
 frame, 
 From Saxony's brave scutcheon shall scour the slain of 
 
 shame ! " 
 
 And as the Prince was speaking, there strode into the 
 hall 
 
 Twelve knights in night-black armour, and bearing 
 torches all, 
 
 They stood like statues, listening to Schwerting's low- 
 spoke word, 
 
 Ami, swinging high their torches, rushed out when they 
 had heard. 
 
 Soon, in the room beneath them, the host and guest did 
 
 hear 
 A crackling and a rustling that told a tale of fear ; 
 And sultry grew the chamber, and grey the air with 
 
 smoke, 
 And : " 'Tis the hour of freedom ! " so Saxon Schwerting 
 
 spoke.
 
 266 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The King would flee in terror, the Duke he holds him 
 
 back : 
 " Stand still, await thy foeman, nor knightly valour lack! 
 Thy rival is beneath thee ; the fight is hand to hand : 
 Let him who wins be ruler o'er all the Saxon land ! " 
 
 And hotter, ever hotter, it grows within the hall, 
 And louder, ever louder, resounds the timbers' fall, 
 And farther, ever farther, the licking, red tongues reach ; 
 The door it falls in ruins, the flame it mounts the breach. 
 
 Now the brave Saxon warriors kneel when that sight they 
 
 see: 
 " Lord Christ, be gracious to the souls that come uncalled 
 
 to thee ! " 
 The Duke, with smile of scorning, watches the blazing 
 
 fire ; 
 The King sinks down in terror, his vassal-king steps 
 
 nigher. 
 
 " Look down, thou haughty victor ! tremble, thou caitiff 
 
 heart ! 
 So men melt chains of iron! — how likest thou our art?" 
 He shouts these words of daring, round him the red 
 
 flames glow, 
 And down the roof comes crashing. The chains were 
 
 melted so ! 
 
 {Ebert.)
 
 THE BRUCE 'S LOCKET. 267 
 
 THE BRUCE'S LOCKET. 
 
 " Earl Douglas, brace thine helmet on, 
 
 Gird on thy sword of steel, 
 Saddle and bridle thy swiftest steed, 
 
 And buckle spur on heel. 
 
 " The death-watch ticks in Scone's high hall, 
 
 And Scotland hears forlorn ; 
 King Robert lies at grips with death, 
 
 He will not see the morn." 
 
 And forty miles they rode amain, 
 The words they spake were four ; 
 
 But spur and steed were dripping red 
 When they reached the palace door. 
 
 King Robert lay i' the Northern Tower, 
 
 His eye began to flash : 
 " I hear the Sword of Bannockburn 
 
 Against the stair-steps clash !
 
 268 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 " In God's name welcome, comrade good 
 My day draws near the night, 
 
 And thou shalt hear my last command, 
 My testament shalt write : 
 
 " 'Tvvas on the day of Bannockburn 
 That Scotland's star uprose, 
 
 'Twas on the day of Bannockburn 
 When we faced the Southern foes, 
 
 " That I swore to God, if victory 
 And the crown to me were given, 
 
 I would go to fight in Palestine, 
 For the cause of Christ in heaven. 
 
 " The oath was false : for pilgrimage 
 
 I had not time enow, 
 The bridling of our Scottish lords 
 
 Was work enough, I trow. 
 
 " Vet when this strife with death is o'er, 
 
 And I am laid at rest, 
 Then thou shalt cut my weary heart 
 
 From out my quiet breast. 
 
 "Wrap it in crimson samite then, 
 
 Lay in a case of gold, 
 And round, when the death-mass is said, 
 
 Be the Cross's banner rolled.
 
 THE BRUCE'S LOCKET. 269 
 
 "And thou shalt take a thousand steeds, 
 
 And a thousand knights so free, 
 And bear my heart to Palestine, 
 
 So shall it quiet be. ; ' 
 
 ' ' Angus and Lothian forward now, 
 Now let your white plumes wave, 
 
 Earl Douglas has the Eruce's heart 
 Safe in his keeping brave. 
 
 " Slash through the cables with your swords, 
 
 Hoist sail right speedilie ; 
 The King he lies in the darksome grave, 
 
 But his knights must sail the sea." 
 
 The wind blew east, the ship sailed on, 
 
 For ninety days and nine, 
 And they set foot on a desert land, 
 
 When the hundredth morn did shine. 
 
 And o'er the desert-sand they 
 
 While the sea lay far below, 
 And through the plumes, like lances' shafts, 
 
 The straight sun-rays did go.
 
 2 7 o M ISC ELLA NE O US. 
 
 The waste was still ; i' the windless air 
 Eanners and scarfs down streamed ; 
 
 Sudden there rose a thick dust-cloud, 
 Beneath it spear- points gleamed. 
 
 The waste was loud with battle-cries, 
 The dust-clouds thick as smoke ; 
 
 And out from every tawny cloud 
 A flame of lances broke. 
 
 Ten thousand lances flashed to right, 
 To left were thousands ten, — 
 
 " Allah il Allah ! " on the right, 
 " II Allah !" back again. 
 
 The Douglas drew his bridle-rein, 
 Still stood both squire and knight : 
 
 " By Holy Cross and Mary's grace, 
 'Twill be a right fair fight ! " 
 
 A chain of gold was round his neck, 
 The links went round it thrice, 
 
 The Bruce's locket on it hung, 
 He kissed it once and twice : 
 
 " Before me ever hast thou gone, 
 When foes stood in our sight, 
 
 Pass on, brave heart, as thou wert wont 
 Go first in this stern fight !
 
 THE BRUCE' S LOCKET. 271 
 
 "Now, Lord of Heaven, be true to me, 
 
 As I to him was true, 
 And let me teach these heathen hounds 
 
 How Christian swords can hew." 
 
 He passed the shield-loop on his arm, 
 
 And braced his helmet good, 
 And ready for the coming fight 
 
 Up in the stirrups stood : 
 
 " Who brings this casket back to me, 
 
 His be the day's renown ! " 
 With all his strength he hurled the heart 
 
 'Mid the foe-masses brown. 
 
 With the left hand they cross themselves, 
 
 The right lays spear in rest : 
 " Now shields aloft and bridles loose ! 
 
 Let's see who strikes the best ! " 
 
 And sound of fight and sound of flight 
 
 The desert air did fill ; 
 The sun sank down beneath the sea, 
 
 The waste again was still. 
 
 And the pride of the Moors lay cold and dead, 
 
 Stretched on the field of fight, 
 And the blood soaked in on the desert sand, — 
 
 Still is it red to sight.
 
 272 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 By Christ's sweet grace no man was left 
 
 Of all the heathen horde, 
 For short the Scottish patience is, 
 
 And long the Scottish sword ! 
 
 But where the thickest corpse-heaps lay 
 
 Of Moorish heathen swart, 
 A cursed spear had pierced right through 
 
 Earl Douglas' gallant heart. 
 
 And still and cold the hero lay 
 
 In iron mail apart ; 
 But safe beneath his dinted shield 
 
 Lay Good King Robert's heart. 
 
 {Strachwitz.)
 
 THE WIDOW'S SON. 273 
 
 THE WIDOW'S SON. 
 
 To the castle-gate three white swans flew : 
 " To horse, to horse ! We cry upon you." 
 
 From every castle wide and far, 
 
 The young sons ride to the wasting war. 
 
 " It is hard for women to watch and wait 
 While the fair young knights ride out at gate. 
 
 "Thou art going, my bridegroom, — my brother, — 
 
 my son, — 
 We knew to the war that thou wouldest be gone. 
 
 " We women will gird thee and arm thee our knight. 
 Thy bride shalt buckle thy plume aright, 
 
 "Thy sister shall bring thee thy battle-steed, 
 To open the gate is thy mother's meed. 
 
 18
 
 >74 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 " My bridegroom, — my brother, — my one sweet son, 
 Give rede of returning,— speak short thereon." 
 
 " When wind and water and land are free, 
 I will hasten home where my loved ones be." 
 
 " Now wind and water and land are free, 
 Why hastes he not to his home, perdie ? 
 
 " We women will go our knight to meet, 
 
 From the hill-top his coming to watch and greet. 
 
 The dames they look over hill and dale, 
 To see the sun glint gold on his mail. 
 
 But the sun goes up and the sun goes down : 
 No rider rides gleaming over the down. 
 
 A steed gallops out of the thick dust-cloud, 
 A steed that bears no rider proud ! 
 
 They seize his bridle, they round him press : 
 " Why com'st thou alone and masterless ?
 
 THE WIDOW'S SO.V. 275 
 
 " Say where hast thou left our beloved one? 
 
 Say where is my bridegroom, — my brother, — my son ! " 
 
 " In the hottest fight they shot him dead, 
 On the green of the heath his couch is spread. 
 
 " And bearing the message of dule and pain, 
 I come full speed with loosened rein." 
 
 There were three white swans with cries of woe, 
 To seek for a grave to the heath did go. 
 
 They nestled down when that grave they wan : 
 At the foot, at the head, at the side was a swan. 
 
 At head was the sister, at foot was the bride, 
 The heart-broken mother she sat at his side : 
 
 " We be three women sit desolate : 
 
 Who shall there be in our sorrow a mate ? " 
 
 Spake the sun that in heaven was hanging low 
 " I will be mate in your wail and woe.
 
 »76 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 " Nine days will I wear a mist-grey shroud, 
 And the tenth I will veil my face in a cloud." 
 
 The bride she sorrowed for three short weeks ; 
 Three years the sister wore blanched white cheeks ; 
 
 But the mother she nursed unending woe, 
 Till she herself to the grave did go. 
 
 (C/iamisso.)
 
 A FOLK-SONG. 277 
 
 A FOLK-SONG. 
 
 You are mine, and I am yours, 
 That is the surest of all the sures. 
 Fast are you locked in my heart alway, 
 And the key of my heart is thrown away, — 
 For ever within it must you stay. 
 
 (Wert her von Tegernsee, 12.' h Century.)
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Thf. Bride of Corinth. 
 
 Hayward observes that this ballad leaves the reader in the 
 most embarrassing uncertainty whether the bride is a nun, a 
 vampire, or a ghost, — whether she conies from the convent or 
 the grave. The lady's character certainly seems to require 
 exegesis: but Goethe appears to take the second view. He 
 borrowed his plot from the story of " Machates and Philemon," 
 in which the bride is a Lamia who sucks her bridegroom's 
 blood at night. 
 
 The Lamia, or woman-serpent, developed in English in 
 Keats' magnificent poem "Lamia," is to be distinguished from 
 the Vampire. The ordinary vampire is simply a corpse which 
 has lain beneath the moon, and has the power of once sucking 
 the blood of a human being. The rarer class, called " soulless 
 bodies," is composed of those who have died in some great 
 epidemic, and thereafter rise and walk the world with a cease- 
 less thirst for blood. The bite of the vampire is always a 
 minute mark on the throat. 
 
 To this latter class the heroine of the ballad seems to belong. 
 
 The Rino of Polykuates. 
 
 This story is told by Herodotus (Thalia, cap. 40, et ieq.). 
 The fated emerald did not, however, reappear with such 
 celerity as in Schiller's poem, for it was on the fifth day that it 
 was restored to its doomed owner, and Auiasis had returned to 
 I'-gypt, whence he sent a herald to break the alliance. Poly- 
 krates then sided with Cambyses, who was sending an expe- 
 dition into Egypt. Finally he fell into the power of Oroites, 
 Governor of Sardis, who crucified him. Polykrates and Croesus
 
 280 NOTES. 
 
 are the usual illustrative examples of Solon's famous saying, 
 " Call no man happy till his death." 
 
 The Glove. 
 
 The original story is evidently the twenty-fourth novel of the 
 Third Part of Cinthio Bandello's ' ' Novelle. " The hero is one of 
 the knights of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the scene Seville. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, in the "Glove and the Lions," and Browning, In 
 "The Glove," have treated the same story. But the latter poet 
 takes a characteristic view in siding with the lady,— justifying 
 her right to put her lover's protestations to the test. She 
 marries one who would not have spoken but acted ; while that 
 preux chevalier, De Lorges, is rewarded with the hand of one of 
 the Court Beauties,— a somewhat doubtful blessing in the reign 
 of Francis I. 
 
 The Diver. 
 
 Perhaps the " Diver" was suggested by the fate of Pescecola, 
 a famous swimmer, drowned in Charybdis in the reign of King 
 Frederick. 
 
 The Count of Hapsburg, 
 
 Schiller's note to this ballad is, "Tschudi, who has handed 
 down this anecdote, also relates that the priest to whom the 
 incident refers afterwards became chaplain to the Prince- 
 Bishop of Mayence, and at the next election, which followed 
 the Great Interregnum, was instrumental in turning the 
 thoughts of that dignitary to the Count of Hapsburg." 
 
 The names and offices of the Seven Electors are preserved in 
 a Latin verse by Marsilius Patavinus (De Imperio Romano) :— 
 
 " Moguntinensis, Trevirensis, Coloniensis, 
 Quilibet Imperii sit Cancellarius horum, 
 Et Palatinus dapifer, Dux portitor ensis, 
 Marchio prepositus cameras, pincerna Bohemus, 
 Hi stat mint dominum cunctis per srecula summum." 
 
 The Electoral College was first mentioned in 1152, and in 1265 
 a letter of Pope Urban IV. says that the right of choosing the 
 Roman Emperor was vested in the Seven Electors. 
 
 The Palsgravine vote was, at the outbreak of the Thirty Years' 
 War, transferred by Ferdinand II. to Bavaria, but at the Peace
 
 NOTES. 281 
 
 of Westphalia matters were compromised by both parties 
 retaining the vote. The House of Brunswick-Liineburg, then in 
 possession of Hanover, received a vote in 1692, and thus the 
 ninth electorate fell to the Guelphs. 
 
 After the Great Interregnum, the Electors were compelled to 
 meet by the Pope's threat that he would, in the case of further 
 delay, take the choice of the Emperor into his own hands. The 
 Emperor Rudolph, however, despite his virtues, did little to 
 raise the glory of the House of Hapsburg, which became a great 
 power later on under Albrecht. 
 
 As a matter of history, the King of Bohemia did not exercise 
 his office at the coronation feast. He was at home brooding 
 over his own rejection, and meditating war. 
 
 The Wild Huntsman. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott's note, appended to his translation of this 
 ballad, is as follows : — " The tradition on which it is founded 
 bears that formerly a Wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, 
 named Falkenberg, was so much addicted to the pleasures of 
 the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and cruel, 
 that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the 
 Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but 
 accompanied it with the most unheard-of oppression of the poor 
 peasants under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, 
 the people adopted a superstition, founded probably on the 
 many uncouth sounds heard in the depths of a German forest 
 during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard 
 the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds, and the well-known cheer of 
 the deceased hunter, the sounds of his horse's feet, and the 
 rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the 
 sportsman, are also distinctly discriminated, but the phantoms 
 are rarely, if ever, visible. Once, as a benighted hunter heard 
 this infernal chase pass by him, at the sound of the halloo with 
 which the spectral huntsman cheered his hounds, he could not 
 refrain from crying, 'Gluck zu, Falkenberg!' 'Dost thou wish 
 me good sport? ' answered a hoarse voice ; ' thou shalt share the 
 tame.' And there was thrown at him what seemed to be a 
 huge piece of foul carrion. The daring hunter lost two of his 
 best horses soon after, and never perfectly recovered the per- 
 gonal effects of the ghostly greeting. This tale, though told 
 with some variations, is believed all over Germany. 
 
 " The French had a similar tradition concerning an aerial 
 hunter who infested the forest of Fontainebleau. He was 
 sometimes visible : when he appeared as a huntsman surrounded
 
 282 NOTES. 
 
 by dogs, a tall, grisly figure. Some account of him may be found 
 in 'Sully's Memoirs,' who says he was called 'Le Grand 
 Veneur.'" 
 
 Since Scott wrote the foregoing, this last tradition of which 
 he speaks has been caught up into the very third heaven of 
 poetry, by giving rise to Victor Hugo's magnificent "Chasseur 
 Noir." 
 
 The Smithying of Sigi-rid's Sword. 
 
 The "Sigfrid" of this ballad is of course identical with the 
 Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, and Sigurd Fafnir's-bane, the 
 hero of the Volsunga Saga and ancestor of Olaf the White, first 
 King of Dublin. But the original story of the sword is far more 
 striking than Uhland's unimpressive version. 
 
 Into the hall of King Volsung, as men sat by the fire at 
 evening, came a stranger, one-eyed, huge, and ancient, wrapped 
 in a cloak, and bearing a naked sword in his hand. The 
 Unknown went up to the Branstock, a great log that stood in 
 the midst of the flames, and smote his sword into the tree- 
 trunk, so that it sank in up to the hilt. All shrank back, and 
 the stranger said, " Whoso draweth this sword from the stock 
 shall have the same as a gift from me, and shall find in good 
 sooth that never bare he abetter sword in hand than this is." 
 With these words he vanished ; and all the champions strove to 
 loosen the magic sword, but none could succeed, till the king's 
 son, Sigmund the Volsung, tore it out. 
 
 More than once he owed his life to the charmed sword ; but 
 in his old age he met in battle King Lyngi, the rejected suitor 
 of his beautiful young wife Hjordis. As usual, victory was with 
 the_ Volsungs, till an unknown man, one-eyed, huge, and 
 ancient, came into the battle and sided with the enemy. This 
 was Odin, coming to change the ownership of the sword. He 
 crossed the path of the old king, who struck at him with this 
 enchanted weapon. But the magic blade shivered in twain on 
 the brown-bill of Odin, and, as the fragments fell, King Sig- 
 mund's luck departed from him, and he was smitten nigh to 
 death. 
 
 His wife Hjordis seeks him among the slain, and asks if he 
 may yet be healed, but the dying man answers, in almost 
 Homeric language, " Many a man lives after hope has grown 
 little; but my good-hap has departed from me, nor will I 
 suffer myself to be healed, nor wills Odin that I should ever 
 draw sword again since this my sword and his is broken ; lo, 
 now I have waged war while it was his will." He then directs
 
 NOTES. 283 
 
 her to gather up the pieces of his broken blade, which in Odin's 
 own time shall be welded into the sword Gram (Balmung in the 
 Nibelungenlied), which shall be wielded by the coming avenger, 
 Sigurd. 
 
 Hjordis gave birth soon after to a son, Sigurd the Volsung, 
 who was brought up in the house of his step-father, King Alf, 
 under the fosterage of Regin the Smith, son of King Reidmar, 
 and hereditary enemy of the Volsungs. The gold of Andvari 
 was under the guard of the dragon Fafnir, and Regin knew that 
 the guardian of the hoard could be slain only by the magic 
 sword of Odin. So he dissembled his hatred for the young 
 Volsung, and smithied for him, from the shards of the Bran- 
 stock blade, the sword Gram,— meaning, after Sigurd had slain 
 the dragon, to betray him to death, and thus be lord both of 
 the wondrous sword and the gold of Andvari. But he met the 
 reward of his treachery ; and, with the hoard, Sigurd inherited 
 the Curse of Andvari, which brought him finally to his 
 destruction. 
 
 Enchanted blades play a great part in the Northern legends. 
 Among the most famous are "Skoffnung," the sword of Hrolf 
 Kraka, buried with him, and afterwards taken from his grave ; 
 and the still more famous " Tirting," wielded by the hero 
 Angantyr, on which the dwarfs who forged it laid the spell 
 that it should never be drawn without killing a man. How the 
 curse worked itself out may be read in the Hervardar Saga: not 
 the least romantic of these wonderful stories. 
 
 Riciiard the Fearless. 
 
 Richard the Fearless, third Duke of Normandy (943-996), 
 though an apostate from Christianity in his youth, became a 
 great benefactor to the Church in after years. His life was a 
 somewhat singular mixture of love, war, and devotion. 
 
 Charlemagne's Voyage. 
 
 The lists given of the Twelve Peers vary almost as much as 
 those of the Round Table. Perhaps the most famous Twelve 
 are :— Roland, Ogier the Dane, Oliver, Ganelon the Traitor, 
 Archbishop Turpin, Naims of Bavaria, Riol du Mans, (iuy of 
 Burgundy, Garin of Lorraine, Lambert of Brussels, Geoffroy de 
 Bordelois, and Richard the Fearless. 
 
 Roland, the hero of the next poem, was nephew of Charle- 
 magne, being son of his sister Bertha and Milon of Anglante.
 
 284 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 He and his famous brother-in-arms, Oliver, to whose sister, La 
 Belle Aude, he was betrothed, were both betrayed to their 
 death by Ganelon the Traitor, and fell gloriously in the battle 
 of Roncesvalles. 
 
 The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar. 
 
 Heine's own note to the first edition of this poem is : — 
 
 "The idea of this poem is not wholly my own. It arose 
 from one of my Rhenish-Prussian remembrances. When 
 I was a small boy, and was getting my first thrashings, and 
 learning the alphabet and how to sit still, I often sat 
 beside another boy, who was perpetually prattling to me about 
 how his mother had once taken him with her to Kevlaar 
 (in Guelderland), and offered up a wax foot as a votive offer- 
 ing for him, and how his sore foot had been healed. I came 
 across this boy again in the highest class of the Gymnasium ; 
 and when we were neighbours under Rector Schallmeyer, he 
 laughingly reminded me of the miracle, but added, with a touch 
 of earnestness, that his offering to the Mother of God would now 
 be a wax heart. I heard later on that he was unhappy in his 
 love affairs, and finally he dropped out of my acquaintance. 
 
 " In 1819 1 was a student at Bonn, and as I was walking in the 
 neighbourhood of Godesberg I heard in the distance the well- 
 known Kevlaar-chant, whose usual refrain is ' Gelobt seist du, 
 Maria.' As the procession came nearer I saw among the 
 processionists my quondam school-mate, with his old mother, 
 who was supporting him. He looked very pale and ill." 
 
 To the last edition of the " Reisebilder " he adds a very 
 characteristic note, pointing out that the mind of the poet is 
 not to be inferred from his poem. 
 
 Barbarossa. 
 
 Frederick I., Barbarossa (1152-1159), is said to be enchanted in 
 the caverns of the Untersberg, south-west of Salzburg. He will 
 remain in his spell-bound condition till the ravens cease circling 
 round the mountain-top, and till the pear-trees blossom in the 
 valley. When Germany is at her greatest need, he and his 
 Crusaders are to rise and drive back her enemies. It would be 
 interesting to know whether news of the dismissal of the 
 " Blood-and-Iron Chancellor " has as yet reached the cavern of 
 the " Kyffhauser," and what are the Red-beard's views on the 
 present political outlook.
 
 NOTES. 285 
 
 Geibel, a poet who is a cult in Germany much as Keats is 
 here, has written a fine sequel, "The Awakening of Frederick 
 Barbarossa." 
 
 Told by a Brahmin. 
 
 This story has also been told by our greatest contemporary 
 poet in the Dramatic Idylls. Riickert's is perhaps the finer 
 version of the two, but the Englfsh writer gives the climax 
 better : — 
 
 " ' To have simply held the tongue were task for a boy or girl, 
 And here were Mule'ykeh again, the eyed like an antelope, 
 The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by 
 
 night!' 
 ' And the beaten in speed ! ' wept Hoseyn, ' You never have 
 loved my Pearl.'" 
 
 The Death of Carus. 
 
 While the Franks were invading the Roman Empire on the 
 north, Valerian marched against Sapor (Shahpur I.), King of 
 Persia, who expressed a wish for a personal conference, to which 
 the Roman emperor acceded. In defiance of international 
 custom, he was detained prisoner, and carried by his treacher- 
 ous foe into the heart of Persia. Here lie was exposed in 
 chains, and when Sapor mounted he placed his foot on 
 Valerian's neck. When the unfortunate captive died, his skin 
 is said to have been stuffed, and preserved for ages in a 
 Persian temple ; but these stories are related on the authority 
 of the sculptures of Shahpur and Nakhsh-i-Rustum, in which 
 the triumph of Persia ware sure to be exaggerated. 
 
 Aurelian drove back the Goths, and his successes in Gaul 
 led him to attack Zenobia, the beautiful and warlike queen of 
 Palmyra. He took her capital, and led the queen in triumph 
 to Home, permitting her afterwards to retire to Tibur. After 
 the assassination of Aurelian, Probus drove the Franks across 
 the Rhine, and followed them with fire and sword to the Elbe, 
 till the nine principal chiefs gave their submission. 
 
 Carus, his successor, went to war with Sarmatia and Persia, 
 utterly broke the power of the (ioths, and overran Mesopo- 
 tamia, taking Seleucia and Ctesiphon. While he was confined 
 to his tent by sickness a fearful storm arose, accompanied by 
 thick darkness. A fearful cry was heard from the Emperor's 
 tent, which was seen to be in flames, and when his bodyguard
 
 286 NOTES. 
 
 rushed in Carus was dead, either, as the superstition of the 
 time said, by the thunderbolt of the enraged fire-god, whose 
 worshippers he was assailing, or, as the scepticism of modern 
 historians has suggested, by the hand of a traitor who there- 
 after set fire to his tent. 
 
 Tfie Pilgrim of St. Just. 
 
 In 1557 the Emperor Charles V. abdicated in favour of his 
 son, Philip of Spain, and retired to the monastery of St. Justus, 
 of the order of St. Jerome, in Plazentia in Estremadura, where 
 he died in the practice of severe austerities in 1558. 
 
 The Grave in the Busentinus. 
 
 "The ferocious character of the barbarians was displayed in 
 the funeral of their hero. By the labour of a captive multi- 
 tude they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a 
 small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal 
 sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and treasures of 
 Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed, the waters were then 
 restored to their natural channel, and the secret of the spot 
 where the remains of Alaric had been deposited was for ever 
 concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had 
 been employed to execute the work."— [Gibbon]. 
 
 Harmosan. 
 
 Under the warlike Khalif Omar the rising power of 
 Mohammedanism came into collision with the great dynasty 
 of the Sassanidse. The battle of Kadesiah, the capture of the 
 famous Darafsh-i-Kawani (the blacksmith's apron which was 
 the palladium of Persia), the sack of Ctesiphon, and the 
 carnage of Nehavend, transferred the sceptre from the feeble 
 hold of Yezdigird III. to the more virile grasp of Omar, whose 
 name has won unenviable notoriety from his destruction of the 
 Alexandrian Library. Thus ended in a.d. 641 the great 
 Sassanid race, which had ruled Persia for four hundred and 
 fifteen years from its founder, Ardashir. 
 
 Schilling's magnificent statue of " Germania," erected in the 
 Niederwald, seems to be the realisation of Freiligrath's poem.
 
 NOTES. 287 
 
 The Submerged Town. 
 
 Busurn probably has its prototype in the submerged villages 
 of the Zuyder-Zee, or the " sinful city of Ys," off the coast of 
 Bretagne. 
 
 Attila's Swonn. 
 
 The Scythians worshipped the War-god, under the symbol 
 of an iron scimitar. The tale runs that certain herdsmen 
 observed that the foot of one of their heifers was wounded, and 
 following the blood-marks discovered an ancient sword half 
 buried among the gTass. It was given to Attila, who gave out 
 that it was a present from the god Mars. 
 
 The Confession of Charlemagne. 
 
 Eginhard has an erroneous passage (" Parum successit labor 
 praeposterus et sero inchoatus ), on which the idea has been 
 founded that Charlemagne could not write. The pupil of 
 Alcuin and Peter of Pisa was one of the best educated men of 
 his age, proficient in grammar, rhetoric, and astronomy, and 
 thoroughly acquainted with Latin and Greek, besides the lan- 
 guages of many of his contemporaries. Eginhard himself states 
 that the monarch wrote the history of the ancient kin^s in 
 verse, and another writer declares that the imperial library 
 still contains a manuscript corrected by him. 
 
 In the latter part of his reign, the rude letters used by the 
 Merovingians dropped into disuse, and the Roman letters were 
 introduced. 'Writing in these was more like what we call 
 illuminating. Charlemagne learnt it, and it is said had an 
 alphabet by his pillow in order to practise his new accom- 
 plishment during his hours of sleeplessness. 
 
 THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ONTYNE.
 
 The CANTERBURY POETS. 
 
 Edited bt WILLIAM SHARP. 
 
 With Introductory Notices by various Contributors. 
 In Shilling Volumes, Cloth, Square 8vo. 
 
 Cloth, Red Edges - Is. I 
 
 Cloth, Uncut Edges . - Is. | 
 
 ALREADY 
 Christian Year. 
 Coleridge. 
 Longfellow. 
 CampbeLL 
 Shelley. 
 Wordsworth. 
 Blake. 
 Whittier. 
 Poe. 
 
 Chatterton. 
 Burns. Poems. 
 Burns. Songs. 
 Marlowe. 
 Keats. 
 Herbert. 
 Victor Hugo. 
 Cowper. 
 Shakespeare: 
 
 . Poems, and Sonnets. 
 Emerson. 
 
 Sonnets of this Century. 
 Whitman. 
 Scott. .Marmion, etc. 
 Scott. I-ady of the Lake, etc. 
 Pracd. 
 Hogg. 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Mackay's Love Letters. 
 Spenser. 
 
 Children of the Poets. 
 Ben Jonson. 
 Byron (2 Vols.). 
 Days of the Year. 
 Sonnets of Europe. 
 Allan Ramsay. 
 Sydney DobelL 
 Pope. 
 Heine. 
 
 Red Roan, Gilt Edges, 2s. 6d 
 Pad. Morocco, Gilt Edges - 5s. 
 ISSUED. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 Bov/les, Lamb, etc. 
 
 Early English Poetry. 
 
 Sea Music. 
 
 Herrick. 
 
 Ballades and Rondeaus. 
 
 Irish Minstrelsy. 
 
 Milton's Paradise Lost. 
 
 Jacobite Ballads. 
 
 Australian Ballads. 
 
 Moore's Poems. 
 
 Border Ballads. 
 
 Song-Tide. 
 
 Odes oi Horace. 
 
 O'-sian. 
 
 Elfin Music. 
 
 Southey. 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 Poems of Wild Life. 
 
 Paradise Regained. 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 Dora GreenwelL 
 
 Goethe's Faust. 
 
 American Sonnets. 
 
 Landor's Poems. 
 
 Greek Anthology. 
 
 Hunt and Hcod. 
 
 Humorous Poems. 
 
 Lytton's Plays. 
 
 Great Odes. 
 
 Owen Meredith's Poems. 
 
 P inter-Poets. 
 
 Women-Poets. 
 
 Love Lyrics. 
 
 American Humor. Verse. 
 
 Scottish Minor Poets. 
 
 Cavalier Lyrists. 
 
 German Ballads. 
 
 London: Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
 
 THE NOVELTY OF THE SEASON. 
 
 SELECTED THREE-VOLUME SETS 
 
 IN NEW BROCADE BINDING. 
 6s. PER SET, IN SHELL CASE TO MATCH. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING SETS CAN BE OBTAINED— 
 
 POEMS OF 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Keats. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Hogg. 
 
 Allan Ramsay. 
 Scottish Minor 
 Poets. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 Ben Jonson. 
 Marlowe. 
 
 • [Century. 
 
 Sonnets of this 
 Sonnets of Europe. 
 American Sonnets. 
 
 Heine. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 Hugo. 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 Southey 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 Border Ballads. 
 Jacobite Songs, 
 Ossian. 
 
 Cavalier Poets. 
 Love Lyrics. 
 Herrick. 
 
 Christian Year. 
 Imitation of 
 
 Christ. 
 Herbert. 
 
 American Humor- 
 ous Verse. 
 
 English Humor- 
 ous Verse. 
 
 Ballades and 
 Rondeaus. 
 
 Early English 
 
 Poetry. 
 Chaucer. 
 Spenser. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 Greek Anthology. 
 
 Landor. 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Moore. 
 
 Irish Minstrelsy. 
 
 Women Poets. 
 Children of Poets. 
 Sea Music. 
 
 Praed. 
 
 Hunt and Hood. 
 
 Dobell. 
 
 Meredith. 
 Mars ton. 
 Love Letters. 
 
 SELECTED TWO-VOLUME SETS. 
 
 IN NEW BROCADE BINDING. 
 4s. per Set, in Shell Case to match. 
 
 Scott (Lady of the Lake, etc.). 
 Scott (Marmion, etc.). 
 
 Burns (Songs). 
 Burns (Poems). 
 
 Byron (Don Juan, etc.). 
 Byron (Miscellaneous). 
 
 Milton (Paradise Lost). 
 
 Milton (Paradise Regained, etc.). 
 
 London : Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
 
 SELECTED THREE-VOLUME SETS 
 
 IN NEW BROCADE BINDING. 
 6s. per Set, in Shell Case to match. 
 
 O. W. HOLMES 
 SERIES- 
 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast 
 Table. 
 
 The Professor at the Break- 
 fast Table. 
 
 The Poet at the Breakfast 
 Table. 
 
 LANDOR SERIES- 
 
 Landor's Imaginary Conver- 
 sations. 
 Pentameron. 
 Pericles and Aspasia. 
 
 THREE ENGLISH 
 ESSAYISTS- 
 
 Kssays of Elia. 
 Essays of Leigh Hunt. 
 Kssays of William Hazlitt. 
 
 THREE CLASSICAL 
 MORALISTS- 
 
 Meditations of Marcus 
 
 Aurelius. 
 Teaching of Epictetus. 
 Morals of Seneca. 
 
 WALDEIM SERIES- 
 
 Thoreau's Walden. 
 Thoreau's Week. 
 Thoreau's Essays. 
 
 FAMOUS LETTERS 
 
 Letters of Burns. 
 Letters of Byron. 
 Letters of Shelley. 
 
 LOWELL SERIES- 
 
 My Study Windows. 
 The English Poets. 
 The Biglow Papers. 
 
 London : Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Kow.
 
 Quarto, cloth elegant, gilt edges, emblematic design on 
 
 cover, 6s. May also be had in a variety 
 
 sf Fancy Bindings. 
 
 THE 
 
 Music of the Poets 
 
 A MUSICIANS' BIRTHDAY BOOK. 
 
 EDITED BY ELEONORE D'ESTERRE KEELING. 
 
 This is a unique Birthday Book. Against each date are 
 given the names of musicians whose birthday it is, together 
 with a verse-quotation appropriate to the character of their 
 different compositions or performances. A special feature of 
 the book consists in the reproduction in fac-simile of auto- 
 graphs, and autographic music, of living composers. Three 
 sonnets by Mr. Theodore Watts, on the "Fausts" of Berlioz, 
 Schumann, and Gounod, have been written specially for this 
 volume. It is illustrated with designs of various musical 
 instruments, etc.; autographs of Rubenstein, Dvorak, Grieg, 
 Mackenzie, Villiers Stanford, etc., etc. 
 
 " To musical amateurs this will certainly prove the most at- 
 tractive birthday book ever published."— Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " One of those happy ideas that seems to have been yearning 
 for fulfilment. . . . The book ought to have a place on every 
 music stand." — Scottish Leader. 
 
 London : Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
 
 TJTTE on the 1- 
 ^elow 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA! 
 
 \n& ANGELES
 
 3 1158 01081 3912 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 764 974 2