Songs.

Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, While the sullen gales of autumn Shake the windows. The ungrateful world Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, First I met thee. There are marks of age, There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely At the alehouse. Soiled and dull thou art; Yellow are thy time-worn pages, As the russet, rain-molested Leaves of autumn. Thou art stained with wine Scattered from hilarious goblets, As the leaves with the libations Of Olympus. Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When in dreamy youth I wandered By the Baltic,— When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Shouted from suburban taverns In the twilight. Thou recallest bards, Who, in solitary chambers, And with hearts by passion wasted, Wrote thy pages. Thou recallest homes Where thy songs of love and friendship Made the gloomy Northern winter Bright as summer. Once some ancient Scald, In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, Chanted staves of these old ballads To the Vikings. Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, Yorick and his boon companions Sang these ditties. Once Prince Frederick’s Guard Sang them in their smoky barracks;— Suddenly the English cannon Joined the chorus! Peasants in the field, Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them. Thou hast been their friend; They, alas, have left thee friendless; Yet at least by one warm fireside Art thou welcome. And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, So thy twittering songs shall nestle In my bosom,— Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices Youth and travel.

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

Vogelweid the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister, Under Würtzburg’s minster towers. And he gave the monks his treasures, Gave them all with this behest: They should feed the birds at noontide Daily on his place of rest; Saying, “From these wandering minstrels I have learned the art of song; Let me now repay the lessons They have taught so well and long.” Thus the bard of love departed; And, fulfilling his desire, On his tomb the birds were feasted By the children of the choir. Day by day, o’er tower and turret, In foul weather and in fair, Day by day, in vaster numbers, Flocked the poets of the air. On the tree whose heavy branches Overshadowed all the place, On the pavement, on the tombstone, On the poet’s sculptured face, On the cross-bars of each window, On the lintel of each door, They renewed the War of Wartburg, Which the bard had fought before. There they sang their merry carols, Sang their lauds on every side; And the name their voices uttered Was the name of Vogelweid. Till at length the portly abbot Murmured, “Why this waste of food? Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our fasting brotherhood.” Then in vain o’er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, When the minster bell rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests. Then in vain, with cries discordant, Clamorous round the Gothic spire, Screamed the feathered Minnesingers For the children of the choir. Time has long effaced the inscriptions On the cloister’s funeral stones, And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet’s bones. But around the vast cathedral, By sweet echoes multiplied, Still the birds repeat the legend, And the name of Vogelweid.

The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me, That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life’s endless toil and endeavour; And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start; Who, through long days of labour, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges The toiling surges, Laden with sea-weed from the rocks: From Bermuda’s reefs; from edges Of sunken ledges, In some far-off, bright Azore; From Bahama, and the dashing, Silver-flashing Surges of San Salvador; From the tumbling surf, that buries The Orkneyan skerries, Answering the hoarse Hebrides; And from wrecks of ships, and drifting Spars, uplifting On the desolate, rainy seas;— Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the shifting Currents of the restless main; Till in sheltered coves, and reaches Of sandy beaches, All have found repose again. So when storms of wild emotion Strike the ocean Of the poet’s soul, ere long From each cave and rocky fastness, In its vastness, Floats some fragment of a song: From the far-off isles enchanted, Heaven has planted With the golden fruit of Truth; From the flashing surf, whose vision Gleams Elysian In the tropic clime of Youth; From the strong Will and the Endeavour That for ever Wrestle with the tides of Fate; From the wreck of Hopes far scattered, Tempest-shattered, Floating waste and desolate;— Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the shifting Currents of the restless heart; Till at length in books recorded, They, like hoarded Household words, no more depart.

Come, old friend! sit down and listen! From the pitcher placed between us, How the waters laugh and glisten In the head of old Silenus! Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Led by his inebriate Satyrs; On his breast his head is sunken, Vacantly he leers and chatters. Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; Ivy crowns that brow supernal As the forehead of Apollo, And possessing youth eternal. Round about him, fair Bacchantes, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante’s Vineyards, sing delirious verses. Thus he won, through all the nations, Bloodless victories, and the farmer Bore, as trophies and oblations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armour. Judged by no o’er-zealous rigour, Much this mystic throng expresses: Bacchus was the type of vigour, And Silenus of excesses. These are ancient ethnic revels, Of a faith long since forsaken; Now the Satyrs, changed to devils, Frighten mortals wine-o’ertaken. Now to rivulets from the mountains Point the rods of fortune-tellers; Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,— Not in flasks, and casks and cellars. Claudius, though he sang of flagons And huge tankards filled with Rhenish, From that fiery blood of dragons Never would his own replenish. Even Redi, though he chanted Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, Never drank the wine he vaunted In his dithyrambic sallies. Then with water fill the pitcher Wreathed about with classic fables; Ne’er Falernian threw a richer Light upon Lucullus’ tables. Come, old friend, sit down and listen! As it passes thus between us, How its wavelets laugh and glisten In the head of old Silenus!

Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat; Across its antique portico Tall poplar trees their shadows throw, And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all, “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” Half-way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands From its case of massive oak, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, Crosses himself, and sighs, alas! With sorrowful voice to all who pass,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” By day its voice is low and light; But in the silent dead of night, Distinct as a passing footstep’s fall, It echoes along the vacant hall, Along the ceiling, along the floor, And seems to say at each chamber-door,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Through days of death and days of birth, Through every swift vicissitude Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, And as if, like God, it all things saw, It calmly repeats those words of awe,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” In that mansion used to be Free-hearted Hospitality; His great fires up the chimney roared; The stranger feasted at his board; But, like the skeleton at the feast, That warning timepiece never ceased,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” There groups of merry children played, There youths and maidens dreaming strayed; O precious hours! O golden prime, And affluence of love and time! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient timepiece told,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” From that chamber, clothed in white, The bride came forth on her wedding night: There, in that silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, “Ah! when shall they all meet again?” As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!” Never here, for ever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, And death and time shall disappear,— For ever there, but never here! The horologe of Eternity Sayeth this incessantly,— “For ever—never! Never—for ever!”

The day is ending, The night is descending; The marsh is frozen, The river dead. Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes On village windows That glimmer red. The snow recommences; The buried fences Mark no longer The road o’er the plain; While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes A funeral train. The bell is pealing, And every feeling Within me responds To the dismal knell; Shadows are trailing, My heart is bewailing And tolling within Like a funeral bell.