Quiet, close, and warm,

Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.17

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 bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests

Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions
On the cloister's funeral stones,

And tradition only tells us

Where repose the poet's bones.

But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes multiplied,
Still the birds repeat the legend,
And the name of Vogelweid.

DRINKING SONG.

INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER.

COME, old friend! sit down and listen!
From the pitcher, placed between us,
How the waters laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus !

Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,

Led by his inebriate Satyrs; On his breast his head is sunken, Vacantly he leers and chatters.

Fauns with youthful Bacchus fellow;
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.

R

Judged by no o'er-zealous rigour,
Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigour,
And Silenus of excesses.

These are ancient ethnic revels,
Of a faith long since forsaken
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.

Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,-
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.

Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons
Never would his own replenish.

Even Redi, though he chaunted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies.

Then with water fill the pitcher
Wreathed about with classic fables;

Ne'er Falernian threw a richer

Light upon Lucullus' tables.

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

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.

L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"—Jacques Bridaine.

SOMEWHAT back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,—
"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Halfway up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

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

Never forever!"

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

And seems to say, at each chamber-door,——

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"