SONGS. TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. WELCOME, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, While the sullen gales of autumn 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, Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian, 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, To the Vikings. Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, Once Prince Frederick's Guard 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 And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY, THE day is ending, The marsh is frozen, Through clouds like ashes On village windows That glimmer red. The bell is pealing, To the dismal knell; Shadows are trailing, Like a funeral bell. WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID. VOGELWEID the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister, Under Würtzburg's minster towers. And he gave the monks his treasures, Saying, "From these wandering minstrels 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 Day by day, o'er tower and turret, On the tree whose heavy branches On the pavement, on the tombstone, On the cross-bars of each window, They renewed the War of Wartburg, Till at length the portly abbot Then in vain o'er tower and turret, Time has long effaced the inscriptions 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. |