NUREMBERG

IN the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadowlands

Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,

Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,

Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;

And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,

That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,

Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;

On the square, the oriel window, where in old heroic days Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.

Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art: Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;

And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,

By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy

dust,

And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age

their trust;

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In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture

rare,

Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.

Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,

Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land. Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies; Dead he is not, but departed,--for the artist never dies. Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair

That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,

Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic

strains.

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,

Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,

And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom

In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poct, laureate of the gentle

craft,

Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.

But his house is now an alehouse, with a nicely sanded floor, And a garland in the window, and his face above the door,

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,

As the old man gray and dovelike, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark

and care,

Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard,

But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, Ọ Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away, As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,

The nobility of labor,-the long pedigree of toil.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

BINGEN ON THE RHINE

A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,

There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;

But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed

away,

And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say. The dying soldier faltered, as he took that comrade's hand, And he said, “I nevermore shall see my own, my native land;

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Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine, For I was born at Bingen, at Bingen on the Rhine.

"Tell my brothers and companions, when they meet and crowd around,

To hear my mournful story, in the pleasant vineyard ground, That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done,

Full many a corse lay ghastly pale beneath the setting

sun:

And, 'mid the dead and dying, were some grown old in

wars,

The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many

scars;

And some were young, and suddenly beheld life's morn decline,

And one had come from Bingen,-fair Bingen on the Rhine.

"Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old

age;

For I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage; For my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild;

And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard, I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's

sword;

And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine,

On the cottage wall at Bingen,-calm Bingen on the Rhine.

"Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head,

When the troops come marching home again with glad and gallant tread,

But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast

eye,

For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die;
And if a comrade seck her love, I ask her in my name
To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame,

And to hang the old sword in its place (my father's sword and mine),

For the honor of old Bingen-dear Bingen on the Rhine.

"There's another, not a sister; in the happy days gone by You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in

her eye;

Too innocent for coquetry,-too fond for idle scorning,— O friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning!

Tell her the last night of my life (for, ere the moon be risen, My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison),— I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine On the vine-clad hills of Bingen,-fair Bingen on the Rhine.

"I saw the bluc Rhine sweep along,-I heard, or seemed to hear,

The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear;
And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill,
The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and

still;

And her glad blue eyes were on me, as we passed, with friendly talk,

Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered walk,

And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine,

But we'll meet no more at Bingen,-loved Bingen on the Rhine."

His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, his grasp was childish weak,—

His eyes put on a dying look,―he sighed and ceased to speak;
His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled,—
The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land was dead!
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked
down

On the red sand of the battle-field, with bloody corses strown; Yes, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine,

As it shone on distant Bingen,-fair Bingen on the Rhine. Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton [1808-1877]