From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered, Floating waste and desolate;— Ever drifting, drifting, drifting Currents of the restless heart; THE DAY IS DONE. THE day is done, and the darkness 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, As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Not from the grand old masters, For, like strains of martial music, Read from some humbler poet, Who, through long days of labour, Such songs have power to quiet And come like the benediction Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet And the night shall be filled with music, AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY. THE day is ending, The night is descending; Through clouds like ashes, 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, A funeral train. The bell is pealing, To the dismal knell; Like a funeral bell. TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. WELCOME, my old friend, 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 Thou art stained with wine As these leaves with the libations Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Shouted from suburban taverns 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, Sang these ditties. Once Prince Frederick's Guard Joined the chorus! Peasants in the field, Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, Thou hast been their friend; They, alas! have left thee friendless! And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID. [WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID, or BIRD-MEADOW, was one of the principal Minnesingers of the thirteenth century. He triumphed over Heinrich von Ofterdingen in that poetic contest at Wartburg Castle, known in literary history as the War of Wartburg.] VOGELWEID the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, 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; 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, Then in vain o'er tower and turret, Then in vain, with cries discordant, Time has long effaced the inscriptions Where repose the poet's bones. But around the vast cathedral, DRINKING SONG. INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. COME, old friend! sit down and listen! Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, |