TO AN OLD DANISH SONG BOOK. Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, 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, 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 Youth and travel. 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, 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 Day by day, o'er tower and turret, On the tree whose heavy branches On the pavement, on the tombstone, WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID On the cross-bars of each window, They renewed the War of Wartburg, There they sang their merry carols, Till at length the portly abbot Then in vain o'er tower and turret, Then in vain, with cries discordant, Time has long effaced the inscriptions And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet's bones. But around the vast cathedral, (1) 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. DRINKING SONG. How the waters laugh and glisten Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; 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 armor. Judged by no o'erzealous rigor, Much this mystic throng expresses : Bacchus was the type of vigor, And Silenus of excesses. These are ancient ethnic revels, Now to rivulets from the mountains Point the rods of fortune-tellers; Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,Not in flasks, and casks, aud cellars. |