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-poet, 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 dove-like, with his great beard white and long. And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care, Quaffing ale from pewter tankard; 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 Durer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard. Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and courtyards, 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.
THE NORMAN BARON Dans les moments de la vie ou la reflexion devient plus calme et plus profonde, ou l'interet et l'avarice parlent moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de maladie, et de peril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de posseder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agreable a Dieu, qui avait cree tous les hommes a son image.--THIERRY, Conquete de l'Angleterre.
In his chamber, weak and dying, Was the Norman baron lying;
Loud, without, the tempest thundered
And the castle-turret shook,
In this fight was Death the gainer,
Spite of vassal and retainer,
And the lands his sires had plundered, Written in the Doomsday Book.
By his bed a monk was seated, Who in humble voice repeated Many a prayer and paternoster,
From the missal on his knee; And, amid the tempest pealing, Sounds of bells came faintly stealing,
Bells, that from the neighboring kloster
Rang for the Nativity.
In the hall, the serf and vassal
Held, that night their Christmas wassail; Many a carol, old and saintly,
Sang the minstrels and the waits; And so loud these Saxon gleemen
93
Sang to slaves the songs of freemen, That the storm was heard but faintly, Knocking at the castle-gates.
Till at length the lays they chanted Reached the chamber terror-haunted, Where the monk, with accents holy,
Whispered at the baron's ear. Tears upon his eyelids glistened, As he paused awhile and listened, And the dying baron slowly
Turned his weary head to hear. "Wassail for the kingly stranger Born and cradled in a manger! King, like David, priest, like Aaron,
Christ is born to set us free!"
And the lightning showed the sainted
Figures on the casement painted,
And exclaimed the shuddering baron, "Miserere, Domine!"
In that hour of deep contrition
He beheld, with clearer vision,
Through all outward show and fashion, Justice, the Avenger, rise.
All the pomp of earth had vanished, Falsehood and deceit were banished, Reason spake more loud than passion,
And the truth wore no disguise. Every vassal of his banner,
Every serf born to his manor,
All those wronged and wretched creatures, By his hand were freed again.
And, as on the sacred missal He recorded their dismissal, Death relaxed his iron features,
And the monk replied, "Amen!" Many centuries have been numbered Since in death the baron slumbered By the convent's sculptured portal,
Mingling with the common dust: But the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages,
Brighter grows and gleams immortal, Unconsumed by moth or rust
RAIN IN SUMMER
How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours; And swift and wide, With a muddy tide,
94
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks; He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool; His fevered brain
Grows calm again,
And he breathes a blessing on the rain. From the neighboring school
Come the boys,
With more than their wonted noise
And commotion;
And down the wet streets
Sail their mimic fleets, Till the treacherous pool Ingulfs them in its whirling And turbulent ocean.
In the country, on every side, Where far and wide,
Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide, Stretches the plain,
To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain! In the furrowed land
The toilsome and patient oxen stand; Lifting the yoke encumbered head, With their dilated nostrils spread, They silently inhale
The clover-scented gale, And the vapors that
