They say that thou art no man's friend,
Sweet Night! how I therefore love thee!
Franz Dingelstedt. Tr. Anon.

I

THE EMIGRANTS.

CANNOT take my eyes away

From you, ye busy, bustling band! Your little all to see you lay,

Each, in the waiting seaman's hand!

Ye men, who from your necks set down
The heavy basket on the earth,
Of bread from German corn, baked brown,
By German wives, on German hearth!

And you, with braided queues so neat,
Black-Forest maidens, slim and brown,
How careful on the sloop's green seat

You set your pails and pitchers down!

Ah! oft have home's cool, shady tanks

These pails and pitchers filled for you: On far Missouri's silent banks

Shall these the scenes of home renew,

The stone-rimmed fount in village street,
That, as ye stooped, betrayed your smiles;

The hearth and its familiar seat;

The mantle and the pictured tiles.

Soon, in the far and wooded West,
Shall log-house walls therewith be graced;
Soon many a tired, tawny guest

Shall sweet refreshment from them taste.

From them shall drink the Cherokee,
Faint with the hot and dusty chase;
No more from German vintage ye

Shall bear them home, in leaf-crowned grace.

O, say, why seek ye other lands?

The Neckar's vale hath wine and corn; Full of dark firs the Schwarzwald stands ; In Spessart rings the Alp-herd's horn.

Ah! in strange forests how ye 'll yearn
For the green mountains of your home,
To Deutschland's yellow wheat-fields turn,
In spirit o'er her vine-hills roam!

How will the form of days grown pale
In golden dreams float softly by !
Like some unearthly mystic tale,

'T will stand before fond memory's eye.

The boatman calls! go hence in peace!
God bless ye, man and wife and sire!
Bless all your fields with rich increase,
And crown each true heart's pure desire!
Ferdinand Freiligrath. Tr. C. T. Brooks.

BALLAD.

THE sickle moon of autumn

Peers white through clouds around; The parsonage by the churchyard Lies hushed in rest profound.

The mother reads in the Bible,
The son at the candle stares,
Sits yawning the elder daughter,
While the younger thus declares :

"Alas! for the days we live here!
How creep they so wearily;
Save when one to the grave is carried
What have we here to see ?"

The mother says, mid her reading,
"Thou 'rt wrong; but four have died
Since that thy father was carried
To rest by the church-door side."

Then yawneth the elder daughter:
"I'll not starve here with ye;
I will to the count to-morrow,
He's rich, and he loveth me."

The son breaks forth in laughter:
There drink at the Star below

66

Three who make gold, and who 'll teach me Their secret gladly, I know."

The mother flings the Bible
Right in his face so wan:
"And wouldst thou, God-accursed,
Become a highwayman ? '

دو

They hear a knock at the window,
They see a beckoning hand;
Without, in his black-priest garment,
Doth their dead father stand.

Heinrich Heine. Tr. H. W. Dulcken.

CONSOLATION.

HERE sang full many a poet,

THERE

In our beautiful German land, Whose songs now no longer echo; The singers rest in the sand.

But still, while around our planet

The stars through the heavens shall range, Shall hearts sing, in changing measure, Of the beauty that knows no change.

I' the woodland yonder lies ruined
The home of the heroes hoar;
But yearly, from hall and portal,
The spring breaks forth as before.

Wherever the weary warriors

Sink down in the maddening rout, New races are forward springing,

And fighting it honestly out.

Freiherr von Eichendorff. Tr. H. W. Dulcken.

THE GERMAN MUSE.

NO Augustan summer glowed,

Or Medicean bounty flowed
O'er the soil of German art;
It was not in glory nourished,
But it blossomed full and flourished
With no care on princes' part.

By our country's noblest son,
By the mighty Frederick's throne,
Unprotected, it went forth.

Well the German's heart may beat,
Well he may with pride repeat,
He created his own worth.

Therefore mounts in loftier bows,
And in fuller torrent flows

The high hymn of German bards,
And, in its own fulness swelling,
From the heart's own depths outwelling,
Spurns restraint, nor rule regards.

Friedrich von Schiller. Tr. J. S. Dwight.