A

THE TWO COFFINS.

WAY in the old cathedral

Two coffins stand alone;

In one of them sleeps King Ottmar,
And the singer rests in one.

The king sat once in power,

High throned in his father's land; The crown still graces his temples, The falchion his kingly hand.

But near the proud king the singer
Is peacefully sleeping on,
In his lifeless hand still clasping
The harp of the pious tone.

The castles around are falling,

The war-cry rings through the land,

The sword, it stirreth never

There in the dead king's hand.

Blossoms and vernal breezes

Are floating the vale along,

And the singer's harp is sounding

In never-ending song.

Andreas Justinus Kerner. Tr. H. W. Dulcken.

T

THE MOON-DIAL.

the joyous feast has the ranger gone;

Through the darksome wood strides the poacher on.

The ranger's wife and child are asleep;

Through their chamber-window the moonbeams peep.

And while they play on the wall so white,
The child grasps the mother in wild affright!

"O mother, where tarries my father dear?
I am so cold and so sick with fear."

66

My child, look not where the moonbeams creep;
But close thine eyes, child, and go to sleep."

The moon's light travels along the wall,
And now on the polished gun doth fall.

66 Mother, that sound! - and hear'st thou not?

'T was not father's gun that fired the shot."

My child, look not where the moonbeams creep; That was a dream, love, — go thou to sleep."

The moonlight doth still through the chamber stream On the father's picture with pallid beam.

"Lord Jesus, guard us this fearful night!

Look, mother, my father is deadly white!"

Then sprang from her slumber the mother in dread! And lo! they were bringing her husband - dead!

Robert Reinick. Tr. H. W. Dulcken.

FREDERICUS REX.

REDERICUS REX, our king and lord,

To all of his soldiers "To arms!" gave the word; "Two hundred battalions, a thousand squadrons here!" And he gave sixty cartridges to each grenadier.

"You rascally fellows," his majesty began,

"Look that each of you stands for me in battle like a

man.

They're grudging Silesia and Glatz to me,

And the hundred millions in my treasury.

"The Empress with the French an alliance has signed, And raised the Roman kingdom against me, I find; The Russians my territories do invade,

Up, and show 'em of what stuff we Prussians are made.

"My generals, Schwerin, and Field-Marshal von Keit,
And Major-General Ziethen, are all ready quite.
By the thunders and lightnings of battle, I vow,
They don't know Fritz and his soldiers now.

"Now farewell, Louisa; Louisa, dry your eyes;
Not straight to its mark every bullet flies;
For if all the bullets should kill all the men,
From whence should we kings get our soldiers then?

"The musket bullet makes a little round hole,
A much larger wound doth the cannon-ball dole;

The bullets are all of iron and lead,

Yet many a bullet misses many a head.

"Our guns they are heavy and well supplied,
Not one of the Prussians to the foe hath hied;
The Swedes they have cursed bad money, I trow;
If the Austrians have better, who can know?

"The French king pays his soldiers at his ease,
We get it, stock and stiver, every week, if we please ;
By the thunders and the lightnings of battle, I say,
Who gets like the Prussian so promptly his pay?"

Fredericus, my king, whom the laurel doth grace, Hadst thou but now and then let us plunder some place,

Fredericus, my hero, I verily say,

We'd drive for thee the devil from the world away. Wilhelm Häring (Willibald Alexis).

Tr. H. W. Dulcken.

L

THE POSTILION.

OVELY was the night of May,
Clouds of silvery whiteness

O'er the blooming spring away
Sailed in fleecy lightness.

Meadow, grove, and mountain's brow
Silent rest were taking;

No one but the moonshine now

On the roads was waking.

Glare and din of day had fled, Ceased each warbler's numbers, Spring her fairy children led

Through the realm of slumbers.

Whispering breeze and brooklet crept Slow with silent paces,

Fragrant dreams of flowers that slept
Filled the shadowy spaces.

But my rough postilion now
Cracked his whip, and, flying,
Left the vale and mountain's brow
To his horn replying.

O'er the hill, across the plain,
Loud the hoofs resounded,
As through all the bright domain
On the good steeds bounded.

Wood and mead, as on we sped,
Flew with scarce a greeting;
Town and country by us fled,
Like a dream still fleeting.

In the lovely May-moonlight
Lay a churchyard nested,
And the traveller's roaming sight
Solemnly arrested.

On the mountain-side the wall

Seemed with age reclining,