Selections from American poetry Part 16

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE

VOGELWEID, the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister, Under Wurtzburg'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 By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret, In foul weather and in fair, Day by day, in vaster numbers, Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches Overshadowed all the place, On the pavement, on the tombstone; On the poet's sculptured face,

On the cross-bars of each window, On the lintel of each door, They renewed the War of Wartburg, Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols, Sang their lauds on every side; And the name their voices uttered Was the name of Vogelweid.

Till at length the portly abbot Murmured, "Why this waste of food?

Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our fasting brotherhood."

Then in vain o'er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, When the minster bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests.

Then in vain, with cries discordant, Clamorous round the Gothic spire, Screamed the feathered Minnesingers For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions On the cloister's funeral stones, And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet's bones.

But around the vast cathedral, By sweet echoes multiplied, Still the birds repeat the legend, And the name of Vogelweid.

THE BUILDERS

All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with ma.s.sive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low: Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these; Leave no yawning gaps between Think not, because no man sees, Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part!

For the G.o.ds see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where G.o.ds may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete, Standing in these walls of Time, Broken stairways, where the feet Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure, With a firm and ample base And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.

SANTA FILOMENA

Whene'er a n.o.ble deed is wrought, Whene'er is spoken a n.o.ble thought, Our hearts, in glad surprise, To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls Into our inmost being rolls, And lifts us unawares Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds Thus help us in our daily needs, And by their overflow Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read Of the great army of the dead, The trenches cold and damp, The starved and frozen camp,

The wounded from the battle-plain, In dreary hospitals of pain, The cheerless corridors, The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pa.s.s through the glimmering gloom, And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss, The speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow, as it falls Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be Opened and then closed suddenly, The vision came and went, The light shone and was spent.

On England's annals, through the long Hereafter of her speech and song, That light its rays shall cast From portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A n.o.ble type of good, Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here The palm, the lily, and the spear, The symbols that of yore Saint Filomena bore.

THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE

A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS

Othere, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth, Which he held in his brown right hand.

His figure was tall and stately, Like a boy's his eye appeared; His hair was yellow as hay, But threads of a silvery gray Gleamed in his tawny beard.

Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the color of oak; With a kind of laugh in his speech, Like the sea-tide on a beach, As unto the King he spoke.

And Alfred, King of the Saxons, Had a book upon his knees, And wrote down the wondrous tale Of him who was first to sail Into the Arctic seas.

"So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains; To the westward all is sea.