Henry Longfellow - The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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 tasting 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.

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Come, old friend! sit down and listen!

From the pitcher, placed between us,

How the waters laugh and glisten

In the head of old Silenus!

Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,

Led by his inebriate Satyrs;

On his breast his head is sunken,

Vacantly he leers and chatters.

Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;

Ivy crowns that brow supernal

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,

Of a faith long since forsaken;

Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,

Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.

Now to rivulets from the mountains

Point the rods of fortune-tellers;

Youth perpetual dwells in fountains—

Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.

Claudius, though he sang of flagons

And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,

From that fiery blood of dragons

Never would his own replenish.

Even Redi, though he chaunted

Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,

Never drank the wine he vaunted

In his dithyrambic sallies.

Then with water fill the pitcher

Wreathed about with classic fables;

Ne'er Falernian threw a richer

Light upon Lucullus' tables.

Come, old friend, sit down and listen

As it passes thus between us,

How its wavelets laugh and glisten

In the head of old Silenus!

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L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"—JACQUES BRIDAINE.

Somewhat back from the village street

Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;

And from its station in the hall

An ancient timepiece says to all—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

Half-way up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands

From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk, who, under his cloak,

Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

With sorrowful voice to all who pass—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

By day its voice is low and light;

But in the silent dead of night,

Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,

It echoes along the vacant hall,

Along the ceiling, along the floor,

And seems to say, at each chamber-door—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,

Through days of death and days of birth,

Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,

And as if, like God, it all things saw,

It calmly repeats those words of awe—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;

The stranger feasted at his board;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning timepiece never ceased—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

There groups of merry children played,

There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;

O precious hours! O golden prime,

And affluence of love and time!

Even as a Miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient timepiece told—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding night;

There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;

And in the hush that followed the prayer,

Was heard the old clock on the stair—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

All are scattered now and fled,

Some are married, some are dead;

And when I ask, with throbs of pain.

"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"

As in the days long since gone by,

The ancient timepiece makes reply—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

Never here, forever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,

And death, and time shall disappear—

Forever there, but never here!

The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly—

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

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I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

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Half of my life is gone, and I have let

The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

The aspiration of my youth, to build

Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

Of restless passions chat would not be stilled,

But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,

Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;