Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's roar,
Now is the hour!

He hoisted his blood-red flag once more,
And smote upon the foe full sore,

And shouted loud, through the tempest's rear,
"Now is the hour!".

"Fly!" shouted they, "for shelter, fly!
Of Denmark's Juel who can defy
The power?"

North Sea a glimpse of Wessel rent
Thy murky sky!

Then champions to thine arms were sent;
Terror and Death glared where he went;
From the waves was heard a wail, that rent
Thy murky sky!

From Denmark, thunders Tordenskiol',
Let each to Heaven commend his soul,
And fly!

Path of the Dane to fame and might!
Dark-rolling wave !

Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight,
Goes to meet danger with despite,
Proudly as thou the tempest's might,
Dark-rolling wave!

And amid pleasures and alarms,
And war and victory, be thine arms
My grave!*

Nils Juel was a celebrated Danish Admiral, and Peder Wessel, a Vice-Admiral, who for his great prowess received the popular title of Tordenskiold, or Thunder-shield. In childhood he was a tailor's

apprentice, and rose to his high rank before the age of twenty-eight, when he was killed in a duel.

THE HAPPIEST LAND.

FRAGMENT OF A MODERN BALLAD

FROM THE GERMAN.

THERE sat one day in quiet,
By an alehouse on the Rhine,
Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine.

The landlord's daughter filled their cups,
Around the rustic board;

Then sat they all so calm and still,

And spake not one rude word.

But, when the maid departed,
A Swabian raised his hand,

And cried, all hot and flushed with wine, "Long live the Swabian land!

"The greatest kingdom upon earth
Cannot with that compare;
With all the stout and hardy men
And the nut-brown maidens there."

"Ha!" cried a Saxon, laughing, — And dashed his beard with wine;

"I had rather live in Lapland,

Than that Swabian land of thine!

"The goodliest land on all this earth, It is the Saxon land!

There have I as many maidens

As fingers on this hand!"

"Hold

your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!"

A bold Bohemian cries;

If there's a heaven upon this earth,

In Bohemia it lies.

"There the tailor blows the flute,
And the cobbler blows the horn,
And the miner blows the bugle,
Over mountain gorge and bourn."

And then the landlord's daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,

66

And said,
Ye may no more contend, -
There lies the happiest land!"

THE WAVE

FROM THE GERMAN OF TIEDGE.

"WHITHER, thou turbid wave?
Whither, with so much haste,
As if a thief wert thou?"

"I am the Wave of Life,
Stained with my margin's dust,
From the struggle and the strife,
Of the narrow stream I fly
To the Sea's immensity,
To wash from me the slime
Of the muddy banks of Time

99

THE DEAD.

FROM THE GERMAN OF KLOPSTOCK.

How they so softly rest,
All, all the holy dead,
Unto whose dwelling-place

Now doth my soul draw near!
How they so softly rest,

All in their silent graves,
Deep to corruption
Slowly down-sinking!

And they no longer weep, Here, where complaint is still! And they no longer feel,

Here, where all gladness flies!

And, by the cypresses
Softly o'ershadowed,

Until the Angel

Calls them, they slumber!

THE BIRD AND THE SHIP.

FROM THE GERMAN OF MÜLLER.

"THE rivers rush into the sea,

By castle and town they go; The winds behind them merrily Their noisy trumpets blow.

"The clouds are passing far and high,
We little birds in them play;

And everything, that can sing and fly,
Goes with us, and far away.

"I greet thee, bonny boat! Whither, or whence, With thy fluttering golden band?"

"I greet thee, little bird!

To the wide sea

I haste from the narrow land.

"Full and swollen is every sail;
I see no longer a hill,

I have trusted all to the sounding gale,
And it will not let me stand still.

“And wilt thou, little bird, go with us?
Thou mayest stand on the mainmast tali,
For full to sinking is my house
With merry companions all.".

"I need not and seek not company,
Bonny boat, I can sing all alone;
For the mainmast tall too heavy am I,
Bonny boat, I have wings of my own

“High over the sails, high over the mast,
Who shall gainsay these joys?

When thy merry companions are still, at last,
Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice.

"Who neither may rest, nor listen may, God bless them every one!

I dart away, in the bright blue day,

And the golden fields of the sun.

« AnteriorContinuar »