When I paused to hear

The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban taverns
In the twilight.

Thou recallest bards,

Who, in solitary chambers,

And with hearts by passion wasted,

Wrote thy pages.

Thou recallest homes

Where thy songs of love and friendship

Made the gloomy Northern winter

Bright as summer.

Once some ancient Scald,

In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,

Chanted staves of these old ballads

To the Vikings.

Once in Elsinore,

At the court of old King Hamlet,

Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these ditties.

Once Prince Frederick's Guard

Sang them in their smoky barracks ;

Suddenly the English cannon

Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field,

Sailors on the roaring ocean,

Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,

All have sung them.

Thou hast been their friend;

They, alas! have left thee friendless!

Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build

In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,

So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,-

Quiet, close, and warm,

Sheltered from all molestation,

And recalling by their voices.

Youth and travel.

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.

VOGELWEID the Minnesinger,

When he left this world of ours,

Laid his body in the cloister,

Under Würtzburg'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,