A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. Here runs the highway to the town; There the green lane descends, Through which I walked to church with thee, O gentlest of my friends! The shadow of the linden-trees Between them and the moving boughs, A shadow, thou didst pass. Thy dress was like the lilies, And thy heart as pure as they : One of God's holy messengers Did walk with me that day. I saw the branches of the trees "Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, Of earth and folly born!" Solemnly sang the village choir On that sweet Sabbath morn. Through the closed blinds the golden sun Poured in a dusty beam, Like the celestial ladder seen By Jacob in his dream. And ever and anon, the wind, Sweet-scented with the hay, Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves That on the window lay. Long was the good man's sermon, Yet it seemed not so to me; For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, Long was the prayer he uttered, For in my heart I prayed with him, But now, alas! the place seems changed; Thou art no longer here: Part of the sunshine of the scene With thee did disappear. Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, Like pine-trees dark and high, A low and ceaseless sigh; This memory brightens o'er the past, As when the sun, concealed Behind some cloud that near us hangs, THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys! What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies! THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. I hear the Florentine, who from his palace Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin; The tumult of each sacked and burning village; The wail of famine in beleaguered towns; The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, The warrior's name would be a name abhorred! Down the dark future, through long generations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!" Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! The holy melodies of love arise. NUREMBERG. IN the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme, In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band, On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days. Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art: And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone, NUREMBERG. In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust," Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, Emigravit is the inscription on the tomb-stone where he lies; Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair, That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air! Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes, From remote and sunless suburbs, came they to the friendly guild, As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft, But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor, 6 Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song, And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care, Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye |