Yet oft I dream, that once a wife
Close in my heart was locked,
And in the sweet repose of life
A blessed child I rocked.

I wake! Away that dream,-away!
Too long did it remain!

So long, that both by night and day
It ever comes again.

The end lies ever in my thought;

To a grave so cold and deep
The mother beautiful was brought;
Then dropt the child asleep.

But now the dream is wholly o'er,
I bathe mine eyes and see;

And wander through the world once more,
A youth so light and free.

Two locks, and they are wondrous fair,-
Left me that vision mild;

The brown is from the mother's hair,

The blond is from the child.

And when I see that lock of gold,

Pale grows the evening-red;

And when the dark lock I behold,

I wish that I were dead.

THE HEMLOCK-TREE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

O HEMLOCK-TREE! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer time,

But in the winter's frost and rime!

O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!

O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom !

To love me in prosperity,

And leave me in adversity!

O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom! The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example! So long as summer laughs she sings,

But in the autumn spreads her wings.

The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example! The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood! It flows so long as falls the rain,

In drought its springs soon dry again.

The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!

ANNIE OF THARAW.

FROM THE LOW GERMAN OF SIMON DACH.

ANNIE of Tharaw, my true love of old,
She is my life, and my goods, and my gold.

Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again
To me has surrendered in joy and in pain.
Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good,
Thou, O my soul, my flesh and my blood!

Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow.
Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain,
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.

As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall,
The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall,—
So love in our hearts shall grow mighty and strong,
Through crosses, through sorrows, through manifold wrong.
Shouldst thou be torn from me to wander alone
In a desolate land where the sun is scarce known,—

Through forests I'll follow, and where the sea flows,
Through ice, and through iron, through armies of foes.

Annie of Tharaw, my light and my sun,

The threads of our two lives are woven in one.

Whate'er I have bidden thee thou hast obeyed,
Whatever forbidden thou hast not gainsaid.

How in the turmoil of life can love stand,

Where there is not one heart, and one mouth, and one hand?

Some seek for dissension, and trouble, and strife;

Like a dog and a cat live such man and wife.

Annie of Tharaw, such is not our love;
Thou art my lambkin, my chick, and my dove.
Whate'er my desirc is, in thine may be seen;
I am king of the household, and thou art its queen.
It is this, O my Annie, my heart's sweetest rest,
That makes of us twain but one soul in one breast.
This turns to a heaven the hut where we dwell;
While wrangling soon changes a home to a hell.

THE STATUE OVER THE CATHEDRAL DOOR.
FROM THE GERMAN OF JULIUS MOSEN.

FORMS of saints and kings are standing

The cathedral door above;

Yet I saw but one among them
Who hath soothed my soul with love.

In his mantle,-wound about him,
As their robes the sowers wind,
Bore he swallows and their fledglings,
Flowers and weeds of every kind.

And so stands he calm and childlike,
High in wind and tempest wild;
O, were I like him exalted,

I would be like him, a child!

And my songs,-green leaves and blossoms,-
To the doors of heaven would bear,
Calling, even in storm and tempest,
Round me still these birds of air.

THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL.

FROM THE GERMAN OF JULIUS MOSEN.

ON the cross the dying Saviour

Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm,
Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling
In his pierced and bleeding palm.
And by all the world forsaken,
Sees he how with zealous care
At the ruthless nail of iron

A little bird is striving there.

Stained with blood and never tiring,
With its beak it doth not cease,
From the cross 'twould free the Saviour,
Its Creator's Son release.

And the Saviour speaks in mildness:
"Blest be thou of all the good!

Bear, as token of this moment,

Marks of blood and holy rood!"

And that bird is called the crossbill;
Covered all with blood so clear.

In the groves of pine it singeth

Songs, like legends, strange to hear.

THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINRICH HEINE.

THE sea hath its pearls,

The heaven hath its stars;

But my heart, my heart,

My heart hath its love.

Great are the sea and the heaven;
Yet greater is my heart,
And fairer than pearls and stars
Flashes and beams my love.

Thou little, youthful maiden,
Come unto my great heart;

My heart, and the sea, and the heaven,
Are melting away with love!

POETIC APHORISMS.

FROM THE SINNGEDICHTE OF FRIEDRICH VON LOGAU.-SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY.

MONEY.

WHEREUNTO is money good?

Who has it not wants hardihood,
Who has it has much trouble and care,
Who once has had it has despair.

THE BEST MEDICINES.

Joy and Temperance and Repose
Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

SIN.

Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.

POVERTY AND BLINDNESS.

A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is;
For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees.

LAW OF LIFE.

Live I, so live I,

To my Lord heartily,

To my Prince faithfully,

To my Neighbour honestly,

Die I, so die I.
CREEDS.

Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be.

THE RESTLESS HEART.

A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round;

If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke; But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke.

ART AND TACT.

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

RETRIBUTION.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

TRUTH.

When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch's fire, Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus truth silences the liar.

RHYMES.

If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers'

ears,

They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs; For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own, They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known.

THE BLIND GIRL OF CASTEL-CUILLÈ.29
FROM THE GASCON OF JASMIN.

Only the Lowland tongue of Scotland might
Rehearse this little tragedy aright:

Let me attempt it with an English quill;
And take, O reader, for the deed the will.

JASMIN, the author of this beautiful poem, is to the South of France what Burns is to the South of Scotland, -the representative of the heart of the people,- -one of those happy bards who are born with their mouths full of birds la bouco pleno d' aouzelous). He has written his own biography in a poetic form, and the simple narrative of his poverty, his struggles and his triumphs, is very touching. He still lives at Agcn, on the Garonne; and long may he live there to delight his native land with native songs!

Those who may feel interested in knowing something about 'Jasmin, Coiffeur"-for such is his calling-will find a description of his person and mode of life in the graphic pages of Béarn and the Pyrenees (Vol. i., p. 369, et seq.), by Louisa Stuart Costello, whose charming pen has done so much to illustrate the French provinces and their literature.

I.

AT the foot of the mountain height
Where is perched Castèl-Cuillè,

When the apple, the plum, and the almond tree
In the plain below were growing white,
This is the song one might perceive

On a Wednesday morn of Saint Joseph's Eve:

"The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,

So fair a bride should leave her home!

Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay,

So fair a bride shall pass to-day!"

This old Te Deum, rustic rites attending,
Seemed from the clouds descending;
When lo! a merry company

Of rosy village girls, clean as the eye,

Each one with her attendant swain,

Came to the cliff, all singing the same strain:
Resembling there, so near unto the sky,
Rejoicing angels, that kind Heaven has sent
For their delight and our encouragement.
Together blending,
And soon descending
The narrow sweep
Of the hill-side steep,
They wind aslant
Toward Saint Amant,