Each the father's breast embraces,
Son and daughter; and their faces
Colorless grow utterly.

Whichever way

Looks the fear-struck father gray,
He beholds his children die.

"Woe! the blessed children both
Takest thou in the joy of youth;
Take me, too, the joyless father!"
Spake the grim guest,

From his hollow, cavernous breast:
"Roses in the spring I gather!"

Johann Ludwig Uhland. Tr. H. W. Longfellow.

I

ENVIABLE POVERTY.

GLANCE into the harvest field,

Where, 'neath the shade of richest trees,

The reaper and the reaper's wife

Enjoy their noonday ease.

And in the shadow of the hedge

I hear full many a merry sound, Where the stout, brimming water-jug From mouth to mouth goes round.

About the parents, in the grass,

Sit boys and girls of various size, And, like the buds about the rose, Make glad my gazing eyes.

See! God himself from heaven spreads
Their table with the freshest green,
And lovely maids, his angel band,
Bear heaped dishes in.

A laughing infant's sugar lip,

Waked by the mother's kiss, doth deal To the poor parents a dessert

Still sweeter than their meal.

From breast to breast, from arm to arm,
Goes wandering round the rosy boy,
A little circling flame of love,
A living, general joy.

And strengthened thus for farther toil,
Their toil is but joy fresh begun ;
That wife, O, what a happy wife!

And, O, how rich is that poor man!

Benedikt Dalei. Tr. Anon.

WAR-SONG.

E met, a hundred of us met,

WE

At curfew, in the field:

We talked of heaven and Jesus Christ,
And all devoutly kneeled;

When, lo! we saw, all of us saw,
The starlit sky unclose,

And heard the far-high thunders roll
Like seas where storm-wind blows.

We listened, in amazement lost,
As still as stones for dread,
And heard the war proclaimed above,
And sins of nations read.

The sound was like a solemn psalm
That holy Christians sing;

And by and by the noise was ceased
Of all the angelic ring;

Yet still, beyond the cloven sky,

We saw the sheet of fire;

There came a voice, as from a throne,
To all the heavenly choir,

Which spake: "Though many men must fall,

I will that these prevail;

To me the poor man's cause is dear."
Then slowly sank a scale.

The hand that poised was lost in clouds,
One shell did weighty secm;

But sceptres, scutcheous, mitres, gold,

Flew up, and kicked the beam.

Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim. Tr. W. Taylor.

THE PROTEST.

S long as I'm a Protestant,
I'm bounden to protest;

Come, every German musicant,

And fiddle me his best!

You 're singing of "the Free old Rhine"; But I say, No, good comrades mine,

The Rhine could be

Greatly more free,

And that I do protest.

I scarce had got my christening o'er,

Or was in breeches dressed,

But I began to shout and roar

And mightily protest.

And since that time I've never stopped,
My protestations never dropped;

And blessed be they

Who every way

And everywhere protest.

There's one thing certain in my creed,

And schism is all the rest,

That who's a Protestant indeed

Forever must protest.

What is the river Rhine to me?

For, from its source unto the sea,
Men are not free,

Whate'er they be,

And that I do protest.

And every man in reason grants,
What always was confessed,
As long as we are Protestants,
We sternly must protest.

And when they sing "the Free old Rhine,"
Answer them "No," good comrades mine,
The Rhine could be

Greatly more free,

And that you shall protest.

Georg Herwegh. Tr. Anon.

I

WHITHER.

HEARD a brooklet gushing
From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.

I know not what came o'er me,
Nor who the counsel gave;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave;

Downward, and ever farther,

And ever the brook beside; And ever fresher murmured, And ever clearer, the tide.

Is this the way I was going?
Whither, O brooklet, say!