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 desire 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 't would free the Saviour,
Its Creator's Son release.