Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art: Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart; And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone, By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own. In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust, And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust; In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare, Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air. Here, when Art was still religion, wit reverent heart, Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, th list of Art; Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling busy hand, Like an emigrant he wandered, seekin Better Land. Emigravit is the inscription on the to where he lies; Dead he is not, but departed, for never dies. Fairer seems the ancient city, and the seems more fair, That he once has trod its pavement, once has breathed its air! ple, nge rith the ne st Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes, Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains. From remote and sunless suburbs, came they to the friendly guild, Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build. As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime; Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom. Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-po the gentle craft, Wisest of the Twelve Wise Mas folios sang and laughed. But his house is now an ale-house, sanded floor, And a garland in the window, and h the door; Painted by some humble artist, a Puschman's song, As the old man gray and dove-like, w beard white and long. And at night the swart mechanic com his cark and care, Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in ter's antique chair. , laureate c rs, in huge ith a nice face abore in Adam his great drow e mas Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away, As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a The nobility of labor, - the long pedigree of toil. 3 |