THE HAPPIEST LAND.

FRAGMENT OF A MODERN BALLAD.

FROM THE GERMAN.

THERE sat one day in quiet,
By an alehouse on the Rhine,
Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine

The landlord's daughter filled their cups,
Around the rustic board;

Then sat they all so calm and still,

And spake not one rude word.

But, when the maid departed,
A Swabian raised his hand,

And cried, all hot and flushed with wine, "Long live the Swabian land!

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"The greatest kingdom upon earth
Cannot with that compare;
With all the stout and hardy men
And the nut-brown maidens there."

"Ha!" cried a Saxon, laughing,-
And dashed his beard with wine;

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I had rather live in Lapland,

Than that Swabian land of thine!

"The goodliest land on all this earth, It is the Saxon land!

There have I as many maidens

As fingers on this hand!”

"Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!”

A bold Bohemian cries;

"If there's a heaven upon this earth,

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In Bohemia it lies.

There the tailor blows the flute,

And the cobbler blows the horn,

And the miner blows the bugle,
Over mountain gorge and bourn.'

*

And then the landlord's daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,

And said,

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Ye may no more contend, There lies the happiest land!"

THE WAVE

FROM THE GERMAN OF TIEDGE.

"WHITHER, thou turbid wave?
Whither, with so much haste,
As if a thief wert thou?"

"I am the Wave of Life,
Stained with my margin's dust;
From the struggle and the strife,
Of the narrow stream I fly
To the Sea's immensity,

To wash from me the slime
Of the muddy banks of Time."

"The clouds are passing far and high,
We little birds in them play;

And everything, that can sing and fly,
Goes with us, and far away.

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'I greet thee, bonny boat! Whither, or whence, With thy fluttering golden band?"

'I greet thee, little bird! To the wide sea

I haste from the narrow land.

"Full and swollen is every sail;
I see no longer a hill,

I have trusted all to the sounding gale,
And it will not let me stand still.

"And wilt thou, little bird, go with us?
Thou mayest stand on the mainmast tall,
For full to sinking is my house
With merry companions all."-

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I need not and seek not company,
Bonny boat, I can sing all alone;

For the mainmast tall too heavy am I,
Bonny boat, I have wings of my own.

High over the sails, high over the mast,
Who shall gainsay these joys?

When thy merry companions are still, at last,
Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice.

"Who neither may rest, nor listen may,
God bless them every one!

I dart away, in the bright blue day,
And the golden fields of the sun.

"Thus do I sing my weary song,
Wherever the four winds blow;
And this same song, my whole life long
Neither Poet nor Printer may know."

WHITHER?

FROM THE GERMAN OF MULLER.

I 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!
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,
Murmured my senses away.

What do I say of a murmur?

That can no murmur be;

"T is the water-nymphs, that are singing Their roundelays under me.