Wine, Women, and Song Part 6

There are poets, worthy men, Shrink from public places, And in lurking-hole or den Hide their pallid faces; There they study, sweat, and woo Pallas and the Graces, But bring nothing forth to view Worth the girls' embraces.

Fasting, thirsting, toil the bards, Swift years flying o'er them; Shun the strife of open life, Tumults of the forum; They, to sing some deathless thing, Lest the world ignore them, Die the death, expend their breath, Drowned in dull decorum.

Lo! my frailties I've betrayed, Shown you every token, Told you what your servitors Have against me spoken; But of those men each and all Leave their sins unspoken, Though they play, enjoy to-day, Scorn their pledges broken.

Now within the audience-room Of this blessed prelate, Sent to hunt out vice, and from Hearts of men expel it; Let him rise, nor spare the bard, Cast at him a pellet; He whose heart knows not crime's smart, Show my sin and tell it!

I have uttered openly All I knew that shamed me, And have spued the poison forth That so long defamed me; Of my old ways I repent, New life hath reclaimed me; G.o.d beholds the heart--'twas man Viewed the face and blamed me.

Goodness now hath won my love, I am wroth with vices; Made a new man in my mind, Lo, my soul arises!

Like a babe new milk I drink-- Milk for me suffices, Lest my heart should longer be Filled with vain devices.

Thou Elect of fair Cologne, Listen to my pleading!

Spurn not thou the penitent; See, his heart is bleeding!

Give me penance! what is due For my faults exceeding I will bear with willing cheer, All thy precepts heeding.

Lo, the lion, king of beasts, Spares the meek and lowly; Toward submissive creatures he Tames his anger wholly.

Do the like, ye powers of earth, Temporal and holy!

Bitterness is more than's right When 'tis bitter solely.

XIV.

Having been introduced to the wors.h.i.+pful order of vagrants both in their collective and in their personal capacity, we will now follow them to the woods and fields in spring. It was here that they sought love-adventures and took pastime after the restraints of winter.

The spring-songs are all, in the truest sense of the word, _lieder_--lyrics for music. Their affinities of form and rhythm are less with ecclesiastical verse than with the poetry of the Minnesinger and the Troubadour. Sometimes we are reminded of the French _pastourelle_, sometimes of the rustic ditty, with its monotonous refrain.

The exhilaration of the season which they breathe has something of the freshness of a lark's song, something at times of the richness of the nightingale's lament. The defect of the species may be indicated in a single phrase. It is a tedious reiteration of commonplaces in the opening stanzas. Here, however, is a lark-song.

WELCOME TO SPRING.

No. 6.

Spring is coming! longed-for spring Now his joy discloses; On his fair brow in a ring Bloom empurpled roses!

Birds are gay; how sweet their lay!

Tuneful is the measure; The wild wood grows green again, Songsters change our winter's pain To a mirthful pleasure.

Now let young men gather flowers, On their foreheads bind them, Maidens pluck them from the bowers, Then, when they have twined them, Breathe perfume from bud and bloom, Where young love reposes, And into the meadows so All together laughing go, Crowned with ruddy roses.

Here again the nightingale's song, contending with the young man's heart's lament of love, makes itself heard.

THE LOVER AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

No. 7.

These hours of spring are jolly; Maidens, be gay!

Shake off dull melancholy, Ye lads, to-day!

Oh! all abloom am I!

It is a maiden love that makes me sigh, A new, new love it is wherewith I die!

The nightingale is singing So sweet a lay!

Her glad voice heavenward flinging-- No check, no stay.

Flower of girls love-laden Is my sweetheart; Of roses red the maiden For whom I smart.

The promise that she gives me Makes my heart bloom; If she denies, she drives me Forth to the gloom.

My maid, to me relenting, Is fain for play; Her pure heart, unconsenting, Saith, "Lover, stay!"

Hush, Philomel, thy singing, This little rest!

Let the soul's song rise ringing Up from the breast!

In desolate Decembers Man bides his time: Spring stirs the slumbering embers; Love-juices climb.

Come, mistress, come, my maiden!

Bring joy to me!

Come, come, thou beauty-laden!

I die for thee!

O all abloom am I!

It is a maiden love that makes me sigh, A new, new love it is wherewith I die!

There is a very pretty _Invitation to Youth_, the refrain of which, though partly undecipherable, seems to indicate an Italian origin. I have thought it well to omit this refrain; but it might be rendered thus, maintaining the strange and probably corrupt reading of the last line:--

"List, my fair, list, _bela mia_, To the thousand charms of Venus!

_Da hizevaleria_."

THE INVITATION TO YOUTH.

No. 8.

Take your pleasure, dance and play, Each with other while ye may: Youth is nimble, full of grace; Age is lame, of tardy pace.

We the wars of love should wage, Who are yet of tender age; 'Neath the tents of Venus dwell All the joys that youth loves well.