The bitterness of poverty, endure

All that befalls the too neglected poor;
And with no friend, no bounty to assist,
Steal from the world unwept for and unmiss'd.

What though no dungeon wrap the wasting clay,
Or from the eye exclude the cheering ray;
What though no tortures visibly may tear
The writhing limbs, and leave their signet there;
Has not chill penury a poison'd dart,

Inflicting deeper wounds upon the heart?
All the decrees the sternest fate may bind,
To weigh the courage or display the mind-
All man could bear, with heart unflinching bear,
Did not a dearer part his sufferings share-
Worse than the captive's fate--wife, child, his all,
The husband, and the father's name, appall
His very soul, and bid him thrilling feel
Distraction, as he makes the vain appeal.
Upon his brow, where manhood's hand had seal'd
Its perfect dignity, is now reveal'd

A haggard wanness; from his livid eye

The manly fire has faded; cold and dry,

No more it glistens to the light. His thought,
To the last pitch of frantic memory wrought,
Turns to the partner of his heart and woe,
Who, weigh'd with grief, no lesser love can know ;
Despair soon haunts the hope that fills his breast,
And passion's flood in tumult is express'd.

Amid the plains where ample plenty spreads
Her copious stores and decks the yellow meads,
The outcast turns a ghastly look to heaven;
Oh, not for him is Nature's plenty given;
Robb'd of the birthright nature freely gave,
Save that last portion freely left-a grave!
Oh, that another power would rule man's heart,
Uncramp its free-born will in every part;
Mercy more swift, justice more just, more slow,
Grandeur less prone to deal the cruel blow,
To bind men's hands with fetters than with alms,
And spurn the only boon that soothes and calms.

England! thou dearest child of liberty;
Free as thine ocean home for ever be;
Thy commerce thrive; may thy deserted poor
No more the pangs of poverty endure.

Then shall thy Towers, proud monument! display
The thousand trophies of a happier day;

And genial climes, from earth's remotest shore,

Their richest tributes to her genius pour,

With wealth from Ind, with treasures from the West,
Thy homes, thy hamlets-cities still be blest;
Till virtue, truth, and justice, shall combine,
And heavenly hope o'er many a bosom shine ;
Auspicious days hail thy fair Sovereign's reigu,
And happy subjects throng their golden train.

POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE.

No. III.

GOETHE, though fertile in poems of the amatory and contemplative class, was somewhat chary of putting forth his strength in the ballad. We have already selected almost every specimen of this most popular and fascinating description of poetry which is at all worthy of his genius;-at least all of them which we thought likely, after making every allowance for variety of taste, to fulfil the main object of our task-to please and not offend. It would have been quite easy for us to spin out the series by translating the whole section of ballads which relate to the loves of "the Maid of the Mill," the "Gipsy's Song" which somewhat unaccountably has found favour in the eyes of Mrs Austin-and a few more ditties of a similar nature, all of which we bequeath, with our best wishes, as a legacy to any intrepid rédacteur who may wish to follow in our footsteps. For ourselves, we shall rigidly adhere to the rule with which we set out, and separate the wheat from the chaff, according to the best of our ability.

The first specimen of our present selection is not properly German, nor is it the unsuggested and original product of Goethe's muse. We believe that it is an old ballad of Denmark; a country which possesses, next to Scotland, the richest and most interesting store of ancient ballad poetry in Europe. However, although originally Danish, it has received some touches in passing through the alembic of translation, which may warrant us in giving it a prominent place, and we are sure that no lover of hoar tradition will blame us for its insertion.

THE WATER-MAN.

"Oh, mother! rede me well, I pray;
How shall I woo me yon winsome May?"

She has built him a horse of the water clear,
The saddle and bridle of sea-sand were.

He has donn'd the garb of a knight so gay,
And to Mary's Kirk he has ridden away.

He tied his steed to the chancel door,

And he stepp'd round the Kirk three times and four.

He has boune him into the Kirk, and all
Drew near to gaze on him, great and small.

The priest he was standing in the quire ;—
"What gay young gallant comes branking here?"

The winsome maid, to herself said she ;—
"Oh, were that gay young gallant for me!"

He stepp'd o'er one stool, he stepp'd o'er two;
"Oh, maiden, plight me thy oath so true!"

He stepp'd o'er three stools, he stepp'd o'er four;
"Wilt be mine, sweet May, for evermore?"

They went from the Kirk with the bridal train,
They danced in glee, and they danced full fain;

They danced them down to the salt-sea strand,
And they left them there with hand in hand.

"Now wait thee, love, with my steed so free,
And the bonniest bark I'll bring for thee."

And when they pass'd to the white, white sand,
The ships came sailing towards the land;

But when they were out in the midst of the sound,
Down went they all in the deep profound!

Long, long on the shore, when the winds were high,
They heard from the waters the maiden's cry.

I rede ye, damsels, as best I can—

Tread not the dance with the Water-Man!

This is strong, pure, rugged Norse, scarcely inferior, we think, in any way, to the pitch of the old Scottish ballads.

Before we forsake the North, let us try "The King in Thule." We are unfortunate in having to follow in the wake of the hundred translators of Faust, some of whom (we may instance Lord Francis Egerton) have already rendered this ballad as perfectly as may be; nevertheless we shall give it, as Shakspeare says, "with a difference."

THE KING IN THULE.

There was a king in Thule,
Was true till death I ween:
A vase he had of the ruddy gold,
The gift of his dying queen.

He never pass'd it from him-
At banquet 'twas his cup;

And still his eyes were fill'd with tears
Whene'er he took it up.

So when his end drew nearer,

He told his cities fair,

And all his wealth, except that cup,

He left unto his heir.

Once more he sate at royal board,

The knights around his knee,

Within the palace of his sires,
Hard by the roaring sea.

Up rose the brave old monarch,

And drank with feeble breath,
Then threw the sacred goblet down
Into the flood beneath.

He watch'd its tip reel round and dip,
Then settle in the main;

His eyes grew dim as it went down-
He never drank again.

We shall now venture on an extravaganza which might have been well illustrated by Hans Holbein. It is in the ultra-Germanic taste, such as in our earlier days, whilst yet the Teutonic alphabet was a mystery, we conceived to be the staple commodity of our neighbours. We shall never quarrel with a wholesome spice of superstition; but, really, Hoffmann, Apel, and their fantastic imitators, have done more to render their national literature ridiculous, than the greatest poets to redeem it. The following poem of Goethe is a strange piece of sarcasm directed against that school, and is none the worse, perhaps, that it somewhat out-herods Herod in its ghostly and grim solemnity. Like many other satires, too, it verges closely upon the serious. We back it against any production of M. G. Lewis.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

The warder look'd down at the depth of night
On the graves where the dead were sleeping,
And, clearly as day, was the pale moonlight
O'er the quiet churchyard creeping.

One after another the gravestones began
To heave and to open, and woman and man
Rose up in their ghastly apparel!

Ho-ho for the dance!-and the phantoms outsprung
In skeleton roundel advancing,

The rich and the poor, and the old and the young,
But the winding-sheets hinder'd their dancing.
No shame had these revellers wasted and grim,
So they shook off the cerements from body and limb,
And scatter'd them over the hillocks.

They crook'd their thighbones, and they shook their long shanks,

And wild was their reeling and limber;

And each bone as it crosses, it clinks and it clanks

Like the clapping of timber on timber.

The warder he laugh'd, though his laugh was not loud;

And the Fiend whisper'd to him-" Go, steal me the shroud

Of one of these skeleton dancers."

He has done it! and backward with terrified glance

To the sheltering door ran the warder;

As calm as before look'd the moon on the dance,

Which they footed in hideous order.

But one and another seceding at last,

Slipp'd on their white garments and onward they pass'd,

And the deeps of the churchyard were quiet.

Still, one of them stumbles and tumbles along,
And taps at each tomb that it seizes;

But 'tis none of its mates that has done it this wrong,

For it scents its grave-clothes in the breezes.

It shakes the tower gate, but that drives it away,
For 'twas nail'd o'er with crosses-a goodly array-
And well was it so for the warder!

It must have its shroud-it must have it betimes-
The quaint Gothic carving it catches,
And upwards from story to story it climbs

And scrambles with leaps and with snatches.
Now woe to the warder, poor sinner, betides!
Like a long-legged spider the skeleton strides
From buttress to buttress, still upward!

The warder he shook, and the warder grew pale,
And gladly the shroud would have yielded!
The ghost had its clutch on the last iron rail
Which the top of the watch-turret shielded.

When the moon was obscured by the rush of a cloud,
ONE! thunder'd the bell, and unswathed by a shroud,
Down went the gaunt skeleton crashing!

A very pleasant piece of poetry to translate at midnight, as we did it, with merely the assistance of a dying candle!

After this feast of horrors, something more fanciful may not come amiss. Let us pass to a competition of flowers in the golden, or-if you will have it so-the iron age of chivalry. The meditations of a captive knight have been a cherished theme for poets in all ages. Richard the Lion-heart of England, and James I. of Scotland, have left us, in no mean verse, the records of their own experience. We all remember how nobly and how well Felicia Hemans portrayed the agony of the crusader as he saw, from the window of his prison, the bright array of his Christian comrades defiling through the pass below. We shall now take a similar poem of Goethe, but one in a different vein :

THE FAIREST FLOWER.

THE LAY OF THE CAPTIVE EARL.

The Earl.-I know a floweret passing fair,
And for its loss I pain me;

Fain would I hence to seek its lair,

But for these bonds that chain me.
My woes are aught but light to me,
For when I roam'd unbound and free
That flower was ever near me.

Adown and round the castle's steep,
I let my glances wander;
But cannot from the dizzy keep,
Descry it, there or yonder.

Oh, he who'd bring it to my sight,
Or were he knave or were he knight,
Should be my friend for ever!

The Rose.-I blossom bright thy lattice near,
And hear what thou hast spoken;
'Tis me-brave, ill-starr'd cavalier-
The Rose, thou wouldst betoken!