Ye blue-eyed, gay maidens, a greeting to you!
Your life and your aims and your efforts be mine;
Wherever I wander my heart's on the Rhine.
My heart's on the Rhine--in the old Father-land,
Where my cradle was rocked by a dear mother's hand;
My youth and my friends--they are there yet, I know,
And my love dreams of me with her cheeks all aglow:
Be thou ever the same to me, Land of the Vine!
Wherever I wander my heart's on the Rhine.
THE MINSTREL
[From the German of Goethe]
[_Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Book 2, Chap. 2._]
"What hear I at the gateway ringing?
What bard upon the drawbridge singing?
Go bid him to repeat his song
Here, in the hall amid the throng,"
The monarch cried;
The little page hied;
As back he sped,
The monarch said--
"Bring in the gray-haired minstrel."
"I greet you, noble lords and peers;
I greet you, lovely dames.
O heaven begemmed with golden spheres!
Who knows your noble names?
In hall of splendor so sublime,
Close ye, mine eyes--'tis not the time
To gaze in idle wonder."
The gray-haired minstrel closed his eyes;
He struck his wildest air;
Brave faces glowed like sunset skies;
Cast down their eyes the fair.
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