Nightingales pour forth their lays
In the blooming months of spring!
Though in books they hold not fast
What the hour to thee imparts,
Leaves unto the breezes cast,
To be seized by youthful hearts!
Fare thou well, thou secret lore:
Necromancy, Alchemy!
Formulas shall bind no more,
And our art is poesy.
Names we deem but empty air;
Spirits we revere alone;
Though we honor masters rare.
Art is free--it is our own!
Not in haunts of marble chill,
Temples drear where ancients trod--
Nay, in oaks on woody hill,
Lives and moves the German God.
* * * * *
TAILLEFER[29] (1812)
Duke William of the Normans spoke unto his servants all:
"Who is it sings so sweetly in the court and in the hall?
Who sings from early morn till the house is still at night
So sweetly that he fills my heart with laughter and delight?"
"'Tis Taillefer," they answered him, "so joyously that sings
Within the courtyard, as the wheel above the well he swings,
And when the fire upon the hearth he stirs to burn more bright,
And when he rises to his toil or lays him down at night."
Then spoke the Duke, "In him I trow I have a faithful knave--
This Taillefer that serves me here, so loyal and so brave;
He turns the wheel and stirs the fire with willing, sturdy arm,
And, best of all, with blithesome song he knows my heart to charm.
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