The Road to Hirschau

ELSIE.Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city,impatiently bearingTidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate,of doing and daring!

This life of ours is a wild æolian harp of manya joyous strain,But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail,as of souls in pain.

ELSIE.Faith alone can interpret life, and the heartthat aches and bleeds with the stigmaOf pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ,and can comprehend its dark enigma.

Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little careof what may betide,Else why am I travelling here beside thee,a demon that rides by an angel's side?

ELSIE.All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dogunder the creaking wainHangs his head in the lazy heat, while onwardthe horses toil and strain.

Now they stop at the wayside inn, and the wagoner laughswith the landlord's daughter,While out of the dripping trough the horsesdistend their leathern sides with water.

ELSIE.All through life there are wayside inns,where man may refresh his soul with love;Even the lowest may quench his thirstat rivulets fed by springs from above.

Yonder, where rises the cross of stone,our journey along the highway ends,And over the fields, by a bridle path,down into the broad green valley descends.

ELSIE.I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten roadwith its dust and heatThe air will be sweeter far, and the turf will be softerunder our horses' feet.

ELSIE.Sweet is the air with the budding haws,and the valley stretching for miles belowIs white with blossoming cherry-trees,as if just covered with lightest snow.

Over our heads a white cascade is gleamingagainst the distant hill;We cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it hangslike a banner when winds are still.

ELSIE.Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and coolthe sound of the brook by our side!What is this castle that rises above us,and lords it over a land so wide?

It is the home of the Counts of Calva;well have I known these scenes of old,Well I remember each tower and turret, remember the brooklet,the wood, and the wold.

ELSIE.Hark! from the little village below us the bellsof the church are ringing for rain!Priests and peasants in long procession come forthand kneel on the arid plain.

They have not long to wait, for I see in the southuprising a little cloud,That before the sun shall be set will coverthe sky above us as with a shroud.

FRIAR CLAUS.I always enter this sacred placeWith a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,Pausing long enough on each stairTo breathe an ejaculatory prayer,And a benediction on the vinesThat produce these various sorts of wines!For my part, I am well contentThat we have got through with the tedious Lent!Fasting is all very well for thoseWho have to contend with invisible foes;But I am quite sure it does not agreeWith a quiet, peaceable man like me,Who am not of that nervous and meagre kind,That are always distressed in body and mind!And at times it really does me goodTo come down among this brotherhood,Dwelling forever underground,Silent, contemplative, round and sound;Each one old, and brown with mould,But filled to the lips with the ardor of youth,With the latent power and love of truth,And with virtues fervent and manifold.

I have heard it said, that at Easter-tide,When buds are swelling on every side,And the sap begins to move in the vine,Then in all cellars, far and wide,The oldest as well as the newest wineBegins to stir itself, and ferment,With a kind of revolt and discontentAt being so long in darkness pent,And fain would burst from its sombre tunTo bask on the hillside in the sun;As in the bosom of us poor friars,The tumult of half-subdued desiresFor the world that we have left behindDisturbs at times all peace of mind!And now that we have lived through Lent,My duty it is, as often before,To open awhile the prison-door,And give these restless spirits vent.

Now here is a cask that stands alone,And has stood a hundred years or more,Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar,Trailing and sweeping along the floor,Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave,Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave,Till his beard has grown through the table of stone!It is of the quick and not of the dead!In its veins the blood is hot and red,And a heart still beats in those ribs of oakThat time may have tamed, but has not broke!It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine,Is one of the three best kinds of wine,And costs some hundred florins the ohm;But that I do not consider dear,When I remember that every yearFour butts are sent to the Pope of Rome.And whenever a goblet thereof I drain,The old rhyme keeps running in my brain;

At Bacharach on the Rhine,At Hochheim on the Main,And at Wurzburg on the Stein,Grow the three best kinds of wine!

They are all good wines, and better farThan those of the Neckar, or those of the Ahr.In particular, Wurzburg well may boastOf its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost,Which of all wines I like the most.This I shall draw for the Abbot's drinking,Who seems to be much of my way of thinking.

Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings!What a delicious fragrance springsFrom the deep flagon, while it fills,As of hyacinths and daffodils!Between this cask and the Abbot's lipsMany have been the sips and slips;Many have been the draughts of wine,On their way to his, that have stopped at mine;And many a time my soul has hankeredFor a deep draught out of his silver tankard,When it should have been busy with other affairs,Less with its longings and more with its prayers.But now there is no such awkward condition,No danger of death and eternal perdition;So here's to the Abbot and Brothers all,Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul!

O cordial delicious! O soother of pain!It flashes like sunshine into my brain!A benison rest on the Bishop who sendsSuch a fudder of wine as this to his friends!And now a flagon for such as may askA draught from the noble Bacharach cask,And I will be gone, though I know full wellThe cellar's a cheerfuller place than the cell.Behold where he stands, all sound and good,Brown and old in his oaken hood;Silent he seems externallyAs any Carthusian monk may be;But within, what a spirit of deep unrest!What a seething and simmering in his breast!As if the heaving of his great heartWould burst his belt of oak apart!Let me unloose this button of wood,And quiet a little his turbulent mood.

See! how its currents gleam and shine,As if they had caught the purple huesOf autumn sunsets on the Rhine,Descending and mingling with the dews;Or as if the grapes were stained with the bloodOf the innocent boy, who, some years back,Was taken and crucified by the Jews,In that ancient town of Bacharach!Perdition upon those infidel Jews,In that ancient town of Bacharach!The beautiful town, that gives us wineWith the fragrant odor of Muscadine!I should deem it wrong to let this passWithout first touching my lips to the glass,For here in the midst of the current I standLike the stone Pfalz in the midst of the river,Taking toll upon either hand,And much more grateful to the giver.

Here, now, is a very inferior kind,Such as in any town you may find,Such as one might imagine would suitThe rascal who drank wine out of a boot.And, after all, it was not a crime,For he won thereby Dorf Huffelsheim.A jolly old toper! who at a pullCould drink a postilion's jack-boot full,And ask with a laugh, when that was done,If the fellow had left the other one!This wine is as good as we can affordTo the friars who sit at the lower board,And cannot distinguish bad from good,And are far better off than if they could,Being rather the rude disciples of beer,Than of anything more refined and dear!