[YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS]
YE Tourists and Travellers, bound to the Rhine,
Provided with passport, that requisite docket,
First listen to one little whisper of mine-
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
Don't wash or be shaved-go like hairy wild men,
Play dominoes, smoke, wear a cap and smock-frock it,
But if you speak English, or look it, why then
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
You'll sleep at great inns, in the smallest of beds,
Find charges as apt to mount up as a rocket,
With thirty per cent. as a tax on your heads,
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
You'll see old Cologne,—not the sweetest of towns,—
Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it;
And you'll pay your three dollars to look at three crowns,
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
You'll count Seven Mountains, and see Roland's Eck,
Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett ;
But oh! to the tone of romance what a check,
Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!
Old Castles you'll see on the vine-covered hill,—
Fine ruins to rivet the eye in its socket—
Once haunts of Baronial Banditti, and still
Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!
You'll stop at Coblenz, with its beautiful views,
But make no long stay with your money to stock it,
Where Jews are all Germans, and Germans all Jews,
Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!—
A Fortress you'll see, which, as people report,
Can never be captured, save famine should block it-
Ascend Ehrenbreitstein-but that 's not their forte,
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
You'll see an old man who'll let off an old gun,
And Lurley, with her hurly-burly, will mock it;
But think that the words of the echo thus run-
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
You'll gaze on the Rheingau, the soil of the Vine!
Of course you will freely Moselle it and Hock it-
P'raps purchase some pieces of Humbugheim wine-
Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!
Perchance you will take a frisk off to the Baths-
Where some to their heads hold a pistol and cock it;
But still mind the warning, wherever your paths,
Take care of your pocket !—take care of your pocket!
And Friendships you'll swear, most eternal of pacts,
Change rings, and give hair to be put in a locket;
But still, in the most sentimental of acts,
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
In short, if you visit that stream or its shore,
Still keep at your elbow one caution to knock it,
And where Schinderhannes was Robber of yore,
Take care of your pocket!-take care of your pocket!
WITH A FLASK OF RHINE WATER
THE old Catholic City was still,
In the Minster the vespers were sung,
And, re-echoed in cadences shrill,
The last call of the trumpet had
While, across the broad stream of the
Rhine,
The full Moon cast a silvery zone;
And, methought, as I gazed on its
shine,
'Surely that is the Eau de Cologne.'
'Tis even on the pleasant banks of Rhine
The thrush is singing, and the dove is cooing,-
A Youth and Maiden on the turf recline
Alone-And he is wooing.
Yet wooes in vain, for to the voice of love
No kindly sympathy the Maid discovers,
Though round them both, and in the air above,
The tender Spirit hovers!
Untouch'd by lovely Nature and her laws,
The more he pleads, more coyly she represses;—
Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws,
Rejecting his caresses.
Fair is she as the dreams young Poets weave,
Bright eyes, and dainty lips, and tresses curly;
In outward loveliness a Child of Eve,
But cold as Nymph of Lurley !
The more Love tries her pity to engross,
The more she chills him with a strange behaviour;
Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross
And Image of the Saviour.
Forth goes the Lover with a farewell moan,
As from the presence of a thing inhuman ;—
Oh! what unholy spell hath turn'd to stone
The young warm heart of Woman!
'Tis midnight-and the moonbeam, cold and wan,
On bower and river quietly is sleeping,
And o'er the corse of a self-murder'd man
The Maiden fair is weeping.
In vain she looks into his glassy eyes,
No pressure answers to her hand so pressing;
In her fond arms impassively he lies,
Clay-cold to her caressing.
Despairing, stunn'd, by her eternal loss,
She flies to succour that may best beseem her;
But, lo a frowning Figure veils the Cross,
And hides the blest Redeemer !
With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll,
Wherein she reads in melancholy letters,
The cruel fatal pact that placed her soul
And her young heart in fetters.
'Wretch ! Sinner! Renegade! to truth and God,
Thy holy faith for human love to barter ! '
No more she hears, but on the bloody sod
Sinks, Bigotry's last Martyr!
And side by side the hapless Lovers lie:
Tell me, harsh Priest! by yonder tragic token,
What part hath God in such a Bond, whereby.
Or hearts or vows are broken?
I LIKE your German singers well,
But hate them too, and for this reason,
Although they always sing in time,
They often sing quite out of season.
|