The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06. Коллектив авторов

        The Mother of God at Kevlaar

          Is drest in her richest array;

        She has many a cure on hand there,

          Many sick folk come to her today.

        And her, for their votive offerings,

          The suffering sick folk greet

        With limbs that in wax are molded,

          Many waxen hands and feet.

        And whoso a wax hand offers,

          His hand is healed of its sore;

        And whoso a wax foot offers,

          His foot it will pain him no more.

        To Kevlaar went many on crutches

          Who now on the tight-rope bound,

        And many play now on the fiddle

          Had there not one finger sound.

        The mother she took a wax taper,

          And of it a heart she makes

        "Give that to the Mother of Jesus,

          She will cure thee of all thy aches."

        With a sigh her son took the wax heart,

          He went to the shrine with a sigh;

        His words from his heart trickle sadly,

          As trickle the tears from his eye.

        "Thou blest above all that are blest,

          Thou virgin unspotted divine,

        Thou Queen of the Heavens, before thee

          I lay all my anguish and pine.

        "I lived with my mother at Köln,

          At Köln in the town that is there,

        The town that has hundreds many

          Of chapels and churches fair.

        "And Gretchen she lived there near us,

        But now she is dead, well-a-day!

        O Mary! a wax heart I bring thee,

          Heal thou my heart's wound, I pray!

        "Heal thou my heart of its anguish,

          And early and late, I vow,

        With its whole strength to pray and to sing, too,

          'Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!'"

        The suffering son and his mother

          In their little bed-chamber slept;

        Then the Mother of God came softly,

          And close to the sleepers crept.

        She bent down over the sick one,

          And softly her hand did lay

        On his heart, with a smile so tender,

          And presently vanished away.

        The mother sees all in her dreaming,

          And other things too she marked;

        Then up from her slumber she wakened,

          So loudly the town dogs barked.

        There lay her son, to his full length

          Stretched out, and he was dead;

        And the light on his pale cheek flitted

          Of the morning's dawning red.

        She folded her hands together,

          She felt as she knew not how,

        And softly she sang and devoutly,

          "Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!"

        Once upon my life's dark pathway

          Gleamed a phantom of delight;

        Now that phantom fair has vanished,

          I am wholly wrapt in night.

        Children in the dark, they suffer

          At their heart a spasm of fear;

        And, their inward pain to deaden,

          Sing aloud, that all may hear.

        I, a madcap child, now childlike

          In the dark to sing am fain;

        If my song be not delightsome,

          It at least has eased my pain.

        We sat at the fisherman's cottage,

          And gazed upon the sea;

        Then came the mists of evening,

          And rose up silently.

        The lights within the lighthouse

          Were kindled one by one,

        We saw still a ship in the distance

          On the dim horizon alone.

        We spoke of tempest and shipwreck,

          Of sailors and of their life,

        And how 'twixt clouds and billows

          They're tossed, 'twixt joy and strife.

        We spoke of distant countries

          From North to South that range,

        Of strange fantastic nations,

          And their customs quaint and strange.

        The Ganges is flooded with splendor,

          And