Читать книгу The Trumpeter of Säkkingen: A Song from the Upper Rhine - Joseph Victor von Scheffel - Страница 11

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The Trumpeter now, all alive and refreshed,

To the Jubilee loudly is blowing;

The present year has both of us blessed,

Great favour and lustre bestowing.

I have my fiftieth year attained,

Through joy and through sorrow surviving,

And his editions--such fame has he gained--

At the fiftieth are now arriving.

It may be that I a part of my youth

And joy with him have been leaving;

But still from these scenes--to tell the truth--

Great pleasure I now am receiving.

To the Eggberg I climbed, where on high are seen

The homes of the Hauenstein peasant;

Their straw-thatched roofs with mosses still green,

But no more quaint costumes at present.

Through gaps in the forest I see shining bright

The snow-peaks of Switzerland's Giants,

The steep Finsteraarhorn's towering height

The Jungfrau dazzling with diamonds;

And as to the west I turn my gaze,

Blue ridge above ridge is unfolding:

And, in the evening's golden haze,

I'm the Vosges' great Belchen beholding.

When now to Säkkingen downward I hie,

Through the dark green forest is gleaming

The silvery lake, like the earth's clear eye,

Looking upward, invitingly beaming.

Gneiss rocks high o'er the grassy shore rise;

And placed so as best to show it,

Inscribed on a rock this meets mine eyes:

"Säkkingen, the town, to her Poet!"

And now, as by Bally's castle I stand,

There my Trumpeter also stands blowing,

Cast finely in bronze by a master's hand.

That they know us well here all are showing;

For, when I was going to pay at the inn,

The kind hostess refused quite indignant.

'Tis clear, in the town of St. Fridolin,

O'er us a bright star shines benignant.

The Trumpeter bravely has blown his way

Through much that his patience was tasking;

And the publisher also his joy doth betray:

For the author's likeness he's asking.

Accept then this book, my friends, as before,

With kind and growing affection;

When the Schwarzwald's Poet shall be no more,

Still hold him in fond recollection.

Carlsruhe, October, 1876.