Kulturtempel

AN AUTOGRAPH

The years that since we met have flown
Leave as they found me, still alone:
No wife, nor child, nor grandchild dear,
Are mine the heart of age to cheer.
More favored thou, with hair less gray
Than mine, canst let thy fancy stray
To where thy little Constance sees
The prairie ripple in the breeze;
or one like her to lisp thy name
Is better than the voice of fame.


[Written for an old friend,
Rev. S.H. Emery, of Quincy,
Illinois, who revisited Whittier
in 1868.]

John Greenleaf Whittier
(1807-1892)
From: The Poetical Works
Oxford University Press, 1909

THE POET AND THE CHILDREN

Longfellow

WITH a glory of winter sunshine
Over his looks of gray,
In the old historic mansion
He sat on his last birthday;

With his books and his pleasant pictures,
And his household and his kin,
While a sound as of myriads singing
From far and near stole in.

It came from his own fair city,
From the prairie's boundless plain,
From the Golden Gate of sunset
And the cedarn woods of Maine.

And his heart grew warm within him,
And his moistening eyes grew dim,
For he knew that his country's children
Were singing the songs of him:

The lays of his life's glad morning,
The psalms of his evening time,
Whose echoes shall float forever
On the winds of every clime.

All their beautiful consolations,
Sent forth like birds of cheer,
Came flocking back to his windows,
And sang in the Poet's ear.

Grateful, but solemn and tender,
The music rose and fell
With a joy akin to sadness
And a greeting like farewell.

With a sense of awe he listened
To the voices sweet and young
The last of earth and the first of heaven
Seemed in the songs they sung.

And waiting a little longer
For the wonderful change to come,
He heard the Summoning Angel,
Who calls God's children home!

And to him in a holier welcome
Was the mystical meaning given
Of the words of the blessed Master:
'Of such is the kingdom of heaven!'
[1882]

John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-1892

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.

VOGELWEID the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Würtzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with is behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;

Saying 'From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long.'

Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,
On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sulptured face.

On the cross-bars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side;
And the name their voices uttered
Was the name of Vogelweid.

Till at length the portly abbot
Murmered, 'Why this waste of food?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward
For our fasting brotherhood.'

Then in vain o'er tower and turret,
From the walls and woodland nests,
When the minster bells rang noontide,
Gathered the unwelcome guests.

Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions
On the cloister's funeral stones,
And tradition only tells us
Where repose the poet's bones.

But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes multiplied,
Still the birds repeat the legend,
And the name of Vogelweid.


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Aus: Songs and Sonnets
In: the Oxford Edition of the Poetical Works of Longfellow
____________
Abbildungen
1. Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 1170-1230); aus der Manessischen Handschrift.
2. Der Dichter Longfellow in 1868.

Präsident als Poesie-Protagonist
In der Liste mit allen amerikanischen Präsidenten, die man am Ende eines neuen, aktuellen niederländischen Buches [1] über die Präsidentschaftswahlen in den Vereinigten Staaten finden kann, schreibt der Autor über den 1881 gewählten Präsidenten James Abram Garfield (1831-1881): "Überraschender kandidat der Republikaner. Als getreuer Parteimann war er der letzte Abgeordnete der es jemals zu Präsidenten gebracht hat. Wurde kurz nach seiner Inauguration ermordet von einem unzufriedenen Arbeitssuchenden". . . . .
Ein Zeitgenosse dieses Politikers war der unglaublich belesene Dichter Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1885). Er sah in dem schrecklichen Ereignis einen Anlass den Mann in Erinnereung zu behalten indem er ein Gedicht über ihn verfasst hat.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

'E VENNI DAL MARTIRIO A QUESTA PACE'

THESE words the Poet heard in Paradise,
Uttered by one who, bravely dying here,
In the true faith was living in that sphere
Where the celestial cross of sacrifice
Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies;
And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,
The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,
Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.
Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,
Were not the suffering followed by the sense
Of infinite rest and infinite release!
That is our consolation; and again
A great soul cries to us in our suspense,
'I came from martyrdom unto this peace!'

Aus: The Oxford Edition of the Poetical Works of Longfellow
____________
[1] Frans Verhagen: De beste wint nooit.
(Der Beste gewinnt nie). Verlag Nieuw Amsterdam, 2007.
____________
Afbeeldingen
1. Der Politiker James Abram Garfield (1831-1881).
2. Der Dichter Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1885), hier um 1877 — 'nach einer Photographie'.