And guard thy lips and keep them still;
    Too soon escapes an angry word. 
  “O God!  I did not mean it ill!”
    But yet he sorrowed as he heard.

  Oh! love while Love is left to thee;
    Oh! love while Love is yet thine own;
  The hour will come when bitterly
    Thou’lt mourn by silent graves, alone.

  Unheard, unheeded then, alas! 
    Kneeling, thou’lt hide thy streaming eyes
  Amid the long, damp, churchyard grass,
    Where, cold and low, thy loved one lies,

  And murmur:  “Oh, look down on me,
    Mourning my causeless anger still;
  Forgive my hasty word to thee—­
    O God!  I did not mean it ill!”

  He hears not now thy voice to bless,
    In vain thine arms are flung to heaven! 
  And, hushed the loved lip’s fond caress,
    It answers not:  “I have forgiven!”

  He did forgive—­long, long ago! 
    But many a burning tear he shed
  O’er thine unkindness—­softly now! 
    He slumbers with the silent dead.

  Oh! love while Love is left to thee;
    Oh! love while Love is yet thine own;
  The hour will come when bitterly
    Thou’lt mourn by silent graves—­alone!

* * * * *

  THE EMIGRANTS[40] (1832)

  I cannot take my eyes away
    From you, ye busy, bustling band,
  Your little all to see you lay
    Each in the waiting boatman’s hand.

  Ye men, that from your necks set down
    Your heavy baskets on the earth,
  Of bread, from German corn baked brown,
    By German wives, on German hearth.

  And you, with braided tresses neat,
    Black Forest maidens, slim and brown,
  How careful, on the sloop’s green seat,
    You set your pails and pitchers down.

[Illustration:  J.P.  HASENCLEVER FERDINAND FREILIGRATH]

  Ah! oft have home’s cool shady tanks
    Those pails and pitchers filled for you;
  By far Missouri’s silent banks
    Shall these the scenes of home renew—­

  The stone-rimmed fount, in village street,
    Where oft ye stooped to chat and draw—­
  The hearth, and each familiar seat—­
    The pictured tiles your childhood saw.

  Soon, in the far and wooded West
    Shall log-house walls therewith be graced;
  Soon, many a tired, tawny guest
    Shall sweet refreshment from them taste.

  From them shall drink the Cherokee,
    Faint with the hot and dusty chase;
  No more from German vintage, ye
    Shall bear them home, in leaf-crowned grace.

  Oh say, why seek ye other lands? 
    The Neckar’s vale hath wine and corn;
  Full of dark firs the Schwarzwald stands;
    In Spessart rings the Alp-herd’s horn.

  Ah, in strange forests you will yearn
    For the green mountains of your home;
  To Deutschland’s yellow wheat-fields turn;
    In spirit o’er her vine-hills roam.