But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman’s song,
As the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankard; in the master’s antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world’s regard;
But thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay: 

Gathering from the pavement’s crevice, as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of labor,—­the long pedigree of toil.

The Norman baron
  Dans les moments de la vie ou la reflexion devient plus calme
et plus profonde, ou l’interet et l’avarice parlent moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de maladie, et de peril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de posseder des serfs, comme d’une chose peu agreable a Dieu, qui avait cree tous les hommes a son image.—­Thierry, Conquete de l’Angleterre.

In his chamber, weak and dying,
Was the Norman baron lying;
Loud, without, the tempest thundered
      And the castle-turret shook,

In this fight was Death the gainer,
Spite of vassal and retainer,
And the lands his sires had plundered,
      Written in the Doomsday Book.

By his bed a monk was seated,
Who in humble voice repeated
Many a prayer and pater-noster,
      From the missal on his knee;

And, amid the tempest pealing,
Sounds of bells came faintly stealing,
Bells, that from the neighboring kloster
      Rang for the Nativity.

In the hall, the serf and vassal
Held, that night their Christmas wassail;
Many a carol, old and saintly,
      Sang the minstrels and the waits;

And so loud these Saxon gleemen
Sang to slaves the songs of freemen,
That the storm was heard but faintly,
      Knocking at the castle-gates.

Till at length the lays they chanted
Reached the chamber terror-haunted,
Where the monk, with accents holy,
      Whispered at the baron’s ear.

Tears upon his eyelids glistened,
As he paused awhile and listened,
And the dying baron slowly
      Turned his weary head to hear.

“Wassail for the kingly stranger
Born and cradled in a manger! 
King, like David, priest, like Aaron,
      Christ is born to set us free!”

And the lightning showed the sainted
Figures on the casement painted,
And exclaimed the shuddering baron,
      “Miserere, Domine!”