Nuremberg

    Rise the blue Franconian mountains Nuremberg the ancient stands.

    Quaint¹ old town of toil² and traffic quaint old town of art and song

    Memories haunt thy pointed³ gables like the rooks that round them throng⁴：

    Memories of the Middle Ages when the emperors rough and bold

    Had their dwelling⁵ in thy castle time-defying centuries old；

    And thy brave and thrifty⁶ burghers boasted in their uncouth⁷ rhyme

    That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.

    In the court-yard of the castle bound with many an iron band

    Stands the mighty⁸ linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand；

    On the square the oriel window where in old heroic days

    Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.

    Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous⁹ world of Art：

    Fountains wrought¹⁰ with richest sculpture standing¹¹ in the common mart；

    And above cathedral doorways¹² saints and bishops¹³ carved in stone

    By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

    In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust

    And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust；

    In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare

    Like the foamy¹⁴ sheaf of fountains rising through the painted air.

    Here when Art was still religion with a simple reverent¹⁵ heart

    Lived and labored¹⁷ Albrecht Dürer the Evangelist of Art；

    Hence in silence and in sorrow toiling¹⁸ still with busy hand

    Like an emigrant¹⁹ he wandered seeking for the Better Land.

    Emigravit is the inscription²⁰ on the tombstone where he lies；

    Dead he is not but departed —for the artist never dies.

    Fairer seems the ancient city and the sunshine seems more fair

    That he once has trod its pavement that he once has breathed its air！

    Through these streets so broad and stately these obscure and dismal²¹ lanes

    Walked of yore the Mastersingers chanting rude poetic²² strains.

    From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild²³

    Building nests in Fame's great temple as in spouts²⁴ the swallows build.

    As the weaver²⁵ plied²⁶ the shuttle wove he too the mystic rhyme

    And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime；

    Thanking God whose boundless²⁷ wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom

    In the forge's dust and cinders²⁹ in the tissues of the loom²⁸.

    Here Hans Sachs the cobbler-poet laureate of the gentle craft

    Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters in huge folios sang and laughed.

    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 humble³⁰ artist as in Adam Puschman's song

    As the old man gray and dove-like with his great beard  and long.

    And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care

    Quaffing³¹ ale from pewter tankards in the master's antique chair.

    Vanished is the ancient splendor³² and before my dreamy eye

    Wave these mingled³³ shapes and figures like a faded tapestry³⁴.

    Not thy Councils not thy Kaisers win for thee the world's regard；

    But thy painter Albrecht Dürer and Hans Sachs thy cobbler bard³⁵.

    Thus O Nuremberg a wanderer from a region far away

    As he paced thy streets and court-yards sang in thought his careless lay：

    Gathering³⁶ from the pavement's crevice³⁷ as a floweret of the soil

    The nobility of labor¹⁶ —the long pedigree of toil.