Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands Part 37

"But as the villagers had promised Wollin a holy day once in a hundred years, so once in a hundred years these people are permitted to rise with their village into the light of the sun for a single day. If on that day a stranger visits them whose heart is untrue he disappears with them at midnight. Such is the story. You will hardly believe it true."

The student crossed himself, and went on his journey towards the Rhine.

"_They_ have one day in a hundred years," he said. "How precious must that one day be to them! If I enter the ways of evil, and my heart becomes untrue, shall _I_ have _one_ day in one hundred years when life is ended and my account to Heaven is rendered?"

He thought. He read the holy books. He tried to find a single hope for an untrue soul; but he could discover none.

Then he said,--

"The days of evil have no to-morrows,--no, not once in a hundred years. Only good deeds have to-morrows. I will be true: so shall to-morrows open and close like golden doors until time is lost in the eternal." And his heart remained true.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SONGS OF THE RHINE.

THE WATCHMAN'S SONG.--THE WILD HUNT OF LuTZOW.--THE AUTHOR OF THE ERL KING.--BEETHOVEN'S BOYHOOD.--THE ORGAN-TEMPEST OF LUCERNE.

Rhineland is the land of song. It is the wings of song that have given it its fame. Every town on the Rhine has its own songs; every mountain, hill, and river.

America has few local songs,--few songs of the people. The singers who give voices to rivers, lakes, mountains, and valleys have not yet appeared. The local poets and singers of America are yet to come.

In England, Germany, and some of the provinces of France, every temple, stream, and grove has had its sweet singer.

Go to Basle, and you may hear the clubs singing the heroic songs of Alsace and Lorraine.

Go to Heidelberg, and you may listen to student-songs through which breathe the national spirit of hundreds of years.

The bands tell the story, legend, or romance of such towns at night, wherever they may play.

In one of the public grounds to which the Cla.s.s went for an evening rest, one of the bands was playing the _Fremersberg_.

It related an old romance of the region of Baden-Baden: how that a n.o.bleman was once wandering with his dogs in the mountains, and was overtaken by a storm; how he was about to perish when he heard the distant sounds of a monastery bell; how, following the direction of the sound, he heard a chant of priests; and how, at last, he was saved.

The piece was full of melody. The wind, the rain, the horns, the bells, the chant, while they told a story, were all delightfully melodious.

The ballad is almost banished from the intellectual American concert-rooms. In Germany a ballad is a gem, and is so valued. It is the best expression of national life and feeling.

The Cla.s.s went to hear one of Germany's greatest singers. She sang an heroic selection, and was recalled. Her first words on the recall hushed the audience: it was a ballad of the four stages of life. It began with an incident of a child dreaming under a rosebush:--

"Sweetly it sleeps and on dream wings flies To play with the angels in Paradise, And the years glide by."

as an English translation gives it.

In the last stanza, the child having pa.s.sed through the stages of life, was represented as again sleeping under a rosebush. The withered leaves fall upon his grave.

"Withered and dead they fall to the ground, And silently cover a new-made mound, And the years glide by."

These last lines were rendered so softly, yet distinctly, that they seemed like tremulous sounds in the air. The singer's face hardly appeared to move; every listener was like a statue. The silence was almost painful and impressive. One could but feel this was indeed art, and not a pretentious affectation of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD GERMAN TOWN.]

The reign of the organ as the monarch of musical instruments began with Charlemagne, and nearly all of the towns on the Rhine have historic organs. Many of the organ pieces are local compositions and imitative. On the great organs at Basle and Frieburg the imitation of storms is sometimes produced.

None of these storm-pieces, however, equal that which is daily played in summer on the organ of Lucerne. This organ tempest more greatly excited the Cla.s.s than any music that they heard during their journeys; and Master Beal made a record of it in verse, which we give at the close of the chapter.

The children of Germany learn to read music at the same age that they learn to read books. Music is a part of their primary school--Kindergarten--education. The poorest children are taught to sing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RHINEFELS.]

The consequence is that the Germans are a nation of singers. The organ is a power in the church, the military band at the festival, and the ballad in the concert-room and the home.

These ballad-loving people are familiar with the best music. To them music is a language. Says Mayhew, in his elaborate work on the Rhine, in speaking of the free education in music in Germany: "To tickle the gustatory nerves with either dainty food or drink costs some money; but to be able to reproduce the harmonious combinations of a Beethoven or a Weber, or to make the air tremble melodiously with some sweet and simple ballad, or even to recall the sonorous solemnities of some prayerful chorus or fine thanksgiving in an oratorio, is not only to fill the heart and brain with affections too deep for words, but it is to be able to taste as high a pleasure as the soul is capable of knowing, and yet one that may be had positively for nothing."

It is to be regretted that so much of the good music of Germany is performed in the beer-gardens. The too free use of the gla.s.s and the pipe cannot tend to make the nation strong for the future; and one cannot long be charmed with the music and mirth of such places without fearing for the losses that may follow.

All trades and occupations have their own songs, even the humblest.

Take for example the pleasing Miller's Song, which catches the spirit of his somewhat poetic yet homely calling:--

"To wander is the miller's joy, To wander!

What kind of miller must he be, Who ne'er hath yearned to wander free?

To wander!

"From water we have learned it, yes, From water!

It knows no rest by night or day, But wanders ever on its way, Does water.

"We see it by the mill-wheels, too, The mill-wheels!

They ne'er repose, nor brook delay, They weary not the livelong day, The mill-wheels.

"The stones, too, heavy though they be, The stones, too, Round in the giddy circle dance, Ee'n fain more quickly would advance, The stones would.

"To wander, wander, my delight, To wander!

O master, mistress, on my way Let me in peace depart to-day, And wander!"

WILHELM MuLLER.

The watchman, too, has his peculiar songs. One of these is very solemn and stately. A favorite translation of it begins:--

"Hark ye, neighbors, and hear me tell _Eight_ now strikes the loud church bell."

An almost literal translation thus reproduces the grand themes which were made to remind the old guardians of the night in their ghostly vigils:--

THE WATCHMAN'S SONG.