THE POET’S DEATHBED.
Max of Schenkendorf is well known in Germany by his songs on those combats for liberty, of which so many took place in his Fatherland. The Poet was in the last stage of consumption.
It was the morning of his birthday. Max lay sleeping in bed, but his wife had arisen, and was now busy adorning his chamber with flowers in honour of the Poet’s birthday.
Having arranged all the bouquets, she made up a garland of evergreens, which she placed softly on the brow of the sleeper, fervently praying that it might become an emblem of new laurels which her husband should gain in this new year of his life.
As she leant over him to place the wreath on his head, she tenderly kissed the lips of the sleeper, and softly she murmured, “Oh, would I could kiss you to health!”
The decorations now were completed, and softly the wife stept from the husband’s bedside, softly she passed from the chamber.
But as she went out an unbidden guest entered there—Death came over the threshold and took the wife’s place. Death strode up to the bed and laid his chill hand on the feverish brow of the sleeper: closer and closer then wound those arms which supplanted for ever those of the wife—closer and closer, until icy and rigid became the frame of the Poet.
An hour slowly passed, and the fond wife re-entered. Max now was lying a corpse, crowned with the wreath that she had placed upon his living brow. In agony she cried, “Wake, O wake, my own, my beloved! Depart not from her who lives but in thee! One word, but one——”
The smile was on his lips, but the spirit was gone, leaving only its imprint on the cold clay.
* * *
“Weep, not, O woman!” said his spirit to her, “weep not for the clay that lies here; the shackles are broken; what earth could not hold, nor love longer detain, can neither be fettered by Death: the body is dead, but the soul lives for ever; it lives in thy love and thy heart; it lives in the sky.”
This is the last of our legends; and with a few remarks on the habits and customs of the part of Germany near our river we will come to the conclusion of our last chapter. Not without regret shall we end; for it is a pleasant task, in these cold short days of winter, to record that which brings to our remembrance the long bright days of summer; especially as that summer was spent among such lovely scenes.
The Germans bear the character of being an honest, hardworking, intelligent people, very domestic in their habits, even to exclusiveness; the different classes assort together less than they do in England, but passing communication is freer and less constrained.
During the many weeks we passed on the Moselle, and in a former excursion on our river, we never once encountered a family of tourists of the upper class of Germans. At Bad Bertrich there were some, but they were there because it is a watering-place—not because it is beautiful; and as soon as the season was over away they all went, as if they were afraid to remain at a Bad out of the fashionable season, although the weather was much more suitable for country pursuits than it had been during the season.
This same fashion arrays the dumpy young ladies of Germany in a most strange deformity of inflated petticoats. Bad enough as these things are in England and France, in Germany they are much worse.
The gentlemen are, in general, agreeable, and more truly polite than the French; but French ladies certainly have the advantage over their sisters in Germany.
The poorer classes still bear the stamp of the old German character. They are frugal, hard-working, honest, and cheerful. They are well-mannered and well-informed for their class. They also exhibit considerable neatness and taste in their dress. No pleasanter object can be met in a summer-day’s ramble than a group of the mädchen, with their hair neatly folded, smooth on the brow and plaited behind, with the smart embroidered cloth or velvet head-dress, and the gilt paper-cutter passed through the hair; neat shoes and blue stockings are shown by the sensible length of the petticoats, and a gay handkerchief sets off the firm bust. Their figures are lithe and upright, though somewhat thick and substantial. The paper-cutter in the head is supposed to represent a nail of the Cross.
As housewives, the Germans are doubtless unsurpassed by any other nation; the houses are clean, the stoves shine brightly, and they are for ever washing clothes in the river. We cannot applaud the way in which they cook their meat generally, but their puddings are admirable. At Cochem our landlady used to send us up souffléd puddings that would have done credit to the Palais Royal. On the Moselle the old-fashioned spinning-wheel is to be seen in every village, and knitting is always taken in hand when walking or superintending household affairs.
Singing is constantly heard in the evening, and many of the little coteries in the townlets by our river’s side subscribe to hire a piano from Coblence or Trèves, and by the aid of its music they make lively the long hours of darkness in winter.
The priests seem respected, and on amicable terms with all classes, but generally they do not hold the same social position that they do in this country.
If the traveller on the Moselle is himself not over-exacting, and ready to meet civility half-way, he will find all those he encounters polite and pleasant, and he cannot fail of spending an agreeable time on the banks of our charming river.
The Roman poet Ausonius, who about the year A.D. 370, when passing through the dense forests that covered all Germany, suddenly came out on the Moselle near Neumagen, was so struck with the beauty of the river that he explored its course, and then wrote a poem thereon. The palaces and the buildings he mentions have all passed away, but the natural beauties remain; and the old castles that at the present time adorn the tops of the hills quite make up for the towers that are gone.
Now, as then, the vine grows luxuriantly over the cliffs, the peaceful river flows calmly on; and the people dwelling on its banks are simple, loyal, and brave.
We have now reached and described Coblence, and with Coblence ends the Life of the Moselle. We have sat with her beneath the forest shade that shelters her birthplace in the Vosges mountains; we have day after day wandered by her side as she bounded along in all the freshness of her youth, or as, in later days, she floated on majestic in her beauty; we have slept night after night, lulled by the ripple of her waters; we have climbed among her mountains and her forests; we have mused or sung amidst her ruins; we have dreamt of other days, of olden times, of things that come not again save in such dreams; we have also, it is to be hoped, in some measure, profited by our communion with the great heart of Nature,—something, we trust, we have learnt of that inner life which makes the very stones and earth preach to us of their Divine origin.
By the Moselle we have found flowers growing, beautiful in their forms and colours, but more beautiful in their uncultured wildness; we have listened to the songs of the gay birds as we rested in the woods; the clouds have fleeted through the pure blue vault, rain has freshened earth and sun has ripened her fruits: all these, and many other incidents, have striven to teach us to love and reverence the great heart of Nature; that heart which, if the Painter, with all his skill of colour or of handiwork, fail to express, he sinks back into the mere copyist; if the Poet feel it not or love it not, his bark is stranded on a barren shore; and what would music be without it?
If, then, the Moselle has whispered or suggested to us aught of this heart, this inner life of Nature, let us preserve it within us pure and beautiful, as all things in Nature are; so shall our summer’s tour have not been made in vain, nor useless been the life of the Moselle.
Standing at that spot where the Moselle and Rhine are met, we now take leave of our dear river.
Night is in the heavens, the still cold night of winter; the stars look down upon us with their eyes of love; the great fortress of Ehrenbreitstein looms hugely over the Rhine stream, telling of war and horrid strife, but on the shore of the Moselle rises a fair church, telling of peace. The fortress shall crumble and decay, but the church shall, in the end, remain when all else has passed away.
The light of the stars falls coldly on the waters; the air is chill and frosty; if we look further, we perceive in the distance forms of beauty floating on: dark is the night around, but the stars are bright. So with us, all is often dark and dreary; the very light we have, seems cold, but if we search earnestly into Nature’s heart, and follow her guidance, she will lead us where those faint shining stars become great worlds of light; and they, the footstools of still higher realms, shall guide us to Heaven itself.
THE END.
[1] Maria of help.
London:—Printed by G. Barclay, Castle St. Leicester Sq.