mother gives me blows,
So my father curses throws;
They both treat me savagely.
In the house alone I sit,
Dare not walk about the street,
Nor at play in public be.

If I walk about the street,
Every one I chance to meet
Scans me like a prodigy:
When they see the load I bear,
All the neighbours nudge and stare,
Gaping while I hasten by;
With their elbows nudge, and so
With their finger point, as though
I were some monstrosity;
Me with nods and winks they spurn,
Judge me fit in flames to burn
For one lapse from honesty.

Why this tedious tale prolong?
Short, I am become a song,
In all mouths a mockery.
By this am I done to death,
Sorrow kills me, chokes my breath,
Ever weep I bitterly.
One thing makes me still more grieve,
That my friend his home must leave
For the same cause instantly;
Therefore is my sadness so
Multiplied, weighed down with woe,
For he too will part from me.

XVIII.

A separate section should be assigned to poems of exile. They are not
very numerous, but are interesting in connection with the wandering
life of their vagrant authors. The first has all the dreamy pathos
felt by a young German leaving his beloved home in some valley of the
Suabian or Thuringian hills.

ADIEU TO THE VALLEY.

No. 42.

Oh, of love twin-brother anguish!
In thy pangs I faint and languish,
Cannot find relief from thee!
Nay, no marvel! I must grieve her,
Wander forth in exile, leave her,
Who hath gained the heart of me;
Who of loveliness so rare is
That for her sake Trojan Paris
Would have left his Helene.

Smile, thou valley, sweetest, fairest,
Wreathed with roses of the rarest,
Flower of all the vales that be!
Vale of vales, all vales excelling,
Sun and moon thy praise are telling,
With the song-birds' melody;
Nightingales thy praise are singing,
O thou soothing solace-bringing
To the soul's despondency!

The second was probably intended to be sung at a drinking-party by a
student taking leave of his companions. It is love that forces him to
quit their society and to break with his studies. The long rhyming
lines, followed by a sharp drop at the close of each stanza upon a
short disjointed phrase, seem to indicate discouragement and
melancholy.

THE LOVER