, expected to see them
Crushed into pieces beneath the weight of trunks and of presses.
So lay the cart all broken to fragments, and helpless the people.
Keeping their onward way, the others drove hastily by them,
Each thinking only of self, and carried away by the current.
Then we ran to the spot, and found the sick and the aged,--
Those who at home and in bed could before their lingering ailments
Scarcely endure,--lying bruised on the ground, complaining and groaning,
Choked by the billowing dust, and scorched by the heat of the noonday."

Thereupon answered and said the kind-hearted landlord, with feeling:
"Would that our Hermann might meet them and give them refreshment and clothing!
Loath should I be to behold them: the looking on suffering pains me.
Touched by the earliest tidings of their so cruel afflictions,
Hastily sent we a mite from out of our super-abundance,
Only that some might be strengthened, and we might ourselves be made easy.
But let us now no longer renew these sorrowful pictures
Knowing how readily fear steals into the heart of us mortals,
And anxiety, worse to me than the actual evil.
Come with me into the room behind, our cool little parlor,
Where no sunbeam e'er shines, and no sultry breath ever enters
Through its thickness of wall. There mother will bring us a flagon
Of our old eighty-three, with which we may banish our fancies.
Here 'tis not cosey to drink: the flies so buzz round the glasses."
Thither adjourned they then, and all rejoiced in the coolness.

Carefully brought forth the mother the clear and glorious vintage,
Cased in a well-polished flask, on a waiter of glittering pewter,
Set round with large green glasses, the drinking cups meet for the Rhine Wine.
So sat the three together about the highly waxed table,
Gleaming and round and brown, that on mighty feet was supported,
Joyously rang at once the glasses of landlord and pastor,
But his motionless held the third, and sat lost in reflection,
Until with words of good-humor the landlord challenged him, saying,--
"Come, sir neighbor, empty your glass, for God in his mercy
Thus far has kept us from evil, and so in the future will keep us.
For who acknowledges not, that since our dread conflagration,
When he so hardly chastised us, he now is continually blessing,
Constantly shielding, as man the apple of his eye watches over,
Holding it precious and dear above all the rest of his members?
Shall he