To An Old Danish Song-Book

Welcome, my old friend,     Welcome to a foreign fireside,     While the sullen gales of autumn     Shake the windows.     The ungrateful world     Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,     Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,     First I met thee.     There are marks of age,     There are thumb-marks on thy margin,     Made by hands that clasped thee rudely,     At the alehouse.     Soiled and dull thou art;     Yellow are thy time-worn pages,     As the russet, rain-molested     Leaves of autumn.     Thou art stained with wine     Scattered from hilarious goblets,     As the leaves with the libations     Of Olympus.     Yet dost thou recall     Days departed, half-forgotten,     When in dreamy youth I wandered     By the Baltic,--     When I paused to hear     The old ballad of King Christian     Shouted from suburban taverns     In the twilight.     Thou recallest bards,     Who in solitary chambers,     And with hearts by passion wasted,     Wrote thy pages.     Thou recallest homes     Where thy songs of love and friendship     Made the gloomy Northern winter     Bright as summer.     Once some ancient Scald,     In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,     Chanted staves of these old ballads     To the Vikings.     Once in Elsinore,     At the court of old King Hamlet     Yorick and his boon companions     Sang these ditties.     Once Prince Frederick's Guard     Sang them in their smoky barracks;--     Suddenly the English cannon     Joined the chorus!     Peasants in the field,     Sailors on the roaring ocean,     Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,     All have sung them.     Thou hast been their friend;     They, alas! have left thee friendless!     Yet at least by one warm fireside     Art thou welcome.     And, as swallows build     In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,     So thy twittering songs shall nestle     In my bosom,--     Quiet, close, and warm,     Sheltered from all molestation,     And recalling by their voices     Youth and travel.