Shy sat the maid, self-chidden, As speech were thing forbidden, Now blend her accents willing With flute and cornet’s trilling. The rowers with new pleasure Pull strokes that match the measure; The boat the stream divideth, And, lulled by music, glideth. It strikes with shock the landing, The folk are all disbanding; “May we again meet, brother, On board this boat or other!” The companion to this little cabinet picture of the boat going with the stream is the crossing of the ferry. The poet offers the ferryman three times his fare, because the spirits of two friends, now dead, who crossed the same ferry with him in past years, are supposed to have gone with him. THE FERRY. Many years have passed for ever Since I came across the river; Here’s the tower, in evening’s blushing, There, as erst, the weir is rushing. Then with me the boat did carry Two companions o’er the ferry, One a friend, a father seeming, One a youth with high hopes beaming. That one lived a peaceful story, And is gone in peace to glory; This, of all most fiery-hearted, Hath in fight and storm departed. So when I, mid blessing cherished, Dare to think on seasons perished, Must I still to sorrow waken, Missing friends that Death hath taken. Friendship may not be united, Save when soul to soul is plighted: Full of soul those hours went by me, Still to souls a bond doth tie me. Ferryman, I gladly proffer Thrice the fare that others offer, Since two spirits thou didst carry At my side across the ferry. Longfellow, in his ‘Hyperion,’ has beautifully rendered the spirit of this poem, if he has somewhat missed its cadence. The fine elegy on the death of Tell belongs to Uhland’s ‘Songs of Freedom,’ Tell’s death is undemonstrative, and he characteristically comes by it, by rescuing a child from a torrent. ‘The Sunken Crown’ stands before it in the collection, probably by way of introduction:— THE SUNKEN CROWN. There, over on the hill-top, A little house doth stand; One gazes from the threshold On all the lovely land. There sits a free-born peasant Upon the bench at even; He whets his scythe so blithely, And sings his thanks to Heaven.