Oft at eve, when we were sated with the various feast of sight, Looking through our leafy trellis on the hues of loveliest light, Poured on the empurpled mountains by the gently westering sun; When at length the blazing god, his feats of brilliant duty done, Veiled his head, and Güdinghofen's gilded woods again were grey; When the various hum was hushed that stirred the busy-striving day, And the air was still and breezeless, and the moon with fresh-horned beam Threw aslant a shimmering brightness o'er the scarcely-sounding stream; We with ear not idly pleased would rise to catch the mellow note Softly o'er the waters wandering from the home-returning boat; And we saw the festive brothers, sobered by the evening hour, Shoreward drifted by the river's deep and gently-rolling power; And our car imbibed sweet concord, and our hearts grew young again, And we knew the deep devotion of that solemn social strain. And we loved the Bursch that mingles truth and friendship with the wine, While his floods of deep song echo o'er the broad and murmuring Rhine. Fare thee well, thou people-bearing, joy-resounding, ample flood, Mighty now, but mightier then, when lusty Europe's infant blood Pulsed around thee; when thy Kaisers, titled with the grace of Rome, With a holy sanction issued from hoar Aquisgranum's dome, And with kingly preparation, where the Alps frost-belted frown, Marched with German oak to wreathe the fruitful Lombard's iron crown. Then the stream of wealth adown thee freely floated; then the fire Of a rude but hot devotion piled strong tower, and fretted spire, Thick as oaks within the forest, where thy priestly cities rose. Weaker now, and faint and small, the sacerdotal ardour glows Round the broad Rhine's unchurched billows; but an echo still remains, And a fond life stiffly lingers, in the old faith's ghostly veins. Ample rags of decoration, scutcheons of the meagre dead, By thy banks, thou Christian river, still, from week to week, are spread. Flags and consecrated banners wave around thee; I have seen Strewn with flowers thy streets, and marching in the gay sun's noonday sheen Lines of linen-vested maidens, lines of sober matrons grey, Lines of feeble-footed fathers, priests in motley grim array; I have seen the bright cross glitter in the summer's cloudless air, While the old brown beads were counted to the drowsy-mutter'd prayer; I have seen the frequent beggar press his tatters in the mud, For the bread that is the body, and the wine that is the blood, (So they deem in pious stupor,) of the Lord who walked on earth. Such thy signs of life, thou strangely-gibbering imp of Roman birth,