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Title: The Return Home
Author: Joseph Victor Scheffel [
More Titles by Scheffel]
Der Pfarrer von Assmanshausen sprach:
'Die Welt steckt tief in Sünden,
Doch wo der Meister Josephus steckt
Weiss Keiner mir zu künden.'
The priest of Assmanshausen spoke:
'The world lies deep in sin;
But where our Master Joseph lies
Knows neither kith nor kin.'
And as they decked for Christmas-tide,
The Rhine was frozen o'er;
There came a man in pilgrims garb,
And stood before the door.
'Now shrive me, shrive me, holy priest,
Full pardon I would gain;
All that my poor, sad-sorrowing heart,
May turn to joy again.
'The sin I did was this, that I
Did not in Rhine-land bide;
There's nothing like it in the world,
Wherever you run or ride.
'For a hundred leagues behind Lyóns,
I travelled France-land through;
And many a meal of oysters and sack
I ate, and enjoyed it too.
'Full oft at Marseilles in the Café Turk,
Among heathens and niggers I sat;
And, deep in the Pyrenean hills,
Garbanzos and garlic ate.
'Still whirls my brain when I recall
The mountain-lake maid Filuméne,
With gipsy-brown face and coal-black hair,
Each tooth like an ivory grain.
'But bepitched and besulphured is every land,
Without friends and song and love,
And shaken with fever, and all burned out,
From the foreign realms I rove.'
The priest of Assmanshausen spoke:
'Tis well, oh penitent soul;
Anoint thy lips with the purple wine
From this holy ancient bowl.
'And by that wine three days, three nights,
In the deep, dark cellar abide;
And drinking, keep by the barrels watch,
Till grace in thy heart shall glide.
'And then in the Crown and Anchor join
In spiritual exercise;
And not till the watchman warns you, leave
The club with its songs and cries.
'Then Heaven will surely show thee a sign,--
It heeds every penitent's woes!--
A delicate wine-green, a carbuncle red,
Will colour thy forehead and nose.
'And when that nose is a rubied one,
All care will quit thy brain;
And then may'st thou, oh, long-lost son,
Turn back to thy friends again.
'We're the same old fellows; still sing by wine
The songs which we sang from dark;
Of the Sparrow and the Goldfinch fine,
And the summer-heralding Lark.'
'We're the same old fellows, we love thee well,
Be thy heart from fretting free;
And hadst thou gone loafing yet further afar,
Still a calf we would slay for thee.'
The pilgrim sighed with tearful eye--
'Oh, priest, such a soothing word
As you have spoken, pious man,
In my travels I never heard.
'And now I strike my barren staff
Into this holy earth,
That it with spreading branches anew
May roof me a home and hearth.
'Flow on, thou Rhine vine-cluster blood.
Still thy hoards of grace remain;
In thy youth-giving fire-blood
I will bathe me to health again.
'Now shall the world, with its snares so bright,
Behold my back for ever.
Oh, Heidelberg, shining star in the night,
I leave thee never--and never!'
[The end]
Joseph Victor Scheffel's poem: Return Home
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