Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.

Austria: Steyermark (Styria)

Steyermark

By Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)

IN Steyermark,—green Steyermark,

The fields are bright and the forests dark,—

Bright with the maids that bind the sheaves,

Dark with the arches of whispering leaves!

Voices and streams and sweet bells chime

Over the land, in the harvest-time,

And the blithest songs of the finch and lark

Are heard in the orchards of Steyermark.

In Steyermark,—old Steyermark,

The mountain summits are white and stark;

The rough winds furrow their trackless snow,

But the mirrors of crystal are smooth below;

The stormy Danube clasps the wave

That downward sweeps with the Drave and Save,

And the Euxine is whitened with many a bark,

Freighted with ores of Steyermark!

In Steyermark,—rough Steyermark,

The anvils ring from dawn till dark;

The molten streams of the furnace glare,

Blurring with crimson the midnight air;

The lusty voices of forgemen chord,

Chanting the ballad of Siegfried’s Sword,

While the hammers swung by their arms so stark

Strike to the music of Steyermark!

In Steyermark,—dear Steyermark,

Each heart is light as the morning lark;

There men are framed in the manly mould

Of their stalwart sires, of the times of old,

And the sunny blue of the Styrian sky

Grows soft in the timid maiden’s eye,

When love descends with the twilight dark,

In the beechen groves of Steyermark.