Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.
The Guilds
By Count Anton Alexander von Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) (18061876)T
The sailor, smith, and dyer had sat there all day long;
And Coppenoll, the cobbler, from Ghent, was present too;
He bawled in council the loudest, and made the meanest shoe.
The king is coming to Candlemas, God grant, Let there be light!”
At this the dyer stealthily peeps in the cards of the smith,
Meanwhile of a fine old carol he is merrily humming the pith.
Of work he had his hands full, for he slept both night and day;
At night, because ’t is the fashion in life to sleep by night,
And by day because his slumbers had fatigued and tired him quite.”
He was always a gallant fellow, and I like him well enough;
But all the lords his courtiers with hoofs of iron prance,
And on the corns of the people they love to tread and dance.”
“I should like to make their boots for them,—I ’d give them a tight fit.”
Then the dyer slapped on the table and tossed off his stoup of wine,
And roared,—“The King of Clubs, bravo! the Knave of Diamonds is mine.”
“A god-forsaken life it is you people live on shore;
Damme! It always happens the knave is trumped by the king”:
All spring up in confusion, stools tumble, and glasses ring.
For me such work would not answer, but ’t will do well enough for a king.”
Then the dyer,—“At home there lie mouldering many red rags of my own,
Which, hung on the stool of the cobbler, would make it as fine as a throne.”
Oppressed with thought, and, muttering, thus to himself he said,—
“Respublica but recently has rubbed a hole in her shoe,
And Master Coppenoll reckons the cobbling ’s for him to do.
He who reigns in the heavens. He also created their lands.
The Netherlands we have created, by our own labor and pains,
So the right of choosing our master in our own hands remains.”
So the others fall into chorus, and all shout clamorously;
Out of the doors they tumble, the towers and steeples gain,
And set the bells ringing the tocsin, and howl like a hurricane.
And all the guild companions under them stood undaunted;
Then first began in a whisper, then louder and louder to roll,
From the mouth of the people and head-men, “Our leader be Coppenoll!”
They ply the hammer and pickaxe, and the kingly columns crush;
Many the sceptres of iron, and the crowns that yield to their blows,
With many a king’s wooden noddle and many a stony lord’s nose.