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| THE TOWER of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, | |
| Like some huge piece of Nature’s make, the growth of centuries; | |
| You could not deem its crowding spires a work of human art, | |
| They seemed to struggle lightward from a sturdy living heart. | |
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| Not Nature’s self more freely speaks in crystal or in oak, | 5 |
| Than, through the pious builder’s hand, in that gray pile she spoke; | |
| And as from acorn springs the oak, so, freely and alone, | |
| Sprang from his heart this hymn to God, sung in obedient stone. | |
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| It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so perfect, yet so rough, | |
| A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in granite tough; | 10 |
| The thick spires yearned towards the sky in quaint harmonious lines, | |
| And in broad sunlight basked and slept, like a grove of blasted pines. | |
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| Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim with better right | |
| To all the adorning sympathies of shadow and of light; | |
| And in that forest petrified, as forester, there dwells | 15 |
| Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole lord of all its bells. | |
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| Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared onward red as blood, | |
| Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed beneath the eddying flood; | |
| For miles away the fiery spray poured down its deadly rain, | |
| And back and forth the billows sucked, and paused, and burst again. | 20 |
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| From square to square with tiger leaps panted the lustful fire, | |
| The air to leeward shuddered with the gasps of its desire; | |
| And church and palace, which even now stood whelmed but to the knee, | |
| Lift their black roofs like breakers lone amid the whirling sea. | |
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| Up in his tower old Herman sat and watched with quiet look; | 25 |
| His soul had trusted God too long to be at last forsook; | |
| He could not fear, for surely God a pathway would unfold | |
| Through this red sea for faithful hearts, as once he did of old. | |
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| But scarcely can he cross himself, or on his good saint call, | |
| Before the sacrilegious flood o’erleaped the churchyard wall; | 30 |
| And, ere a paler half was said, mid smoke and crackling glare, | |
| His island tower scarce juts its head above the wide despair. | |
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| Upon the peril’s desperate peak his heart stood up sublime; | |
| His first thought was for God above, his next was for his chime; | |
| “Sing now and make your voices heard in hymns of praise,” cried he, | 35 |
| “As did the Israelites of old, safe walking through the sea! | |
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| “Through this red sea our God hath made the pathway safe to shore; | |
| Our promised land stands full in sight; shout now as ne’er before!” | |
| And as the tower came crushing down, the bells, in clear accord, | |
| Pealed forth the grand old German hymn,—“All good souls, praise the Lord!” | 40 |
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