 | Musa Verticordia |  |
24
II. Die Meistersinger
1.
Released from that miasmic spell
And commune with sad souls, half dead,
With him who cobbled and sang as well
High on the hills of life we tread.
And commune with sad souls, half dead,
With him who cobbled and sang as well
High on the hills of life we tread.
Well met, Hans Sachs! We grasp your hand,
We look you full in the face and feel
That men who in the sunshine stand
Need never in the darkness kneel.
We look you full in the face and feel
That men who in the sunshine stand
Need never in the darkness kneel.
Set in the brilliance and the breeze,
Their minds are emptied of the rust
Of mildew, lichens of disease,
And all the dragons of the dust.
Their minds are emptied of the rust
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And all the dragons of the dust.
Wisely to work and wisely sing,
To love as one who deems it wrong
No more than any woodland thing
Mated in May, makes life a song.
To love as one who deems it wrong
No more than any woodland thing
Mated in May, makes life a song.
2.
What vigorous, virile strains are these!
What Maenad and yet measured mirth!
So sound the billows and the breeze
That bring salt savour to the Earth.
What Maenad and yet measured mirth!
So sound the billows and the breeze
That bring salt savour to the Earth.
Now troop away those phantoms pale,
Pretenders of monastic days,
For Nürnberg drowns their cloistered wail
With the large din of human ways.
Pretenders of monastic days,
For Nürnberg drowns their cloistered wail
With the large din of human ways.
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Now is Beckmesser's serenade
By Hans Sachs' hammer sorely smit,
For here they follow love and trade
And worship God with work and wit.
By Hans Sachs' hammer sorely smit,
For here they follow love and trade
And worship God with work and wit.
Harmonious life! Imagined sin
Mars not its large concerted tone,
But every heart may hope to win
A mode and music of its own.
Mars not its large concerted tone,
But every heart may hope to win
A mode and music of its own.
3.
The Guilds of Nürnberg march along,
The banners wave, the trumpets blow,
The women are fair, the men are strong,
To love and labour well they know.
The banners wave, the trumpets blow,
The women are fair, the men are strong,
To love and labour well they know.
And now arrive the reverend sirs
Who must adjudge the minstrel crown
To him who trolls the noblest verse,
To win the Beauty of the Town.
Who must adjudge the minstrel crown
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To win the Beauty of the Town.
Beckmesser strums on silly strings
The jangling ballad's iterate note;
Derided soon: but Walter sings
The love that none can learn by rote.
The jangling ballad's iterate note;
Derided soon: but Walter sings
The love that none can learn by rote.
Thus, Master of the wizard brain,
Of Love and Life you wove the spell;
Only the greatest sing that strain;
The least can sing of Heaven and Hell!
Of Love and Life you wove the spell;
Only the greatest sing that strain;
The least can sing of Heaven and Hell!
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