ABOVE
First Mason:
Tink-a-link! Tink-a-link! Hear the trowels ring;
Feel the merry breezes make the scaffold swing;
See the skimming swallow brush us with her wing:—
Go it with your hammers, boys; time us while we sing.
BELOW.
First Student:
See the yellow sparkle of the Neckar in the glass,
And through the cedar branches sparkles blue the sea;
Hear the sweet piano—hear the German lass
Sing Freut" euch des Lebens—Oh! "I love I love the free!"
Second Student:
I like the canary better;
Look, how he swells his throttle!
He gurgles like musical water
That dances and sings in a bottle.
ABOVE.
Second Mason:
D'ye mind the students down in the grove
Drinking their wine and beer?
That's an easy life they lead.
First Mason:
So do we up here
When the weathercock points west
And the look-off's clear.
Third Mason:
House-top Jim's the boy for work!
First Mason:
True for you, my dear.
( Whistles "The Girl I Left Behind me." )
BELOW.
First Student:
See the Dutchmen on those settees:
Isn't it like the Rhine?
And the old church-tower up over the trees—
Kellner! Noch ein Stein!
Third Student:
I'd like to work with those masons there
Half way up the sky.
The air is sweet where the pigeons build,
And the world is all in their eye.
Second Student:
But "Love is of the valley:" the Gretchen and the Kellner
Haunt the cheerful levels of the lower story.
Glory in the garret—comfort in the cellar:
I will keep the comfort—you may take the glory.
ABOVE.
First Mason:
Look up at the pointers: they 're drawing close together;
'T is here we get the earliest news of sun, and moon, and weather;
We can hear time's pulse a-ticking, with the whistling weathercock.
Drop your mortar-boards, my lads, it's coming twelve o'clock.
Third Mason:
Oh! it's hungry that I am with working in the wind,
But there's a shawl and bonnet—below there: do you mind?
It's Molly with the dinner-pail: she's coming in the door.
Faith, my belly thinks my throat is cut this half an hour and more.
( The church clock strikes the noon. )