Better his lot whose axe is swung In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls And sings the songs that Luther sung, Than his, who, old and cold and vain, At Weimar sat, a demigod, And bowed with Jove's imperial nod His votaries in and out again! Ply, Vanity, thy wingèd feet!

WEIMAR (24), capital of the grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, in a valley on the left bank of the Ilm, 13 m. E. of Erfurt, and famous as for many years the residence of the great Goethe and the illustrious literary circle of which he was the centre, an association which constitutes the chief interest of the place.