Since writing these stanzas, I have met with two old Scotch ballads which have some resemblance with "The Water King"; one is called "May Colvin," and relates the story of a king's daughter who was beguiled from her father's house by a false Sir John; the other, intitled "Clerk Colvil," treats of a young man who fell into the snares of a false mermaid; the latter, indeed, bears a still stranger resemblance to the Danish tradition of "The Erl-King's Daughter." The fragment of "The Water King" may be found in "Herder's Volkslieder."
Many inquiries have been made respecting the elementary monarchs mentioned a few pages back; I must inform my readers that all I know respecting the Water King (called in the German translation "Der Wasser-Mann") and the Erl-King (called in German Erlkönig) is gathered from the foregoing ballad and two others which I shall here insert. With respect to the Fire King and the Cloud King, they are entirely of my own creation; but if my readers choose to ascribe their birth to the "Comte de Gabalis," they are very welcome.
Weekly Mag., III-92, Aug. 18, 1798, Phila.
[J. G. Herder, Der Wassermann in the Fourth Book (Nordische Lieder) of Stimmen der Völker in Liedern. Trans. from the German.
M. G. Lewis, The Monk and Tales of Wonder. Cf. note to The Erl-King in Weekly Mag., III-93, Aug. 18, 1798.]
WERTER'S FAREWELL TO CHARLOTTE.
"Sunt lacrimae rerum; et mentem mortalia tangunt."
Virg. Ae. I-466.
The conflict's o'er—ah! lovely maid, adieu!
Before these sad, these parting lines, you view;
Before the fields with early dawn shall bloom,
Your Werter rests beneath the silent tomb:
No more to view the beauties of the day,
No more to listen to thy heavenly lay,
To sit, in transport, and to hear thee talk,
Or with thee wander, in an ev'ning walk,
Along the margin of the winding flood,
Thro' the green fields, or in the shady wood.
O! Charlotte! when you see the floods arise,
And wintry storms descending from the skies,
The wat'ry gloom that fills the plain below,
And all around one dreary waste of snow;
Will you not then, a sigh in sorrow heave,
For the lost pleasures of a summer's eve,
Recall the time when you so oft have seen
Thy hapless lover on the verdant green,
Or thro' the vale approaching from the grove,
To view thy charms and pine in hopeless love,
Gaze on thy angel form, for without she,
The world appear'd a boundless blank to me.
As when to seamen, from the midnight skies
The moon's bright beams in brilliant glory rise,
To guide them wand'ring thro' the wat'ry plain,
Or land them on their native shores again;
Thus, Charlotte, I no other joy could see,
Than pass the vacant day, and gaze on thee,
Live in thy joys, or in thy sorrows die,
"And drink delicious poison from thine eye,"
As the lost insect round the taper flies,
And courts the fatal flame by which it dies.
But, Charlotte, now those fleeting joys are fled,
And Werter sinks among the silent dead
From the bright hopes of life forever gone,
His mem'ry lost, and e'en his name unknown,
The time shall come, when in the vacant mind,
The fondest friend no trace of me shall find;
When e'en my kindred my sad fate shall hear,
And view my mould'ring grave without a tear,
Think on the light impressions of the mind,
Which flee as midnight dreams, and leave no trace behind.
This eve I wander'd thro' each beauteous scene,
Each fertile valley, and each level green,
Pensive and sad I view'd the foaming flood;
And the wild winds disturb the silent wood.
Beheld the sun's great orb, in glory bright,
Descend behind the western surge in night;
While on the hill to see its beams, I stood,
And view'd it sinking in the briny flood,
I felt my heart with double sorrows prest,
And life's last hope desert my throbbing breast;
The world's vast scene forever clos'd from sight,
And all involv'd in one eternal night.
Ah! shall I ne'er again thy image know,
In these sad realms of misery and woe,
Or is there yet a place in heaven design'd,
For hapless mortals by th' eternal mind,
Some winding valley, or some shady grove,
Some blissful mansions in the realms above,
Where Charlotte's shade and mine may one day meet,
Our suff'rings ended and our bliss complete,
In the bright regions of eternal light,
Where all is perfect joy and pure delight.
When in the summer's eve you chance to stray
Thro' the low vale, or on the broad highway,
Or in the churchyard, thro' the shady trees,
You hear the whistling of the midnight breeze,
Wave high the grass, in solitary gloom,
Around the heap that shews thy lover's tomb—
Ah, then will you not one sad thought bestow,
On him who could no greater blessing know
Than pass the hour with fleeting joys with thee,
Gaze on thy charms and watch thy wand'ring eye,
Observe the beauteous image of thy mind,
Disclose a soul for heaven alone design'd,
Or view thy distant form amidst the trees,
And thy white tresses floating in the breeze;
Or see thy fingers strike, with tender lays,
Such notes as bards in heaven alone can raise;
Such notes as Orpheus' self might lean to hear,
And force from Pluto's soul the melting tear.
Yes, Charlotte's self, my sad remains shall see,
And Charlotte's tender heart will heave a sigh for me.
Dessert to the True American, I-No. 20, Nov. 24, 1798, [Phila.].
The following burlesque on the style, in which most of the German romantic ballads are written, is replete with wit and humour; and we trust will prove amusing even to the greatest admirers of that style of writing. It is only necessary to premise that Lord Hoppergallop has left his servant maid at his country mansion, where she has fallen with the gardener.