The air is cool, and it darkleth,
And calmly flows the Rhine;
The peak of the mountain sparkleth,
While evening’s sun doth shine.
Yon sits a wondrous maiden
On high, a maiden fair;
With bright golden jewels all-laden,
She combs her golden hair.
She combs it with comb all-golden,
And sings the while a song;
How strange is that melody olden,
As loudly it echoes along!
It fills with wild terror the sailor
At sea in his tiny skiff;
He looks but on high, and grows paler,
Nor sees the rock-girded cliff.
The waves will the bark and its master
At length swallow up, then methought
’Tis Lore-ley who this disaster
With her false singing hath wrought.
3.
My heart, my heart is mournful,
Yet May is gleaming like gold;
I stand, ’gainst the linden reclining,
High over the bastion old.
Beneath, the moat’s blue water
Flows peacefully along;
A boy his bark is steering,
And fishes, and pipes his song.
Beyond, in pleasing confusion,
In distant and chequer’d array,
Are men, and villas, and gardens,
And cattle, woods, meadows so gay.
The maidens are bleaching the linen,
And spring on the grass, like deer
The mill-wheel’s powd’ring diamonds,
Its distant murmur I hear.