Ah! if for Thy sermon on the mount
Another text Thou hadst taken!
Sufficient genius and talent were Thine,
And the pious Thou need’st not have shaken.
Money-changers and bankers Thou drov’st with the scourge
From the temple, in just indignation—
Unhappy Enthusiast! Now on the cross
Thou dost suffer a sad expiation.
CAPUT XIV.
The wind was humid, and barren the land,
The chaise floundered on in the mire,
Yet a singing and ringing were filling my ears:
“O Sun, thou accusing fire!”
The burden is this of the olden song
That my nurse so often was singing—
“O Sun, thou accusing fire!” was then
Like the note of the forest horn ringing.
This song of a murderer tells the tale,
Who lived a life joyous and splendid;
Hung up in the forest at last he was found,
From a grey old willow suspended.
The murderer’s sentence of death was nail’d
On the willow’s stem, written entire;
The Vehm-gericht’s avengers’ work ’twas—
O Sun, thou accusing fire!
The Sun was accuser,—’twas he who condemn’d
The murderer foul, in his ire.
Ottilia had cried, as she gave up the ghost:
“O Sun, thou accusing fire!”
When the song I recall, the remembrance too
Of my dear old nurse never ceases
I see once more her swarthy face,
With all its wrinkles and creases.
In the district of Münster she was born,
And knew, in all their glory,
Many popular songs and wondrous tales,
And many a wild ghost-story.