Accursèd tassel! of all my repose
It robb’d me all the night through;
It hung over head, like Damocles’ sword,
And threaten’d to pierce me right through!
A serpent’s head it often appear’d,
And I heard its hissing mysterious:
“In the fortress thou art, and canst not escape”—
A position especially serious!
“O would that I were”—I thought with a sigh,—
“Of my peaceable home a sharer,
“With my own dear wife in Paris once more,
“In the Faubourg-Poissonière!”
I felt that a Something oftentimes
Was over my forehead stealing,
Just like a Censor’s chilly hand,
And all my thoughts congealing.
Gendarmes, in the dresses of corpses conceal’d,
In white and ghostly confusion
Surrounded my bed, while a rattling of chains
I heard, to swell the illusion.
Alas! the spectres carried me off,
And at length with amazement I found me
Beside a precipitous wall of rocks,
And there they firmly had bound me.
Detestable tassel, so dirty and foul!
Again it appear’d before me,
But now in the shape of a vulture with claws
And black wings hovering o’er me.
And now like the well-known eagle it seem’d
And grasp’d me, and breathing prevented;
It ate the liver out of my breast,
While sadly I groan’d and lamented.
Long time I lamented, when crow’d the cock,
And the feverish vision faded;
Perspiring in bed at Minden I lay,
To a tassel the bird was degraded.
I travell’d with post-horses on,
And free breath presently drew I
On the domain of Bückeburg,
As by my feelings knew I.