And when I came to the Drehbahn Street,
I saw in the moonbeams glancing
The noble form of a woman fair,
With stately grace advancing.
Her face was perfectly healthy and round,
Her cheek like a damask rose was,
Like a turquoise her eye, like a cherry her mouth,
While somewhat reddish her nose was.
Her head was cover’d with a cap
Of snowy stiff linen, not ragged,
But folded like a mural crown,
With turrets and battlements jagged.
She wore as her dress a tunic white
Which down to her calves descended;
And O what calves! The pedestals they
Of two Doric columns splendid.
A very worldly naïveté
Could be read in her every feature,
But her superhuman hinder parts
Betray’d a superior creature.
She now approach’d me, and straightway said:
“To the Elbe here’s a welcome hearty!
“E’en after an absence of thirteen years,
“I see that thou’rt still the same party!
“Perchance thou seekest the souls so fair
“Who so often used to meet thee,
“And all night long in this beautiful place
“With their reveries loved to greet thee.
“By that hundred-headed hydra, Life,
“That monster fierce, they were swallow’d;
“Thou’lt find those olden times no more,
“Nor those friends once lovingly follow’d.
“No longer thou’lt find those beauteous flowers,
“Which enchanted thy youthful bosom;
“’Twas here they bloom’d,—they’re wither’d now,
“And the tempest has scatter’d each blossom.
“Yes, wither’d, and stripp’d, and trampled down
“By destiny’s footsteps appalling—
“My friend, this is ever the fate upon earth
“Of all that is sweet and enthralling!”—