Hill and castle fair are glancing
O’er the clear and glassy Rhine,
And my bark is gaily dancing
In the sunlight all-divine.
On the golden waters, breaking
Sportively, my calm eyes rest;
Gently are the feelings waking
That I nourish’d in my breast.
With a fond and kindly greeting,
Lure me those deep waters bright,
Yet I know their smoothness cheating
Hides beneath it death and night.
Joy above, below destruction,—
Thou’rt my loved one’s image, stream
Blissful is her smile’s seduction,
Kind and gentle can she seem.
8.
First methought in my affliction,
I can never stand the blow.—
Yet I did—strange contradiction!
How I did, ne’er seek to know.
9.
With rose and cypress and tinsel gay,
I fain would adorn in a charming way
This book, as though a coffin it were,
And in it my olden songs inter.
O, could I but bury love also there!
On love’s grave grows rest’s floweret fair;
’Tis there ’tis pluck’d in its sweetest bloom,—
For me ’twill not blossom till in my tomb.
Here now are the songs that formerly rose,
As wild as the lava from Etna that flows,
From out the depths of my feelings true,
And glittering sparks around them threw!