My olden love also draws nigh me,
From the realms of the dead she appears;
She, weeping, sits gently close by me,
And softens my bosom to tears.
42.
Many visions of times long vanish’d
Arise from out of their tomb,
And show me how once in thy presence
I lived in my life’s young bloom.
All day I mournfully totter’d
Through the streets, as though in a dream
The people gazed on me with wonder,
So silent and sad did I seem.
The night-time suited me better,
Deserted the streets were then,
And I and my shadow together
We wandered in silence again.
With footsteps echoing loudly
I wander’d over the bridge;
The moon with solemn look hail’d me
As she burst through the cloudy ridge.
I stood in front of thy dwelling,
And fondly gazed up on high;
I gazed up towards thy window,
My heart breathed many a sigh.
Well know I that thou from the window
Full often hast gazed below,
And in the moonlight hast seen me
Stand fix’d, the image of woe.
43.
A youth once loved a maiden,
Who loved another instead;
The other himself loved another,
And with the latter did wed.
The maiden, in scornful anger,
Straight married the first of the men
Who happened to come across her,—
The youth was heart-broken then.
’Tis only an old, old story,
And yet it ever seems new;
The heart of him whom it pictures
Will soon be broken in two.