Half with your caustic keenness you alarmed me,

Half with your radiant eloquence you charmed me,

As sea-girt forests summon with their spell

The sea their flinty beaches still repel.

Now I have read the bottom of your soul,

Now you have won me, undivided, whole;

Dear forest, where my tossing billows beat,

My tide’s at flood and never will retreat!

Falk.

And I thank God that in the bath of Pain