They all stretched themselves on the hill-side, whence they could look far into the distant and lovely prospect beyond; and Eckart would then strive to subdue the regrets he felt for his own children, though they would appear as if passing over the mountain before him, while in the distance he thought he heard the faint echo of delicious music gradually growing louder.
Hark! comes it not like dreams
Before the morning beams?
From some far greenwood bowers,
Such as the night-bird pours,
So sweet, and such its dying fall?—
Those tones the magic song recall;
And Eckart sees each princely cheek
Flushed with the joys its victims seek;
Wild wishes seized each youthful breast
For some far unknown bourne of rest.
"Away to the mountains!" they cried; "the deep woods
Where the trees, winds, and waters make music for gods:
Sweet, strange, secret voices are singing there now,
And invite us to seek their blest Eden below."
In strange attire then came in view
The unblest sorcerer, and anew
Inspired the maddening youths, till bright
And brighter shone the sunny light.
Trees, streams, and flowers danced in the rays;
Through earth, air, heavens, were heard the lays;
The grass, fields, forests, trembling join'd
That magic tumult wild and blind.
Swift as a shadow fade the ties
That bind the soul to earth, and rise
Soft longings for unearthly scenes;
And strange confusion intervenes
Between the seen and unseen world,
Till reason from her seat is hurl'd,
And madly bursts the soul away
To mingle in the infernal fray.
The trusty Eckart felt it,
But wist not of the cause;
His heart the music melted,
He wondered what it was.
The world seems new and fairer,
All blooming like the rose;
Can Eckart be a sharer
In raptures such as those?
"Ha! are those tones restoring
My wife and noble sons?—
All that I was deploring—
My lost beloved ones?"
Yet soon his sense collected,
Brought doubts within his breast:
These magic arts detected,
A horror him possessed.
His children fade in air—
Mocks of infernal might;
His young friends vanished were—
He could not check their flight.