This is to them the highest joy,
The fond delight they love to cherish;
Themselves in death to glorify,
Beneath their lover's glance to perish.
Then all around their perfum'd treasure
They profluent pour in raptur'd calm;
Until the air grows drunk with pleasure,
Enliven'd with the odorous balm.
Love comes all human hearts approving,
Responsive touching every chord;
Well may the conscious soul record,
'Now I know the due reward,
The gladness, sadness, pain of loving.'"
"Wonderful incalculable treasures," answered the son, "must there still be in the depths of the earth! Could some one but explore them, raise them up, and snatch them to himself! Could he but so press to his bosom the earth as a beloved bride, that in anguish and love she would willingly grant to him what she had most precious! The Woodwoman has called me; I go to seek her. Close by is an old ruined shaft, which centuries ago some miner has dug open; perhaps there I shall find her."
He hastened forward. In vain the old man strove to detain him; he soon vanished from his sight. Some hours afterwards, the father, with much exertion, arrived at the old shaft: he saw footsteps impressed on the sand at the entrance; and returned in tears, convinced that his son had, in his madness, gone in, and been drowned in the depths of the old collected waters.
From that time he was always melancholy and in tears. The whole village mourned for the young farmer. Elizabeth was inconsolable; the children lamented aloud. Half a year after the old father died; Elizabeth's parents soon followed him, and she was obliged to take the sole management of the large estate. Her many avocations removed her somewhat from her sorrow; the education of her children, the superintendence of her property, left her no time for care and grief. So after two years she resolved on a new marriage, and gave her hand to a young sprightly man, who had loved her from his youth. But soon all things in the house assumed another form. The cattle died; men and maid-servants were unfaithful; the barns filled with grain were consumed by fire; people in the town who owed them various sums fled away with the money. The landlord soon found himself compelled to sell some fields and meadows; but a failure in the crops, and a year of scarcity, only brought him into new embarrassments. It seemed nought else than as if the gold, so wondrously obtained, were in all ways seeking a speedy flight.
Meanwhile the family increased; and Elizabeth, as well as her husband, became careless and dilatory from despair. He endeavoured to drown his cares by drinking much of intoxicating wine, which made him irritable and passionate, so that Elizabeth often bewailed her misery with bitter tears.
As soon as their fortune declined, their friends in the village kept aloof; so that in a few years, they found themselves quite forsaken, and with the greatest difficulty could struggle on from week to week.
They had only a few sheep and one cow remaining; which Elizabeth herself often tended with her children. She was once sitting thus with her work on the grass, Leonora by her side, and a child at her breast, when they saw from the distance a strange form coming towards them. It was a man in a coat all in tatters, barefoot, his countenance sunburnt to a dark-brown, and still more disfigured by a long rough beard; he wore no covering on his head, but had a garland of green leaves twisted through his hair, which made his wild appearance still more strange and incomprehensible. On his back he carried in a fast-bound sack a heavy burden; in walking he supported himself on a young fir-tree.
When he came nearer, he set down his load, and heavily fetched his breath. He wished the lady good-day; she was terrified at his presence, the child clung closely to her mother. When he had rested a while, he said: "I have just come from a very fatiguing journey among the roughest mountains upon earth; but have, at last, succeeded in bringing with me the most precious treasures which imagination can conceive or heart can wish. Look here and wonder!" Hereupon he opened his sack, and emptied it; it was full of pebbles, mixed with large pieces of flint and other stones. "It is only," he continued, "that these jewels are not yet ground and polished, that they fail to take the eye. The outward fire, with its brightness, is yet too deeply buried in their inmost heart; but one has only to strike it out, and make them feel that no dissimulation will any more serve them, then you will see of what spirit they are the offspring." With these words, he took one of the hard stones and struck it vehemently against another, so that red sparks sprang forth between them, "Did you see the glance?" he cried. "Thus are they all fire and light; they illuminate the darkness with their laughter, but as yet they do it not willingly." So saying, he again packed all up carefully in his sack, which he tied fast together. "I know thee very well," he then said sadly; "thou art Elizabeth." She started with terror.