Vain dreams! far other footsteps traced
The forest paths, in secret haste;
Far other sounds were on the night,
Though lost amidst the tempest’s might,
That fill’d the echoing earth and sky
With its own awful harmony.
There stood a lone and ruin’d fane,
Far in the Odenwald’s domain,
Midst wood and rock, a deep recess
Of still and shadowy loneliness.