Ere it the sullen world can fly.
The body melteth in its weeping,
Its bitter sighs the bosom burn;
The world a grave becometh, keeping
The heart, like ashes in an urn.
In deep thought a pilgrim was walking along a narrow foot-path which ran up the mountain side. Noon had passed. A strong wind whistled through the blue air. Its dull and ever-changing sounds lost themselves as they came. Had it perhaps flown through the regions of childhood, or through other whispering lands? They were voices whose echo sounded in his heart; yet the pilgrim did not appear to recognise them. He had now reached the mountain where he hoped to find a limit to his journey. Hoped? No longer did he cherish hope. Terrible anxiety, the sterile coldness of indifferent despair, urged him to seek the wild horrors of the mountains; the most toilsome path soothed the tumult of his soul. He was weary and silent. He noticed not the gradual accumulation of nature around him, as he sat upon a stone and cast his eye backward. It seemed as if he were or had been dreaming. A splendor whose limit he could not define opened before him. His cheeks were soon wet with tears, as his feelings suddenly broke loose; he would have wept himself away in the distance, that no trace of his existence might remain. Amid his deep-drawn sighs he seemed to recover; the soft, serene air penetrated him. The world was again present to his senses, and thoughts of other times began to speak to him consolation.
In the distance lay Augsburg with its towers; far on the horizon glimmered the mirror of the fearful, mysterious stream. The mighty forest bowed with grave sympathy towards the wanderer; the notched mountain rested meaningly upon the plain, and both seemed to say, "Hasten on, O stream, thou dost not escape us. I will follow thee with winged ships. I will break thee, restrain thee, and swallow thee up in my bosom! O pilgrim, confide in us! Even he is our enemy whom we ourselves begat; let him make haste with his booty, he escapes us not."
The poor pilgrim thought of olden times and their unspeakable delights; but how heavily did those dear recollections pass through his mind. The broad hat concealed a youthful face; it was pale as a night-flower. The balmy sap of youthful life had changed to tears, his swelling breath to deep sighs; an ashy paleness had usurped all color.
On one side upon the declivity of the hill, he thought he saw a monk kneeling under an old oak tree. "Might not that possibly be the old chaplain?" he conjectured, without much surprise at the idea. The monk appeared larger and more unshapely the nearer he approached. He now discovered his mistake. It was an isolated rock, over which a tree was bending. With silent emotion he clasped the stone in his arms, and with loud sobbing pressed it to his breast. "O that yet your speech was preserved, and that the Holy Mother would give me some token! Am I then entirely miserable and abandoned? Dwells there then in this desert no holy one who would lend me his prayer? Dear father, at this time pray thou for me!"
As he so thought to himself, the tree began to wave; the rock emitted a hollow sounds and as from a great depth beneath the earth, clear, sweet voices were heard singing:--