The pictures which follow of Gottlieb, his wife Ursula, and Elsie, his daughter, the heroine of the poem, are beautiful and touching representations of the sturdy honesty and sublime simplicity of faith, which distinguished the religious German peasant-family of the old time. A legend of the Monk Felix, which Prince Henry reads, while Elsie is gathering flowers for him and for St. Cecelia, is truly “golden.” We cannot resist the temptation to quote a portion of it.
One morning, all alone,
Out of his convent of gray stone,
Into the forest older, darker, grayer,
His lips moving as if in prayer,
His head sunken upon his breast
As in a dream of rest,
Walked the Monk Felix. All about
The brood, sweet sunshine lay without,
Filling the summer air;