"Weep, poor heart, and yet again
Breathe those gentle songs of sadness,
Not for thee are notes of gladness,
Softly fall thy tears like rain.
Look to heaven when woes thus move thee,
From the eternal stars above thee
Comfort seek in earthly pain.
"Weep, poor heart, when all in vain
Thou hast hoped for rest from sadness,
When the stars rain down no gladness.
Yet despair not! once again
Lift thine eyes when sorrow moves thee,
In the eyes of one who loves thee,
Comfort seek in earthly pain."
Gretchen sat with hands folded, looking at these words, that arched a new heaven above her and revealed a new earth around her. Large as her young heart was, it seemed all too narrow for the flood of tenderness that filled it now. She arose once more, and glided from the room. To Johannes, who gazed after her absently, it seemed as if her airy figure actually diffused a light around it.
In the next room she approached Hilsborn, silently, her eyes suffused with tears, and held out her hand. He looked up at her with imploring entreaty, saw how she was agitated, and that her heart was beating almost to suffocation. He gently drew her nearer and nearer to him, until, like ripened wheat awaiting the reaper's scythe, she sank into his arms, and burst into tears. But her tears were like the glittering drops that the breeze shakes from the trees after a summer rain.
"In the eyes of one who loves thee,
Comfort seek in earthly pain,"
echoed in the hearts of the lovers.
Then Ernestine's voice came ringing through the open door. "What is the end? Eternal night, eternal silence, and eternal solitude!"
"Oh, not eternal bliss!" Gretchen breathed softly to herself.