For the Table Book.
THE ANGLER.
From the German of Goethe.
Das Wasser rauscht’, das Wasser schwoll, &c.
There was a gentle angler who was angling in the sea,
With heart as cool as only heart untaught of love can be;
When suddenly the water rush’d, and swell’d, and up there sprung
A humid maid of beauty’s mould—and thus to him she sung:
“Why dost thou strive so artfully to lure my brood away,
And leave them then to die beneath the sun’s all-scorching ray?
Couldst thou but tell how happy are the fish that swim below,
Thou wouldst with me, and taste of joy which earth can never know.
“Do not Sol and Diana both more lovely far appear
When they have dipp’d in Ocean’s wave their golden, silvery hair?
And is there no attraction in this heaven-expanse of blue,
Nor in thine image mirror’d in this everlasting dew?”
The water rush’d, the water swell’d, and touch’d his naked feet,
And fancy whisper’d to his heart it was a love-pledge sweet;
She sung another siren lay more ’witching than before,
Half pull’d—half plunging—down he sunk, and ne’er was heard of more.
R. W. D.