e dark apart.
If my homely lay lack sweetness,
Yet it cheers my anxious heart.

II.

I know not what spell is o'er me,
That I am so sad to day;
An old myth floats before me--
I cannot chase it away.

The cool air darkens, and listen,
How softly flows the Rhine!
The mountain peaks still glisten
Where the evening sunbeams shine.

The fairest maid sits dreaming
In radiant beauty there.
Her gold and her jewels are gleaming.
She combeth her golden hair.

With a golden comb she is combing;
A wondrous song sings she.
The music quaint in the gleaming,
Hath a powerful melody.

It thrills with a passionate yearning
The boatman below in the night.
He heeds not the rocky reef's warning,
He gazes alone on the height.

I think that the waters swallowed
The boat and the boatman anon.
And this, with her singing unhallowed,
The Lorelei hath done.

III.

My heart, my heart is heavy,
Though merrily glows the May.
Out on the ancient bastion,
Under the lindens, I stay.

Below me the calm blue waters
Of the quiet town-moat shine;
A boy in his boat rows past me,
He whistles and drops his line.

And yonder the cheerful colors,
And tiny figures, one sees,
Of people, and villas, and gardens,
And cattle, and meadows, and trees.

Young women are bleaching linen;
They leap in the grass anear.
The mill-wheel rains showers of diamonds,
Its far away buzz I hear.

Above on the gray old tower
Stands the sentry house of the town,
And a scarlet-coated fellow
Goes pacing up and down.

He toys with his shining musket
That gleams in the sunset red,
Presenting and shouldering arms now--
I wish he would shoot me dead.

IV.

In tears through the woods I wander.
The thrush is perched on the bough:
She springs and sings up yonder--
"Oh, why so sad art thou?"

The swallows, thy sisters, are able
My dear, to answer thee.
They built clever nests in the gable,
Where sweetheart's windows be.

V.

The night is wet and stormy,
And void of stars the sky;
'Neath the rustling trees of the forest
I wander silently.

There flickers a lonely candle
In the huntsman's lodge to-night.
It shall not tempt me thither;
It burns with a sullen light.

There sits the blind old granny,
In the leathern arm-chair tall,
Lik