w the whole world in a frightful
And vacant glass, as dreary as my mind's eye.
O would all flowers might wither! Would my garden
Were poisonous morass, filled to the full
With rotted corpses of these blooming trees,
And my corpse in their midst.

[He is pulling to pieces a blossoming twig,
stops short and drops it.]

Ah, what a fool!
A gray-haired fool, as old as melancholy,
Ridiculous as old! I'll sit me down
And bind up wreaths and weep into the water.

[He walks on a few paces, lifts his hand as
if involuntarily to his heart.]

[Illustration: A BRANDENBURG LAKE]
From the Painting by Walter Leistikow

O how like glass this is, and how the finger
With which fate raps upon it, like to iron!
Years form no rings on men as on the trees,
Nor fashion breast-plates to protect the heart.

[Again he walks a few paces, and so comes
upon the gardener, who takes off his straw
hat; he starts up out of his revery, and
looks inquiringly at the gardener.]

GARDENER.
Thy servant Sheriar, lord; third gardener I.

MERCHANT.
What? Sheriar, Oh yes. And this thy wife?

GARDENER.
Aye, lord.

MERCHANT.
But she is younger far than thou,
And once thou cam'st to me to make complaint
That she and some young lad,--I can't recall ...

GARDENER.
It was the donkey-driver.

MERCHANT.
So I chased
Him from my service, and she ran away.

GARDENER (bowing low).
Thou know'st the sacred courses of the stars,
Yet thou rememberest the worm as well,
That in the dust once crawled beside thy feet.
'Tis so, my lord. But she returned to me,
And lives with me thenceforth.

MERCHANT.
And lives with thee?
The fellow beat her, doubtless! Thou dost not.

[He turns away, his tone becomes bitter.]

Why, let us seat ourselves here in the grass,
And each will tell his story to the other.
He lives with her thenceforth. Why yes, he has her!
Possession is the end of