Her presence, her sweet presence like a song.
And when she left, it was as when one hath
Beheld a moonlit Undine, ere the mind
Adjusts one thought, cleave thro' the glassy Rhine
A glittering beauty wet, and gone again
A flash--the soul drifts wondering on in dreams.
Some thirty years agone is that; and I,
Commissioner of the Duke--no sinecure
I can assure you--had scarce reached the age
Of thirty (then some three years of that House).
Thro' me the bold Franconian, whom at first,
By bitter principles and scorn of state--
Developed into argument thro' wine--
The foresthood like was to be denied,
Was then enfellowed. "Yes," I said, "he's young;
True, rashly young! yet, see: a wiry frame,
A chamois' footing, and a face for right;
An eye which likes me not, but quick with pride,
And aimed at thought, a butt it may not miss:
A soul with virgin virtues which crude flesh
Makes seem but vices, these but God may see--
Develop these. But, if there's aught of worth,
Body or mind, in him, Kurt, thou wilt know,
And to the surface wear, as divers win
From hideous ooze and life rich jewels lost
Of polished pureness, worthless left to night,
Thou or thy daughter, and inspire for good."

A year thereafter was it that I heard
Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe,
Then their betrothal. And it was from this,--
For, ah, that Ilsabe! that Ilsabe!--
Good Mary Mother! how she haunts me yet!
She, that true touchstone which philosophers feign
Contacts and golds all base; a woman who
Could touch all evil into good in man.--
Surmised I of the excellency which
Refinement of her gentle company,
Warm presence of chaste beauty, had resolved
His fiery nature to, conditioning slave.
And so I came from Brunswick--as you know--
Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal
Commissioned proxy, his commissioner,--
To test the marksmanship of Rudolf who
Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child,
An heir of Kuno.--He?--Great grandfather
Of Kurt, and one this forestkeepership
Was first possesor of; established thus--
Or such the tale they told me 'round the hearths.
Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train,
Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came
With vast magnificence of knights and hounds,
And satin-tuniced nobles curled and plumed
To hunt Thuringian deer. Then Morn too slow
On her blithe feet was; quick with laughing eyes
To