Then stood musing by the stone-wall
Gazing at the rapid river.
"Yes, I see, your waves preserve still
Their old course and disposition,
Ever toward the ocean rushing,
As my heart for my love striveth.
Who now from the goal is farthest,
Clear green river, thou or I?"
All this train of thought was broken
By the stork from the old tower,
Who, full of a father's pride, had
Taken his young brood to ramble
On the Rhine-shore for the first time.
'Twas amusing to young Werner
How just then the old stork gravely,
On the sand with stealthy cunning,
Closely a poor eel was watching,
Who of various worms was making
There a comfortable meal.
He, however, who was wielding
O'er the little worms the strand-law,
Soon himself will serve as breakfast.
For the greater eats the lesser,
And the greatest eats the great ones.
In this simple manner nature
Solves the knotty social question.
No more did his smoothness help him,
No more his sleek body's wriggling,
No more his spasmodic beating
With his tail so strong and supple.
Tightly held in the indented
Beak of the determined parent,
He was given to the hopeful
Stork-brood, now to be divided;
And they held with noisy clatter
Solemnly their morning-feast.
Nearer to observe this, Werner
Had descended to the Rhine-bank,
And he seemed in no great hurry
To commence his composition.
There he sat himself down gently
On the insect-covered moss-bank.
Shaded by a silvery willow,
And it gave him much amusement
Thus to be a silent witness
Of this banquet of the storks.

Pleasures, yet, of all descriptions
Are but fleeting on our planet.
Even to the most contented
Doth it happen that fate often
Like a meteor bursts upon them.
Only a short time had Werner
Viewed this scene when he was startled
By the tones of his own trumpet,
Which like keen-edged Pandour daggers
Deep into his soul were cutting.

"'Tis the gardener's saucy youngster
Who my trumpet thus is blowing,"
Said young Werner, in his anger
Starting from his seat so quickly
That the storks thereby much frightened,
Fluttering upward sought the tower;
An