Des Abends ros'ger Glanz erbleicht, das Land
Wird dunkel, dunkel wird's am Waldesrand;
In mir auch nachtel's, einsam ist die Hand:
Ich bin allein.
Ein Vogel hier und dort dem Weibchen singt,
Das nestlos nähe lauscht, wie's zu ihm klingt;
Zu meinem Ohr kein Ruf der Liebe dringt:
Ich bin allein.
Die Blätter lispeln, sie umkost die Luft
Mit sanftem Spiel, einathmend ihren Duft;
Wer flüstert Balsam mir in's Herz hinein?
Ich bin allein.
Ein fernes Horn ertönt mit sanftem Schall,
Der Berg antwörtet ihm im Wiederhall;
Auf meinen Laut erwacht kein Herz im All:
Ich bin allein.
Es stürzt die Ilse sich vom Felsbett her
In hast'gem Liebeslauf hinab zum Meer;
Doch ich? wohin? die Welt ist liebeleer:
Ich bin allein.
Noch träum' ich Träume, doch sie theilt kein Herzr
Allein mit der Natur und meinem Schmerz,
--Kommt Freude mir, bricht Leid herein:
Ich trag's allein.
The Flower of the Lauenburg.
Broken walls of the grey, long-past centuries, on the wooded
mountains, a dilapidated tower, moats overgrown with wild thorns, a
few dark and gloomy vaults, and half-fallen windows and arches--those
are the small remains of the most magnificent of the former castles
of the Harz mountains, the ruins of the ancient seat of the
Counts-palatine, the Lauenburg.
In former days the spot lay much more desolate than now; the old ways
and the delicious wood-paths had not been opened up.
Heaps of rubbish and shapeless ruins lay scattered everywhere;
scarcely could the wanderer break his way through the creepers of the
common virgin's bower, and the prickles of the buckthorn over the
moss-grown walls, to the broken tower.
But the young people of Dorf Steckelnberg, at the foot of the lower
adjacent mountain, on which lie the ruins of Schloss Steckelnburg,
found their way easier; it was just the wild and savage character of
the place that attracted them, and it was very seldom that a troop of
merry boys did not choose the lonely ruins as the scene of their
games, and even timorous maidens ventured to approach the haunted
walls in their search after berries and wild-flowers.
Once, more than a hundred years ago, on St. John's Day, a number of
children from Steckelnberg were scattered in the thickets around the
ruins gathering flowers and making wreaths and garlands, when
suddenly one of the boys uttered a cry of astonishment.
The others ran to him, and lo! there stood on the edge of the tower
walls, then rising only the height of a man from the _débris_, a
wonderful flower, the like of which the children had never seen
before.
It looked so strange, and still seemed to gaze so mildly and
confidentially in the eyes of the children, that they all at once
fancied something supernatural in the flower.
They had often heard their parents and grandparents relate how once,
in the greyest times, a maiden had been carried off by the Ritter of
the Lauenburg, and in the hour of her greatest danger had been
rescued from his power by transformation into a flower, which bloomed
every year a single day, and the maiden came and wandered a single
night through the ruins.
"Might this be the flower?" they asked.
At last one of the boys began climbing up the tower walls to pluck
it, when he heard a soft voice murmur so clearly that all heard it,
"Do not pluck me."
The boy started back in affright; but, vexed at his fear, feeling
sure a flower could not speak, he began again to mount the tower; but
the same voice came from the flower, "Do not pluck me," and the
children cried, "Give it up and come down!"
This excited him still more, and stretching out his hand to pick the
flower, a hideous serpent raised its head hissing from under the
leaves, when the boy fell back in deadly terror among thorns and
fallen stones; and was carried home with broken limbs.
Again, on a St. John's Day, the children of Steckelnberg played among
the ruins of the Lauenburg, when they saw again the wonderful flower,
and heard the same soft voice, "Do not pluck me." In affright they
fled down the mountain.
But a quiet little girl had remained behind, for it seemed to her the
flower did not say, "Do not pluck me," but, "Pluck me." Hence she
stood thoughtfully gazing in the flower's clear eye, when again she
heard in soft tones, "Pluck me! pluck me!"
The maiden came nearer, the flower's glance grew more loving, but
under her leaves she saw the serpent-head, which rose hissing and
coiling.
Then she drew back her hand, and dared not touch the flower, and as
she fled she heard still the voice, "Only pluck me!"
The next day she went back, determined to obey the voice, and pick
the flower, but it and the serpent had vanished.
Years fled. The little girl had grown to womanhood and become the
Braut of an honest but poor youth.
Then she recalled the wonder-flower and entreating voice, and thought
to herself she had missed her good fortune through her disobedience.
This she related to her lover one day as they wandered through the
wood around the ruins.
And he strove to comfort her, and thought they were enough in each
other, and would be able to support themselves without aid from the
world of enchantment; but in his mind he thought she might have
gathered the flower, for tales were still told of great treasures
guarded by the maiden of the Lauenburg, and he had himself already
seen much of the wonder-world, and the influence of higher powers
over human destiny.