Despair broods o'er the forest pines--death's cry, or terrors of the
tomb--it pierces through the wall of trees, and all about is grief and
gloom. Stretched on the ground at the forest's edge--a mossy, soft
death-bed--behold the oldest of the trees, a giant fallen, dead. O see!
the slayer madly flees o'er the heath, in wild despair; pursued by the
avenging horde, he raves, with flying hair. Poor murderer! Ah! let him
go--destruction he must spread--but new and brightest life shall spring
from ashes of the dead.
It is not old Ruepel who infects me, causing me, even in the early
morning, to write such lines as these, but rather an inward emotion,
which fills me on hearing of the storm, and which finds its escape in
words.
A storm has been raging during the night. We have not noticed it in
Winkelsteg; we have heard only a loud crashing in the north. Within the
graveyard not a twig has been injured.