Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79. | | | | Rhine, the River | | The Lorelei | | Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) |
| | A Rhine Legend
YONDER we see it from the steamer’s deck, | |
| The haunted Mountain of the Lorelei,— | |
| The o’erhanging crags sharp-cut against a sky | |
| Clear as a sapphire without flaw or fleck. | |
| ’T was here the Siren lay in wait to wreck | 5 |
| The fisher-lad. At dusk, as he passed by, | |
| Perchance he ’d hear her tender amorous sigh, | |
| And, seeing the wondrous whiteness of her neck, | |
| Perchance would halt, and lean towards the shore; | |
| Then she by that soft magic which she had | 10 |
| Would lure him, and in gossamers of her hair, | |
| Gold upon gold, would wrap him o’er and o’er, | |
| Wrap him, and sing to him, and set him mad, | |
| Then drag him down to no man knoweth where. | | | | |
|
|
