A noble duke has crossed the mead, And near you checked his steed’s career: Wonder and pity touch his heart; With knowledge high, and manners pure, He rears you,--makes his castle home your own.
How great, how infinite your gain! Of all the land you bloom the loveliest; Yet, ah! the priceless blessing, The bliss of parents’ fondness, You left on strands unknown!”
Undine let fall her lute with a melancholy smile. The eyes of Bertalda’s noble foster-parents were filled with tears.
“Ah yes, it was so--such was the morning on which I found you, poor orphan!” cried the duke, with deep emotion; “the beautiful singer is certainly right: still
‘The priceless blessing, The bliss of parents’ fondness,’
“But we must hear, also, what happened to the poor parents,” said Undine, as she struck the chords, and sung:--
“Through her chambers roams the mother Searching, searching everywhere; Seeks, and knows not what, with yearning, Childless house still finding there.
Childless house!--O sound of anguish! She alone the anguish knows, There by day who led her dear one, There who rocked its night-repose.
Beechen buds again are swelling, Sunshine warms again the shore; Ah, fond mother, cease your searching! Comes the loved and lost no more.
Then when airs of eve are fresh’ning, Home the father wends his way, While with smiles his woe he’s veiling, Gushing tears his heart betray.
Well he knows, within his dwelling, Still as death he’ll find the gloom, Only hear the mother moaning,-- No sweet babe to SMILE him home.”
“O, tell me, in the name of Heaven tell me, Undine, where are my parents?” cried the weeping Bertalda. “You certainly know; you must have discovered them, you wonderful being; for, otherwise you would never have thus torn my heart. Can they be already here? May I believe it possible?” Her eye glanced rapidly over the brilliant company, and rested upon a lady of high rank who was sitting next to her foster-father.
Then, bending her head, Undine beckoned toward the door, while her eyes overflowed with the sweetest emotion. “Where, then, are the poor parents waiting?” she asked; and the old fisherman, hesitating, advanced with his wife from the crowd of spectators. They looked inquiringly, now at Undine, and now at the beautiful lady who was said to be their daughter.