“Know ye the willow-tree Whose gray leaves quiver, Whispering gloomily To yon pale river? Lady, at even-tide Wander not near it, They say its branches hide A sad, lost spirit!
“Once to the willow-tree A maid came fearful, Pale seemed her cheek to be, Her blue eye tearful; Soon as she saw the tree, Her step moved fleeter, No one was there--ah me! No one to meet her!
“Quick beat her heart to hear The far bell's chime Toll from the chapel-tower The trysting time: But the red sun went down In golden flame, And though she looked round, Yet no one came!
“Presently came the night, Sadly to greet her,-- Moon in her silver light, Stars in their glitter. Then sank the moon away Under the billow, Still wept the maid alone-- There by the willow!
“Through the long darkness, By the stream rolling, Hour after hour went on Tolling and tolling. Long was the darkness, Lonely and stilly; Shrill came the night-wind, Piercing and chilly.
“Shrill blew the morning breeze, Biting and cold, Bleak peers the gray dawn Over the wold. Bleak over moor and stream Looks the grey dawn, Gray, with dishevelled hair, Still stands the willow there--
“Domine, Domine! Sing we a litany,-- Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and weary; Domine, Domine! Sing we a litany, Wail we and weep we a wild Miserere!”
One of the chief beauties of this ballad (for the translation of which I received some well-merited compliments) is the delicate way in which the suicide of the poor young woman under the willow-tree is hinted at; for that she threw herself into the water and became one among the lilies of the stream, is as clear as a pikestaff. Her suicide is committed some time in the darkness, when the slow hours move on tolling and tolling, and is hinted at darkly as befits the time and the deed.
But that unromantic brute, Van Cutsem, the Dutch Charge-d'Affaires, sent to the Kartoffelnkranz of the week after a conclusion of the ballad, which shows what a poor creature he must be. His pretext for writing it was, he said, because he could not bear such melancholy endings to poems and young women, and therefore he submitted the following lines:--
“Long by the willow-trees Vainly they sought her, Wild rang the mother's screams O'er the gray water: 'Where is my lovely one? Where is my daughter?