Do not the sun and moon with grace
Their forms in ocean lave?
Shines not with twofold charms their face,
When rising from the wave?
The deep, deep heavens, then lure thee not,--
The moist yet radiant blue,--
Not thine own form,--to tempt thy lot
'Midst this eternal dew?"

The waters rush'd, the waters rose,
Wetting his naked feet;
As if his true love's words were those,
His heart with longing beat.
She sang to him, to him spake she,
His doom was fix'd, I ween;
Half drew she him, and half sank he,
And ne'er again was seen.

[Illustration: THE FISHERMAN AND THE MERMAID Georg Papperitz]


THE WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONG[12] (1780)

[Written at night on the Kickelhahn, a hill in the forest of Ilmenau,
on the walls of a little hermitage where Goethe composed the last act
of his _Iphigenie_.]

Hush'd on the hill
Is the breeze;