Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/106

"Forbear, my child, this desp'rate woe,
And turn to God and grace;
Well can devotion's heav'nly glow
Convert thy bale to bliss."

"O mother, mother, what is bliss?
O mother, what is bale?
Without my William what were heav'n,
Or with him what were hell?"

Wild she arraigns the eternal doom,
Upbraids each sacred pow'r,
Till spent, she sought her silent room
All in the lonely tower.

She beat her breast, she wrung her hands,
Till sun and day were o'er,
And through the glimm'ring lattice shone
The twinkling of the star.

Then crash! the heavy draw-bridge fell,
That o'er the moat was hung;
And clatter! clatter! on its boards
The hoof of courser rung.

The clank of echoing steel was heard
As off the rider bounded;
And slowly on the winding stair
A heavy footstep sounded.

And hark! and hark! a knock—Tap! tap!
A rustling stifled noise:—
Doorlatch and tinkling staples ring;—
At length a whisp'ring voice.

"Awake, awake, arise my love!
How, Helen, dost thou fare?
Wak'st thou, or sleep'st? laught'st thou, or weep'st?
Hast thought on me, my fair?"

"My love! my love!—so late by night!—
I wak'd, I wept for thee;
Much have I borne since dawn of morn:—
Where, William, could'st thou be?"

"We saddled late—From Hungary
I rode since darkness fell;
And to its bourne we both return
Before the matin bell."