Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
The Grave at Badenweiler
By AnonymousW
If in the longed-for land beyond the sea?
To storied marbles, or to ruins gray,
Whose fame, since childhood, has been haunting me?
Nay, to a mound that waiteth for a stone
Would I be guided, there to weep alone
Over the relic that a spirit flown
Hath left at Badenweiler.
But were I near my offering he should wear:
I ’d drop him flowers until the odor-drift
Should seem to melt through earth and reach him there.
Though faint the strongest comfort I could get,
Would that these yearning eyes his grave had met;
’T would be my emerald, in sorrow set,
That grave at Badenweiler.
To-day, still heart, how sadly do I keep!
Thy life from mine so sorely do I miss,
Into thy rest sometimes I long to creep.
O, make me sure as though thy lips had told
That we draw closer for death’s bitter cold,—
That it hath drawn us nearer than of old,
That grave at Badenweiler.