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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Lorelei

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Lorelei

By Joseph von Eichendorff (1788–1857)

Translation of Charles Harvey Genung

’TIS very late, ’tis growing cold;

Alone thou ridest through the wold?

The way is long, there’s none to see,

Ah, lovely maid, come follow me.

“I know men’s false and guileful art,

And grief long since has rent my heart.

I hear the huntsman’s bugle there:

Oh fly,—thou know’st me not,—beware!”

So richly is the steed arrayed,

So wondrous fair the youthful maid,

I know thee now—too late to fly!

Thou art the witch, the Lorelei.

Thou know’st me well,—my lonely shrine

Still frowns in silence on the Rhine;

’Tis very late, ’tis growing cold,—

Thou com’st no more from out the wold!