In the Saddle: A Collection of Poems on Horseback-Riding. Various

      Gallant, graceful, gentle, tall,

      Fairest, noblest, best of all,

      Was Walter of the Vogelweid;

      And, whatsoever may betide,

      Still I think of him with pride!

      His song was of the summer-time,

      The very birds sang in his rhyme;

      The sunshine, the delicious air,

      The fragrance of the flowers, were there;

      And I grew restless as I heard,

      Restless and buoyant as a bird,

      Down soft, aerial currents sailing,

      O'er blossomed orchards, and fields in bloom,

      And through the momentary gloom

      Of shadows o'er the landscape trailing,

      Yielding and borne I knew not where,

      But feeling resistance unavailing.

      And thus, unnoticed and apart,

      And more by accident than choice,

      I listened to that single voice

      Until the chambers of my heart

      Were filled with it by night and day.

      One night – it was a night in May, —

      Within the garden, unawares,

      Under the blossoms in the gloom,

      I heard it utter my own name

      With protestations and wild prayers;

      And it rang through me, and became

      Like the archangel's trump of doom,

      Which the soul hears, and must obey;

      And mine arose as from a tomb.

      My former life now seemed to me

      Such as hereafter death may be,

      When in the great Eternity

      We shall awake and find it day.

      It was a dream, and would not stay;

      A dream, that in a single night

      Faded and vanished out of sight.

      My father's anger followed fast

      This passion, as a freshening blast

      Seeks out and fans the fire, whose rage

      It may increase, but not assuage.

      And he exclaimed: "No wandering bard

      Shall win thy hand, O Irmingard!

      For which Prince Henry of Hoheneck

      By messenger and letter sues."

      Gently, but firmly, I replied:

      "Henry of Hoheneck I discard!

      Never the hand of Irmingard

      Shall lie in his as the hand of a bride!"

      This said I, Walter, for thy sake;

      This said I, for I could not choose.

      After a pause, my father spake

      In that cold and deliberate tone

      Which turns the hearer into stone,

      And seems itself the act to be

      That follows with such dread certainty;

      "This, or the cloister and the veil!"

      No other words than these he said,

      But they were like a funeral wail;

      My life was ended, my heart was dead.

      That night from the castle-gate went down,

      With silent, slow, and stealthy pace,

      Two shadows, mounted on shadowy steeds,

      Taking the narrow path that leads

      Into the forest dense and brown.

      In the leafy darkness of the place,

      One could not distinguish form nor face,

      Only a bulk without a shape,

      A darker shadow in the shade;

      One scarce could say it moved or stayed.

      Thus it was we made our escape!

      A foaming brook, with many a bound,

      Followed us like a playful hound;

      Then leaped before us, and in the hollow

      Paused, and waited for us to follow,

      And seemed impatient, and afraid

      That our tardy flight should be betrayed

      By the sound our horses' hoof-beats made.

      And when we reached the plain below,

      We paused a moment and drew rein

      To look back at the castle again;

      And we saw the windows all aglow

      With lights, that were passing to and fro;

      Our hearts with terror ceased to beat;

      The brook crept silent to our feet;

      We knew what most we feared to know.

      Then suddenly horns began to blow;

      And we heard a shout, and a heavy tramp,

      And our horses snorted in the damp

      Night-air of the meadows green and wide,

      And in a moment, side by side,

      So close, they must have seemed but one,

      The shadows across the moonlight run,

      And another came, and swept behind,

      Like the shadow of clouds before the wind!

      How I remember that breathless flight

      Across the moors, in the summer night!

      How under our feet the long, white road

      Backward like a river flowed,

      Sweeping with it fences and hedges,

      Whilst farther away, and overhead,

      Paler than I, with fear and dread,

      The moon fled with us, as we fled

      Along the forest's jagged edges!

      All this I can remember well;

      But of what afterwards befell

      I nothing further can recall

      Than a blind, desperate, headlong fall;

      The rest is a blank and darkness all.

      When I awoke out of this swoon,

      The sun was shining, not the moon,

      Making a cross upon the wall

      With the bars of my windows narrow and tall;

      And I prayed to it, as I had been wont to pray,

      From early childhood, day by day,

      Each morning, as in bed I lay!

      I was lying again in my own room!

      And I thanked God, in my fever and pain,

      That those shadows on the midnight plain

      Were gone, and could not come again!

      I struggled no longer with my doom!