In Ammendorf, the sunny Ilsabe: Her mother dead, the gray-haired father prized His daughter more than all that men hold dear; His only happiness, who was beloved Of all as Lora of Thuringia was, For gentle ways that spoke a noble soul, Winning all hearts to love her and to praise, As might a great and beautiful thought that holds Us by the simplest words.--Her eyes were blue As the high influence of a summer day. Her hair,--serene and braided over brows White as a Harz dove's wing,--was auburn brown, And deep as mists the sun has drenched with gold. And her young presence--well, 't was like a song, A far Tyrolean melody of love, Heard on an Alpine path at close of day When shepherds homeward lead their tinkling flocks. And when she left, being with you awhile,-- How shall I say it?--'t was as when one hath Beheld an Undine by the moonlit Rhine, Who, ere the mind adjusts a thought, is gone, And in your soul you wonder if a dream. Some thirty years ago it was;--and I, Commissioner of the Duke--(no sinecure I can assure you)--had scarce reached the age Of thirty,--that we sat here at our wine; And 't was through me that Rudolf,--whom at first, From some rash words dropped then in argument, The foresterhood was like to be denied,-- Was then enfellowed. "Yes," said I, "he's young. Kurt, he is young; but see, a wiry frame; A chamois footing and a face for deeds; An eye that likes me not; too quick to turn; But that may be the restless soul within; A soul perhaps with virtues that have been Severely tried and could not stand the test; These be thy care, Kurt; and if not too deep In vices of the flesh, discover them, As divers bring lost riches up from ooze. Thou hast a daughter; let him be thy son." A year thereafter was it that I heard Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe; Then their betrothal. And it was from this,-- Good Mother Mary! how she haunts me still! Sweet Ilsabe! whose higher womanhood, True as the touchstone which philosophers feign Transmutes to gold base metals it may touch, Had turned to good all evil in this man,-- Surmised I of the excellency which Refinement of her purer company, And contact with her innocence, had resolved His fiery nature to, conditioning slave. And so I came from Brunswick--as, you know, Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal Commissioned proxy, his commissioner-- To test the marksmanship of Rudolf, who Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child, An heir of Kuno.--He?--Greatgrandfather Of Kurt; and of this forestkeepership The first possessor; thus established here-- Or this the tale they tell on winter nights: Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train, Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came,-- Grandfather of the father of our Duke,-- With much magnificence of knights and squires,