"Would you not rather, dearest Gustava----" said the minister. "Let me have my choice," replied the poetess, in a soft but decisive tone, and then, clearing her throat-- "On a Dead Mole." "On what?" cried Oswald, starting up with amazement. "Well, you see, dear friend," said Primula, "how the mere title already electrifies you." "Yes, indeed!" murmured Oswald, sinking back in his corner. "On a Dead Mole," repeated the poetess, "which I found by the wayside:-- "How do you lie so quiet there With black and shining skin! Your fate, alas! I cannot bear, Poor fellow, black as sin! They scornèd you, they scoffed at you, They said that you were blind! They surely were but people who Are of the same blind kind. You do not show your face by day, Like those to whom the world is dear; Yet light shone on your honest way, And in your heart 'twas clear! And to the stars on God's own sky, High in the heaven's dome, You looked from your own hill on sly, You little learned gnome. You lived so quiet, harmless, still, In honor and in truth below! You did not steal, you did not kill, Alas! and now you're lying low! Now do you lie so quiet there With black and shining skin! Your fate, alas! I cannot bear, Poor fellow, black as sin!" "That is beautiful," said Oswald. "That is genuine lyric poetry, such as we find but rarely in our day. Not the hot-house poetry, which begins with reminiscences of Heine, strikes then a few of Lenau's accords, and ends with a blast after Freiligrath's manner. What deep genuine feeling there is in these stanzas! and yet such energy of language. A fellow dark as sin, that is simple but beautiful; that you have learnt from Goethe." "You are really too kind, dear friend," said Primula, highly pleased. "Indeed you make me blush by your liberal praise. But, pray be candid, and tell me if you do not think that the whole is, after all, a little too idealistic for our modern taste?" "Perhaps for our realists, who certainly go too far in their demands, and whose desire to make everything perfectly natural will probably lead them ere long, when Faust is played, to bring a real poodle on the stage, and to make him howl and yell by pinching his tail. But I am sure you could satisfy even those gentlemen if you wished to do so." "What do you think of this poem?" asked the poetess, "On my Rooster?" Oswald leant back in his corner. "Like Richard Duke of Normandy My hero fought most bravely, All trembled when they heard his crow: Cockadoodledoo!" "That is naïve!" said Oswald. "Is it not?" said Primula.