The poet follows the stream through her whole course, never dropping the figure, which is adapted, with infinite adroitness, and with the play of a fancy as wayward and unrestrained as her own waters, to all her changing aspects. Beside the Catholic chapel of Fair-Beeches she pauses to listen to the mass; but farther down the valley becomes an apostate, and attends the Lutheran service in the Husemer church. Stronger and statelier grown, she trips along with the step of a maiden conscious of her own beauty, and the poet clothes her in the costume of an Alemannic bride, with a green kirtle of a hundred folds, and a stomacher of Milan gauze, "like a loose cloud on a morning sky in spring-time." Thus equipped, she wanders at will over the broader meadows, around the feet of vineyard-hills, visits villages and churches, or stops to gossip with the lusty young millers. But the woman's destiny is before her; she cannot escape it; and the time is drawing near when her wild, singing, pastoral being shall be absorbed in that of the strong male stream, the bright-eyed son of the Alps, who has come so far to woo and win her. Daughter o' Feldberg, half-and-half I've got a suspicion How as you've virtues and faults enough now to choose ye a husband. Castin' y'r eyes down, are you? Pickin' and plattin' y'r ribbons? Don't be so foolish, wench!--She thinks I know nothin' about it, How she's already engaged, and each is a-waitin' for t'other. Don't I know him, my darlin', the lusty young fellow, y'r sweetheart? Over powerful rocks, and through the hedges and thickets, Right away from the snowy Swiss mountains he plunges at Rheineck Down to the lake, and straight ahead swims through it to Constance, Sayin': "'T's no use o' talkin', I'll have the gal I'm engaged to!" But, as he reaches Stein, he goes a little more slowly, Leavin' the lake where he's decently washed his feet and his body. Diessenhofen don't please him,--no, nor the convent beside it. For'ard he goes to Schaffhausen, onto the rocks at the corner; There he says: "It's no use o' talkin', I'll git to my sweetheart: Body and life I'll stake, cravat and embroidered suspenders." Woop! but he jumps! And now he talks to hisself, goin' furder, Giddy, belike, in his head, but pushes for'ard to Rheinau, Eglisau, and Kaiserstuhl, and Zurzach, and Waldshut,-- All are behind him, passin' one village after another Down to Grenzach, and out on the broad and beautiful bottoms Nigh unto Basle; and there he must stop and look after his license. * * * * *