Her face was perfectly healthy and round, Her cheek like a damask rose was, Like a turquoise her eye, like a cherry her mouth, While somewhat reddish her nose was. Her head was cover’d with a cap Of snowy stiff linen, not ragged, But folded like a mural crown, With turrets and battlements jagged. She wore as her dress a tunic white Which down to her calves descended; And O what calves! The pedestals they Of two Doric columns splendid. A very worldly naïveté Could be read in her every feature, But her superhuman hinder parts Betray’d a superior creature. She now approach’d me, and straightway said: “To the Elbe here’s a welcome hearty! “E’en after an absence of thirteen years, “I see that thou’rt still the same party! “Perchance thou seekest the souls so fair “Who so often used to meet thee, “And all night long in this beautiful place “With their reveries loved to greet thee. “By that hundred-headed hydra, Life, “That monster fierce, they were swallow’d; “Thou’lt find those olden times no more, “Nor those friends once lovingly follow’d. “No longer thou’lt find those beauteous flowers, “Which enchanted thy youthful bosom; “’Twas here they bloom’d,--they’re wither’d now, “And the tempest has scatter’d each blossom. “Yes, wither’d, and stripp’d, and trampled down “By destiny’s footsteps appalling-- “My friend, this is ever the fate upon earth “Of all that is sweet and enthralling!”-- “Who art thou?” I cried--“like a dream of old times “Thy appearance doth strangely beset me; “Where is thy dwelling, enormous one? “I’ll follow thee there, if thou’lt let me.” The woman then smiled, and thus she replied: “Thou art wrong, I’m a decent and quiet “And highly moral personage too, “By no means given to riot. “I’m none of your foreign lorettes, my friend, “And none of your common ladies; “I’m Hamburg’s goddess, Hammonia by name, “And to watch o’er its welfare my trade is! “Thou art startled perchance to bear this news, “Thou once undaunted singer? “Art thou prepared to follow me still? “Then quick, and no more let us linger.” But I in reply laugh’d loudly and cried: “I’ll follow thee instanter! “If thou’lt go in front, I’ll go behind,-- “Yes, even to hell in a canter!” CAPUT XXIV. How I managed to mount the narrow stairs I haven’t the slightest notion; Perhaps the spirits carried me up With some invisible motion. But here, in Hammonia’s little room, The hours pass’d swiftly o’er me; The goddess confess’d the sympathy That she had ever felt for me. “Look here”--said she, “in former days “The minstrel who sang the Messiah “Was dearest to me of all the throng, “With his piously-sounding lyre.