Here is the music, and the German words by Heinrich
Heine. This song has been a favorite in Germany
for forty years, and will remain a favorite always,
maybe. [Figure 5]
I have a prejudice against people who print things
in a foreign language and add no translation.
When I am the reader, and the author considers me
able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite
a nice compliment—but if he would do the
translating for me I would try to get along without
the compliment.
If I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation
of this poem, but I am abroad and can’t; therefore
I will make a translation myself. It may not
be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it
will serve my purpose—which is, to give
the unGerman young girl a jingle of words to hang
the tune on until she can get hold of a good version,
made by some one who is a poet and knows how to convey
a poetical thought from one language to another.
I cannot divine what it meaneth,
This haunting nameless pain:
A tale of the bygone ages
Keeps brooding through my brain:
The faint air cools in the glooming,
And peaceful flows the Rhine,
The thirsty summits are drinking
The sunset’s flooding wine;
The loveliest maiden is sitting
High-throned in yon blue air,
Her golden jewels are shining,
She combs her golden hair;
She combs with a comb that is golden,
And sings a weird refrain
That steeps in a deadly enchantment
The list’ner’s ravished brain:
The doomed in his drifting shallop,
Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,
He sees not the yawning breakers,
He sees but the maid alone:
The pitiless billows engulf him!—
So perish sailor and bark;
And this, with her baleful singing,
Is the Lorelei’s gruesome work.
I have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts,
in the legends of the Rhine, but
it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above,
because the measure is too nobly irregular; it don’t
fit the tune snugly enough; in places it hangs over
at the ends too far, and in other places one runs
out of words before he gets to the end of a bar.
Still, Garnham’s translation has high merits,
and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of my book.
I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and
England; I take peculiar pleasure in bringing him
forward because I consider that I discovered him:
Translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.
I do not know what it signifies.
That I am so sorrowful?
A fable of old Times so terrifies,
Leaves my heart so thoughtful.
The air is cool and it darkens,
And calmly flows the Rhine;
The summit of the mountain hearkens
In evening sunshine line.
The most beautiful Maiden entrances
Above wonderfully there,
Her beautiful golden attire glances,
She combs her golden hair.
