To his young spouse-the echo answers....

Is she not in the necromancer's

Great castle, then? The garden door

He opens wide, all expectation,

And on walks fast. His eye sweeps o'er

The empty grounds in agitation:

All's dead, naught stirs, still are the groves,

The leafy arbours and the coves;

The river banks, the slopes-deserted,

The valleys too.... He's disconcerted,

For nowhere e'en a trace is there

Of her he seeks, nor can he hear

The slightest sound. There passes through him

A sudden chill, the world grows dark

About him, and bleak thoughts come to him:

"Captivity.... of grief the mark....

A moment, and the waves-" These fancies,

How dismal they! His head hung, he

Stands like a rock there movelessly....

His very reason clouds, his senses

Fail him. He's all ablaze, he flames;

Despairing love's dark poison surges,

A mighty torrent, in his veins.

Is't not his lady who emerges

From darkness, is't not she who clings

To him?... He roars her name, he flings

Himself about, and, frenzied, raving,

His sword in mad abandon waving,

At boulders strikes and makes them roll

Downhill, and hacking, mowing, slashing,

Pavilions to the ground sends crashing,

Reduces grove and lea and knoll

To barren wastes, and tumbles bridges