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Lo! the bell of death was tolling:
Dortha shrunk with fear and terror—
"Say! for whom that bell is tolling?
Ah! indeed it tolls for Hermann."—
"Hermann in his room is resting,
Suffering from a bitter head-ache—
'Tis some little child departed—
'Tis some little swaddled infant."
Dortha, from the table rising,
Took a knife from 'midst her tresses,
And she plunged it in her bosom.
She is with her Hermann buried;
In one grave they lie together.
If thou pass thro' yonder church-yard,
Breathe a gentle prayer of pity—
There sleeps Hermann near his Dortha,
As a brother near his sister.This poem resembles many of the old slavonian stories; both in its manner and measure.
The passage which Čelakowsky has thus printed,
