Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/49

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LOVE LETTERS
25

greetings and assurances of my love to your parents, and the former—the latter, too, if you like—to all your cousins, women friends, etc. What have you done with Aennchen?[1] My forgetting the Versin letters disturbs me; I did not mean to make such a bad job of it. Have they been found? Farewell, my treasure, my heart, consolation of my eyes.

Your faithfulBismarck.

Another picture, a description of a storm in the Alps, which catches my eye as I turn over the pages of the book, and pleases me much:

"The sky is changed, and such a change! night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder; not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now has found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud—
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.

And this is in the night:—most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight—
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 'tis black, and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth."

On such a night the suggestion comes uncommonly near to me that I wish to be a sharer in the delight, a portion of tempest, of night;[2] mounted on a runaway horse, to dash down the cliffs into the falls of the Rhine, or something similar. A pleasure of that kind, unfortunately, one can enjoy but once in this life. There is something intoxicating in nocturnal storms. Your nights, dearest, I hope you re-


  1. Fraulein von Blumenthal, afterwards Frau von Böhn.
  2. English in the original.