An ambling palfrey white--a golden robe and crown;
I've seen her in my dreams--riding up and down;
And heard the ogre laugh--as she fell into his snare, At the little tender creature--who wept and tore her hair!
"But ever when it seemed--her need was at the sorest A prince in shining mail--comes prancing through the forest.
A waving ostrich-plume--a buckler burnished bright;
I've seen him in my dreams--good sooth! a gallant knight.
His lips are coral red--beneath a dark moustache;
See how he waves his hand--and how his blue eyes flash!
"'Come forth, thou Paynim knight!'--he shouts in accents clear.
The giant and the maid--both tremble his voice to hear.
Saint Mary guard him well!--he draws his falchion keen, The giant and the knight--are fighting on the green.
I see them in my dreams--his blade gives stroke on stroke, The giant pants and reels--and tumbles like an oak!
"With what a blushing grace--he falls upon his knee And takes the lady's hand--and whispers, 'You are free!'
Ah! happy childish tales--of knight and faerie!
I waken from my dreams--but there's ne'er a knight for me;
I waken from my dreams--and wish that I could be A child by the old hall-fire--upon my nurse's knee."
Indeed, Ottilia looked like a fairy herself: pale, small, slim, and airy. You could not see her face, as it were, for her eyes, which were so wild, and so tender, and shone so that they would have dazzled an eagle, much more a poor goose of a Fitz-Boodle. In the theatre, when she sat on the opposite side of the house, those big eyes used to pursue me as I sat pretending to listen to the "Zauberflote," or to "Don Carlos," or "Egmont," and at the tender passages, especially, they would have such a winning, weeping, imploring look with them as flesh and blood could not bear.
Shall I tell how I became a poet for the dear girl's sake? 'Tis surely unnecessary after the reader has perused the above versions of her poems. Shall I tell what wild follies I committed in prose as well as in verse? how I used to watch under her window of icy evenings, and with chilblainy fingers sing serenades to her on the guitar? Shall I tell how, in a sledging-party, I had the happiness to drive her, and of the delightful privilege which is, on these occasions, accorded to the driver?
Any reader who has spent a winter in Germany perhaps knows it. A large party of a score or more of sledges is formed. Away they go to some pleasure-house that has been previously fixed upon, where a ball and collation are prepared, and where each man, as his partner descends, has the delicious privilege of saluting her. O heavens and earth! I may grow to be a thousand years old, but I can never forget the rapture of that salute.
"The keen air has given me an appetite," said the dear angel, as we entered the supper-room; and to say the truth, fairy as she was, she made a remarkably good meal--consuming a couple of basins of white soup, several kinds of German sausages, some Westphalia ham, some white puddings, an anchovy-salad made with cornichons and onions, sweets innumerable, and a considerable quantity of old Steinwein and rum-punch afterwards. Then she got up and danced as brisk as a fairy; in which operation I of course did not follow her, but had the honor, at the close of the evening's amusement, once more to have her by my side in the sledge, as we swept in the moonlight over the snow.
Kalbsbraten is a very hospitable place as far as tea-parties are concerned, but I never was in one where dinners were so scarce. At the palace they occurred twice or thrice in a month; but on these occasions spinsters were not invited, and I seldom had the opportunity of seeing my Ottilia except at evening-parties.
Nor are these, if the truth must be told, very much to my taste.
Dancing I have forsworn, whist is too severe a study for me, and I do not like to play ecarte with old ladies, who are sure to cheat you in the course of an evening's play.
But to have an occasional glance at Ottilia was enough; and many and many a napoleon did I lose to her mamma, Madame de Schlippenschlopp, for the blest privilege of looking at her daughter. Many is the tea-party I went to, shivering into cold clothes after dinner (which is my abomination) in order to have one little look at the lady of my soul.
At these parties there were generally refreshments of a nature more substantial than mere tea punch, both milk and rum, hot wine, consomme, and a peculiar and exceedingly disagreeable sandwich made of a mixture of cold white puddings and garlic, of which I have forgotten the name, and always detested the savor.
Gradually a conviction came upon me that Ottilia ATE A GREAT DEAL.