Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
The Erl-Kings Daughter
By Johann Gottfried von Herder (17441803)S
To meet his bride in his father’s halls.
The elves came forth from their forest-caves.
And the Erl-King’s Daughter held out her hand.
Step into the circle and dance with me.”
To-morrow will be my nuptial-day.”
And I pray thee, Sir Olf, to tarry with me.”
To-morrow is fixed for my nuptial-day.”
Was bleached yestreen in the new moonshine.”
To-morrow is fixed for my nuptial-day.”
And I pray thee, Sir Olf, to dance with me.”
But I dare not dance, and I dare not stay.”
A true-lover’s token I leave thee, Sir Knight.”
And he swooned and swooned from the deadly smart.
“Now hie thee away with a fatal speed!”
And the sheen and the howl awoke Sir Olf.
He rode till he rode to his own house-door.
But his gray-haired mother stood watching outside.
Thy brow is the brow of a dying man.”
For the Erl-King’s Daughter hath wounded me.”
There is mist on the eyes of thy pining bride.”
I will wander abroad for the strength I need.”
When the morning dawns and the tiring is done?”
With my hound in leash and my hawk in hood.”
The bride came forth in her wedding array.
“Now, where is thy son, O goldmother mine?”
With his hounds in leash and his hawk in hood.”
“O, woe is me, Sir Olf is dead.”
She drooped, and drooped, till she died at last.
The stricken Sir Olf and his faithful bride.
When the moonlight sleeps on the frosted hill.