Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/588
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SPECIMENS OF THE GERMAN BALLAD.—NO. 1
The ballad has nowhere been so completely naturalized as in Germany. The German ballads are not, like the most of our own, mere imitations of the rude songs and traditions of antiquity. They combine in a wonderful degree the polish and refinement peculiar to an advanced state of civilization with the simplicity and nature of the older fragments of popular tradition. Almost all the great poets of Germany have occasionally descended from the severer labours of more elaborate composition to the delassement of ballad-writing; and the consequence is that Germany is at this moment richer in this species of literature than all the rest Europe (Spain excepted) put together.
We intend to present a few of these in an English dress, and shall begin with Goethe. This wonderful man, who has run through almost every department of science and literature, has displayed the same preeminence in the light and gay strains of the ballad, as in the magnificent creations of Faust and Tasso. Some of his ballads, such as Die Braut von Corinthus, are distinguished by a solemn supernatural effect; others, such as Die Spinnerinn, Der Müllerin Verrath, and Der Müllerinn Riche, by an exquisite archness and naiveté, and all of them by a captivating simplicity of language, which while it increases very much the effect of the original, presents a very formidable difficulty to the translator. That we have subjoined is versified nearly as literally as the differences of the language will permit.
THE FISHER.
From the German of Goethe.
The water roll'd—the water swell'd,
A fisher sat beside;
Calmly his patient watch he held
Beside the freshening tide:
And while his patient watch he keeps
The parted waters rose,
And from the oozy ocean-deeps
A water-maiden rose.
She spake to him, she sang to him—
"Why lur'st thou so my brood,
With cunning art and cruel heart,
From out their native flood?
Ah! couldst thou know, how here below
Our peaceful lives glide o’er,
Thou'dst leave thine earth and plunge beneath
To seek our happier shore.
Bathes not the golden sun his face,—
The moon too in the sea;
And rise they not from their resting-place
More beautiful to see?
And lures thee not the clear deep heaven
Within the waters blue,—
And thy form so fair, so mirror'd there
In that eternal dew?"—
The water roll'd—the water swell'd,
It reach'd his naked feet;
He felt as at his Love's approach
His bounding bosom beat;
She spake to him, she sang to him,
His short suspense is o'er;—
Half drew she him, half dropp'd he in,
And sank to rise no more.
G. M.