Postcards from Germany

Update for Schön siebenzeilig Lurley:

We knew Mark Twain spoke the awful German language. Now we learn he even sang it.

——— Mark Twain:

An Ancient Legend of the Rhine

from: A Tramp Abroad. Vol. 1–2. Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1880, vol. 1,
translation of Heinrich Heine: Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
from: Buch der Lieder (Book of Songs), 1827:

Germany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several of them are peculiarly beautiful – but „The Lorelei“ is the people’s favourite. I could not endure it at first, but by-and-by it began to take hold of me, and now there is no tune which I like so well.

I cannot divine what it meaneth, This haunting nameless pain: A tale of the bygone ages Keeps brooding through my brain:

The faint air cools in the gloaming, And peaceful flows the Rhine, The thirsty summits are drinking The sunset’s flooding wine;

The loveliest maiden is sitting High-throned in yon blue air, Her golden jewels are shining, She combs her golden hair;

She combs with comb that is golden, And sings a weird refrain That steeps in a deadly enchantment The listener’s ravished brain:

The doomed in his drifting shallop, Is tranced with the sad sweet tone, He sees not the yawning breakers, He sees but the maid alone:

The pitiless billwos engulf him!– So perish sailor and bark; And this, with her baleful singing, Is the Lorelei’s gruesome work.

Images: Postcards from the Mittelrheintal about Darstellung der Loreley auf Postkarten, 1900.