Poems (Hooper)/The Fisher

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

THE FISHER.

Das Wasser rauscht, das Wasser schwoll.

The water rushed, the water rose,
 A fisher sat thereby,
And saw his float upon the wave
 Calm as his own heart lie.
And as he sat, and as he mused,
 He saw the wave unclose,
And from the troubled waters, slow
 A dripping maiden rose.

She spake to him, she sang to him:
 "My brood why lure away,
With human skill and human guile,
 To die in glow of day?
Ah! couldst behold our ocean home,
 So joyous and so fair,
Thou'dst plunge at once beneath the wave,
 To dwell forever there."

"Do not the sun and moon descend
 Their burning brows to lave?
Then doubly fair arise they not
 From out the cooling wave?
Art thou not lured by yonder sky,
 Its liquid depths of blue?
Does thine own image tempt thee not,
 Upsmiling from the dew?"

The water rushed, the water rose,
 It laved his naked feet;
Then full of longing waxed his heart—
 A longing strange and sweet.
She spake to him, she sang to him;
 Ah, fatal was the strain!
Half drew she him, half sank he in,
 And ne'er was seen again.
Goethe.