Prince Henry. How limpid, pure, and crystalline,
How quick, and tremulous, and bright
The little wavelets dance and shine,
As were it the Water of Life in sooth!
Lucifer. It is! It assuages every pain,
Cures all disease, and gives again
To age the swift delights of youth.
Inhale its fragrance.

Prince Henry.

It is sweet,

A thousand different odours meet
And mingle in its rare perfume,
Such as the winds of summer waft
At open windows through a room!
Lucifer. Will you not taste it?
Prince Henry.
Suffice?

Lucifer.

Will one draught

If not, you can drink more.

Prince Henry. Into this crystal goblet pour

So much as safely I may drink.

Lucifer (pouring). Let not the quantity alarm you;
You may drink all; it will not harm you.
Prince Henry. I am as one who on the brink
Of a dark river stands and sees

The waters flow, the landscape dim
Around him waver, wheel and swim,
And, ere he plunges, stops to think
Into what whirlpools he may sink;
One moment pauses, and no more,
Then madly plunges from the shore!
Headlong into the mysteries
Of life and death I boldly leap,
Nor fear the fateful current's sweep,
Nor what in ambush lurks below!

For death is better than disease!

(An ANGEL with an aolian harp hovers in the air.) Angel. Woe! woe! eternal woe!

Not only the whispered prayer

Of love,

But the imprecations of hate,
Reverberate

For ever and ever through the air
Above!

This fearful curse

Shakes the great universe!

Lucifer (disappearing). Drink! drink!

And thy soul shall sink

Down into the dark abyss,

Into the infinite abyss,

From which no plummet nor rope
Ever drew up the silver sand of hope!

Prince Henry (drinking). It is like a draught of fire!
Through every vein

I feel again

The fever of youth, the soft desire;
A rapture that is almost pain

Throbs in my heart and fills my brain!
'O joy! O joy! I feel

The band of steel

That so long and heavily has pressed
Upon my breast

Uplifted, and the malediction

Of my affliction

Is taken from me, and my weary breast

At length finds rest.

The Angel. It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air

has been taken!

It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glass is not

shaken !

It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!

It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!
With fiendish laughter,

Hereafter,

This false physician

Will mock thee in thy perdition.

Prince Henry. Speak! speak!

Who says that I am ill?

I am not ill! I am not weak!

The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er!

I feel the chill of death no more!

At length

I stand renewed in all my strength!

Beneath me I can feel

The great earth stagger and reel,

As if the feet of a descending God

Upon its surface trod,

And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel!

This, O brave physician! this

Is thy great Palingenesis!

(Drinks again.)

The Angel. Touch the goblet no more!

It will make thy heart sore

To its very core!

Its perfume is the breath

Of the Angel of Death,

And the light that within it lies

Is the flash of his evil eyes.

Beware! Oh, beware!

For sickness, sorrow, and care

All are there!

Prince Henry (sinking back). O thou voice within my breast!

Why entreat me, why upbraid me,

When the steadfast tongues of truth

And the flattering hopes of youth

Have all deceived me and betrayed me?

Give me, give me rest, O rest!
Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!
I am like a happy lover

Who illumines life with dreaming!
Brave physician! Rare physician!
Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission!
(His head falls on his book.)

The Angel (receding). Alas! alas!

Like a vapour the golden vision
Shall fade and pass,

And thou wilt find in thy heart again

Only the blight of pain,

And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!

(Courtyard of the Castle. HUBERT standing by the gateway.) Hubert. How sad the grand old castle looks!

O'erhead, the unmolested rooks
Upon the turret's window top
Sit, talking of the farmer's crop;
Here in the courtyard springs the grass,
So few are now the feet that pass;
The stately peacocks, bolder grown,
Come hopping down the steps of stone,
As if the castle were their own;
And I, the poor old seneschal,
Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.
Alas! the merry guests no more
Crowd through the hospitable door;
No eyes with youth and passion shine,
No cheeks grow redder than the wine;
No song, no laugh, no jovial din
Of drinking wassail to the pin;
But all is silent, sad, and drear,
And now the only sounds I hear
Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls,
And horses stamping in their stalls!
(A horn sounds.)

What ho! that merry, sudden blast
Reminds me of the days long past!
And, as of old resounding, grate
The heavy hinges of the gate.

And, clattering loud, with iron clank,

Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,

As if it were in haste to greet

The pressure of a traveller's feet!

(Enter WALTER the Minnesinger.)

Walter. How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely!

No banner flying from the walls,

No pages and no seneschals,

No warders, and one porter only!
Is it you, Hubert?

Hubert.

Ah! Master Walter!

Walter. Alas! how forms and faces alter!

I did not know you.

You look older!

Your hair has grown much grayer and thinner, And you stoop a little in the shoulder! Hubert. Alack! I am a poor old sinner,

And, like these towers, begin to moulder; And you have been absent many a year? Walter. How is the Prince?

Hubert.

He is not here; He has been ill: and now has fled. Walter. Speak it out frankly! say he's dead! Is it not so?

Hubert.

No; if you please

A strange, mysterious disease

Fell on him with a sudden blight.
Whole hours together he would stand
Upon the terrace, in a dream,

Resting his head upon his hand,
Best pleased when he was most alone,
Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone,
Looking down into a stream.

In the round Tower, night after night,
He sat, and bleared his eyes with books;
Until one morning we found him there
Stretched on the floor, as if in a swoon
He had fallen from his chair.

We hardly recognised his sweet looks!
Walter. Poor Prince!

Hubert.

I think he might have mended;
And he did mend; but very soon
The Priests came flocking in like rooks,
With all their crosiers and their crooks,
And so at last the matter ended.
Walter. How did it end?
Hubert.

Why, in Saint Rochus
They made him stand, and wait his doom;
And, as if he were condemned to the tomb,
Began to mutter their hocus-pocus.

First, the Mass for the dead they chanted,
Then three times laid upon his head
A shovelful of churchyard clay,

Saying to him as he stood undaunted,
"This is a sign that thou art dead,
So in thy heart be penitent!"

And forth from the chapel-door he went

Into disgrace and banishment,

Clothed in a cloak of hodden gray,

And bearing a wallet and a bell,

Whose sound should be a perpetual knell

To keep all travellers away.

Walter. Oh, horrible fate! Outcast, rejected,

As one with pestilence infected!
Hubert. Then was the family tomb unsealed,
And broken helmet, sword, and shield,
Buried together, in common wreck,
As is the custom when the last
Of any princely house has passed;
And thrice, as with a trumpet-blast,
A herald shouted down the stair
The words of warning and despair,—
"O Hoheneck! O Hoheneck!"
Walter. Still in my soul that cry goes on,-
For ever gone! for ever gone!

Ah, what a cruel sense of loss,

Like a black shadow, would fall across

The hearts of all, if he should die!

His gracious presence upon earth
Was as a fire upon a hearth.

As pleasant songs, at morning sung,

The words that dropped from his sweet tongue
Strengthened our hearts; or, heard at night,
Made all our slumbers soft and light.

Where is he?

Hubert.

In the Odenwald.
Some of his tenants, unappalled
By fear of death or priestly word,-
A holy family, that make

Each meal a Supper of the Lord,—

Have him beneath their watch and ward.

For love of him, and Jesus' sake!

Pray you come in. For why should I
With out-door hospitality

My prince's friend thus entertain?

Walter. I would a moment here remain.
But you, good Hubert, go before,
Fill me a goblet of May-drink,
As aromatic as the May

From which it steals the breath away,
And which he loved so well of yore:
It is of him that I would think.
You shall attend me when I call,
In the ancestral banquet-hall.
Unseen companions, guests of air,
You cannot wait on, will be there;
They taste not food, they drink not wine,
But their soft eyes look into mine,
And their lips speaks to me, and all
The vast and shadowy banquet-hall
Is full of looks and words divine!

(Leaning over the parapet.)
The day is done; and slowly from the scene
The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,
And puts them back into his golden quiver!