Time fleeteth, yet that castle old,
With all its battlements, its tower,
And simple folk that in it dwelt,
Appears before me every hour.
I ever see the weathercock
That on the roof turn’d round so drily;
Each person, ere he spoke a word,
Was wont to look up tow’rds it slily.
He that would talk, first learnt the wind,
For fear the ancient grumbler Boreas
Might turn against him suddenly,
Tormenting him with blast uproarious.
In truth, the wisest held their tongues,
For in that place an echo sported,
Which, when it answer’d back the voice,
Each word maliciously distorted.
Amidst the castle garden stood
A marble fount, with sphinxes round it,
For ever dry, though tears enough
Had flow’d inside it, to have drown’d it.
O most accursèd garden! Ah,
No single spot was in thy keeping
Wherein my heart had not been sad,
Wherein my eye had not known weeping.
No single tree did it contain
Beneath whose shade affronts injurious
Had not against me utter’d been
By tongues ironical or furious.
The toad that listen’d in the grass
Unto the rat hath all confided,
Who told his aunt the viper straight
The news in which himself he prided.
She in her turn told cousin frog,—
And in this manner each relation
In the whole filthy race soon learnt
My dire affronts and sad vexation.
The garden roses were full fair,
And sweet the fragrance that they scatter’d;
Yet early wither’d they and died,
By a mysterious poison shatter’d.
And next the nightingale was sick
To death,—that songster loved and cherish’d.
That sang to every rose her song;
Through her own poison’s taste she perish’d.
O most accursèd garden! Yea,
It was as though a curse oppress’d it;
Oft was I seized by ghostly fear,
While broad clear daylight still possess’d it.
The green-eyed spectre on me grinn’d,
Terror with fearful mockery vying,
While from the yew-trees straightway rose
A sound of groaning, choking, sighing.
At the long alley’s end arose
The terrace where the Baltic Ocean
At time of flood its billows dash’d
Against the rocks in wild commotion.
There sees one far across the main,
There stood I oft, in wild dreams roaming;
The breakers fill’d my heart as well
With ceaseless roaring, raging, foaming.
A foaming, raging, roaring ’twas,
As powerless as the billows curling
That the hard rock broke mournfully,
Proudly as they their shocks were hurling.
With envy saw I ships pass by,
Some happier country seeking gladly,
While I am in this castle chain’d
With bonds accurst, and pining sadly.