I have added this poem because it is the legend of Lorilei. As we took our tour down the Rhine they played the song of the Lorilei (Loriley). This is the narrowest and deepest part of the Rhine. There are several poems written about Loriley but this one is written by Mark Twain. The picture is of the rock cliff where Lorilei was said to have enticed her forlorn sailors.


An ancient legend of the Rhine
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 yawing 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.

Mark Twain 1880