Classic Poem

Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten

I do not know why this confronts me,
This sadness, this echo of pain;
A curious legend still haunts me,
Still haunts and obsesses my brain:

The air is cool and it darkles;
Softly the Rhine flows by.
The mountain peak still sparkles
In the fading flush of the sky.

And on one peak, half-dreaming
She sits, enthroned and fair;
Like a goddess, dazzling and gleaming,
She combs her golden hair.

With a golden comb she is combing
Her hair as she sings a song —
A song that, heard through the gloaming,
Is magically sweet and strong.

The boatman has heard; it has bound him
In the throes of a strange, wild love.
He is blind to the reefs that surround him;
He sees but the vision above.

And lo, the wild waters are springing —
The boat and the boatman are gone . . .
And this, with her poignant singing,
The Loreley has done.