HE waters rush'd, the waters rose,
A fisherman sat by,
While on his line in calm
He cast his patient eye.
And as he sat, and hearken'd there,
The flood was cleft in twain,
And, lo! a dripping mermaid
Sprang from the troubled main.
She sang to him, and spake the while:"Why lurest thou my brood,
With human wit and human
From out their native flood?
Oh, couldst thou know how gladly
The fish across the sea,
Thou wouldst descend, e'en as thou art,
And truly happy be!"Do not the sun and moon with
Their forms in ocean lave?
Shines not with twofold charms their face,
When rising from the wave?
The deep, deep heavens, then lure thee not,—The moist yet radiant blue,—Not thine own form,—to tempt thy lot'Midst this eternal dew?"The waters rush'd, the waters rose,
Wetting his naked feet;
As if his true love's words were those,
His heart with longing beat.
She sang to him, to him spake she,
His doom was fix'd,
I ween;
Half drew she him, and half sank he,
And ne'er again was seen.
To the memory of an excellent and beautiful girl of 17,belonging to the village of Brienen, who perished on the 13th
January, 1809, whilst giving help on the occasion of the breakingup of the ice on the Rhine, and the bursting of the dam
Cleverham.
