hinter
       de Baeume: 
  ’Roth wo bin i iez!’—­und het si urige Phatest. 
  Aber wie de gosch, wirsch sichtli groesser und
       schoener. 
  Wo di liebligen Othern weiht, so faerbt si der Rase
  Grueener rechts und links, es stoehn in saftige
       Triebe
  Gras und Chrueter uf, es stoehn in frischere Gstalte
  Farbigi Blueemli do, und d’ Immli choemmen und
       suge. 
  ’S Wasserstelzli chunnt, und lueg doch,’s Wuli
       vo Todtnau! 
  Alles will di bschauen, und Alles will di bigruesse,
  Und di fruendlig Herz git alle fruendligi Rede: 
  ’Choemmet ihr ordlige Thierli, do hender, esset
       und trinket! 
  Witers goht mi Weg, Gsegott, ihr ordlige Thierli!’”
]

The poet follows the stream through her whole course, never dropping the figure, which is adapted, with infinite adroitness, and with the play of a fancy as wayward and unrestrained as her own waters, to all her changing aspects.  Beside the Catholic chapel of Fair-Beeches she pauses to listen to the mass; but farther down the valley becomes an apostate, and attends the Lutheran service in the Husemer church.  Stronger and statelier grown, she trips along with the step of a maiden conscious of her own beauty, and the poet clothes her in the costume of an Alemannic bride, with a green kirtle of a hundred folds, and a stomacher of Milan gauze, “like a loose cloud on a morning sky in spring-time.”  Thus equipped, she wanders at will over the broader meadows, around the feet of vineyard-hills, visits villages and churches, or stops to gossip with the lusty young millers.  But the woman’s destiny is before her; she cannot escape it; and the time is drawing near when her wild, singing, pastoral being shall be absorbed in that of the strong male stream, the bright-eyed son of the Alps, who has come so far to woo and win her.

  Daughter o’ Feldberg, half-and-half I’ve got
       a suspicion
  How as you’ve virtues and faults enough now
       to choose ye a husband. 
  Castin’ y’r eyes down, are you?  Pickin’ and
       plattin’ y’r ribbons? 
  Don’t be so foolish, wench!—­She thinks I
       know nothin’ about it,
  How she’s already engaged, and each is
       a-waitin’ for t’other. 
  Don’t I know him, my darlin’, the lusty
       young fellow, y’r sweetheart?

  Over powerful rocks, and through the hedges
       and thickets,
  Right away from the snowy Swiss mountains
       he plunges at Rheineck
  Down to the lake, and straight ahead swims
       through it to Constance,
  Sayin’:  “‘T’s no use o’ talkin’, I’ll have
       the gal I’m engaged to!”

  But, as he reaches Stein, he goes a little more slowly,
  Leavin’ the lake where he’s decently washed his feet and his body. 
  Diessenhofen don’t please him,—­no, nor the convent beside it. 
  For’ard he goes to Schaffhausen, onto the rocks at the corner;