I don’t know what it could mean,

We crept into the henhouse,And hid there in the straw.We crowed like the cockerel,And all the passers-by –Thought our: ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’Was the real cockerel’s cry.We papered over the boxesWe found around the yard,And we lived there togetherIn our elegant house of card.The neighbour’s cat, the old one,She often came for tea:We paid her our respects, then,I…

But a tale of times departedHaunts me, and will not go.The air is cool, and it darkens,And calmly flows the Rhine,The mountain-peaks are sparklingIn the sunny evening-shine.And yonder sits a maiden,The fairest of the fair ;With gold is her garment glittering,And she combs her golden hair:With a golden comb she combs it;And a wild song…

When he was plying his naughty craft,She lay on the bed and laughed.The days went by in pleasure and joy,At night in the sheets she hugged her boy.When they dragged him off to jail at last,She stood at the window and laughed.He wrote to her saying: ‘O come to me,I long for you, so badly,…

Sister and father and motherKnew me, and welcomed me in.They asked me how I was faring,And said, as I entered the place,That I wasn’t changed a bit, justA little thin in the face.I asked after aunts and cousins,After many a tiresome one,And asked how their little dog,With its soft little bark had done.And I asked…

We saw the mists of eveningCome riding and rolling by :The lights in the lighthouse windowBrighter and brighter grew,And on the dim horizonA ship still hung in view.We spake of storm and shipwreck,Of the seaman’s anxious life ;How he floats ‘twixt sky and water,‘Twixt joy and sorrow’s strife :We spoke of coasts far distant,We spoke…

sleeps in a white blanket,draped in snow and ice.His dreams are of a palm-tree,who, far in eastern lands,weeps, all alone and silent,among the burning sands.