the boatman still gazed
upwards, intoxicated by her matchless beauty and the magic of her
voice, his boat was swept against the rock, and, with the jar and
crash, knowledge came back to him, and he heard, with broken heart,
the mocking laughter of the Lorelei as he was dragged down as if by a
thousand icy hands, and, with a choking sigh, surrendered his life to
the pitiless river.

To one man only was it granted to see the siren so near that he could
hold her little, cold, white hands, and feel the wondrous golden hair
sweep across his eyes. This was a young fisherman, who met her by the
river and listened to the entrancing songs that she sang for him
alone. Each evening she would tell him where to cast his nets on the
morrow, and he prospered greatly and was a marvel to all others who
fished in the waters of the Rhine. But there came an evening when he
was seen joyously hastening down the river bank in response to the
voice of the Lorelei, that surely never had sounded so honey-sweet
before, and he came back nevermore. They said that the Lorelei had
dragged him down to her coral caves that he might live with her there
forever, and, if it were not so, the rushing water could never whisper
her secret and theirs, of a lifeless plaything that they swept
seawards, and that wore a look of horror and of great wonder in its
dead, wide-open eyes.

It is "ein Maerchen aus alten Zeiten"--a legend of long ago.

But it is a very much older _Maerchen_ that tells us of the warning of
Circe to Odysseus:

"To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who bewitch all men, whosoever
shall come to them. Whoso draws nigh them unwittingly and hears the
sound of the Siren's voice, never doth he see wife or babes stand by
him on his return, nor have they joy at his coming; but the Sirens
enchant him with their clear song."

And until there shall be no more sea and the rivers have ceased to
run, the enchantment that comes from the call of the water to the
hearts of men must go on. Day by day the toll of lives is paid, and
still the cruel daughters of the deep remain unsatisfied. We can hear
their hungry whimper from the rushing river through the night, and the
waves of the sea that thunders along the coast would seem to voice the
insistence of their desire. And we who listen to their ceaseless,
restless moan can say with Heine:

"_Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,_
_Dass ich so traurig bin._"

For the sadness of heart, the melan