wful, like one who never
smiled!

Her low, sweet voice, her gold-brown hair, her tender
blue eyes seemed
Like something he had seen elsewhere or some.
thing he had dreamed.

He looked; he clasped her in his arms; he knew
the long-lost one;
"O Lisbeth! See thy playmate--I am the
Amptman's son!"

She leaned her fair head on his breast, and through
her sobs she spoke
"Oh, take me from this evil place, and from the
elfin folk,

"And let me tread the grass-green fields and smell
the flowers again,
And feel the soft wind on my cheek and hear the
dropping rain!

"And oh, to hear the singing bird, the rustling of
the tree,
The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of
the sea;

"And oh, upon my father's knee to sit beside the
door,
And hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin
church once more!"

He kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips; the Brown
Dwarf groaned to see,
And tore his tangled hair and ground his long
teeth angrily.

But Deitrich said: "For five long years this tender
Christian maid
Has served you in your evil world and well must
she be paid!

"Haste!--hither bring me precious gems, the
richest in your store;
Then when we pass the gate of glass, you'll take
your cap once more."

No choice was left the baffled Troll, and, murmuring,
he obeyed,
And filled the pockets of the youth and apron of
the maid.

They left the dreadful under-land and passed the
gate of glass;
They felt the sunshine's warm caress, they trod the
soft, green grass.

And when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf stretch up
to them his brown
And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed his red
cap down.

Oh, never shone so bright a sun, was never sky so
blue,
As hand in hand they homeward walked the pleasant
meadows through!

And never sang the birds so sweet in Rambin's
woods before,
And never washed the waves so soft along the Baltic
shore;

And when beneath his door-yard trees the father
met his child,
The bells rung out their merriest peal, the folks
with joy ran wild.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Whittier, Volume I (of
VII), by John Greenleaf Whittier

*** END OF THIS PROJEC