ON RE-READING CERTAIN GERMAN POETS

They hold their own, they have no peers In gloom and glow, in hopes and fears, In love and terror, hovering round The lore of that enchanted ground!— That mystic region, where one hears, By bandit towers, the hunt that nears Wild through the Hartz; the demon cheers Of Hackelnberg; his horn and hound— They hold their own. Dark Wallenstein; and, down the years, The Lorelei; and, creased with sneers, Faust, Margaret;—the Sabboth sound, Witch-whirling, of the Brocken, drowned In storm, through which Mephisto leers,— They hold their own.