Then, go your way! Farewell! My task is done.
The hemlock Of your sin no man may hope
To rid your soul of. May God pity you!
But this remember! There's a word named rue!
And some day, some day, as your dreams You dream,
A sudden arrow, shot from out the blue,
Shall pierce your breast! And yet
You shall not die, Nor shall You live.
In that dread day you'll Curse
All you now cherish -God, the world, your work,
Your wretched self you'll curse. Then . . . think of me!
That bell shall ring again! Then think of me!
Barely does Heinrich escape the deadly clutch of outlived creeds, superstitions, and conventions embodied in the Vicar, than he is in the throes of other foes who conspire his doom.
Nature herself has decreed the death of Heinrich. For has not man turned his back upon her, has he not cast her off, scorned her beneficial of. ferings, robbed her of her beauty, devastated her charms and betrayed her trust-all for the ephemeral glow of artifice and sham? Hence Nature, too, is Heinrich's foe. Thus the Spirit of the Earth, with all its passions and lusts, symbolized in the Wood Sprite, and gross materialism in the person of the Nickelmann, drive the in. truder back.
The Wood Sprite.
He crowds us from our hills. He hacks and hews,
