"
"She will not come; she's one of us; she's
mine!" the Brown Dwarf said;
The day is set, the cake is baked, to-morrow we
shall wed."
"The fell fiend fetch thee!" Deitrich cried, "and
keep thy foul tongue still.
Quick! open, to thy evil world, the glass door of
the hill!"
The Dwarf obeyed; and youth and Troll down, the
long stair-way passed,
And saw in dim and sunless light a country strange
and vast.
Weird, rich, and wonderful, he saw the elfin
under-land,--
Its palaces of precious stones, its streets of golden
sand.
He came unto a banquet-hall with tables richly
spread,
Where a young maiden served to him the red wine
and the bread.
How fair she seemed among the Trolls so ugly and
so wild!
Yet pale and very sorrowful, 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.
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