The Loreley

THE LORELEY

The Loreley is a location along the Rhine river where a beautiful maiden sat upon a ledge and groomed her golden hair. Legend has it that this woman sang with a voice as beautiful as a siren's, her words flowing endlessly into the air as she sat, ignorant of her nudity, upon the rocks. Sailors who came to that bend were always entranced by her beauty, and thus did not see the perilous waters laid before them. And thus they died, victim to the Loreley's beauty.

There is a German Poem about the Loreley, translated by Mark Twain it reads the following:

The Loreley

I cannot divine what it meaneth
This haunting nameless pain:
A tale of the bygone ages
Weeps brooding through my brain.
The faint air cools in the gloaming,
And peaceful flows the Rhine,
The thirsty summits are drinking
The sunet's flooding wine.

The loviest maiden is sitting
High thrones in yon blue air,
Her golden jewels are shining
She combs her golden hair;
She combs with a comb that is golden,
And sings a weerd refrain;
That steeps in a deadly enchantment
The listener's ravished brain.

The doomed in his drifting shallop
Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,
He sees not the yawning breakers.
He sees but the maid alone.
The pittiless billows engulf him!
So perish sailor and bark,
And this, with her baleful singing,
Is the Loreley's gruesome work.

Of course, I could not let myself be beaten by Mark Twain, so I just had to write my own poem. It's not finished, and never will be, but here it is:

The Loreley

A siren with a maiden's beauty;
an immortal voice that sings.
Long blonde hair stretched cross the rocks:
the golden thread she wrings.