skirts were "often spotted with golden tears, which men call stars."
The day dawned slowly; and, in the mingling of daylightand
starlight, the island and cloister of Nonnenwerth made together but
one broad, dark shadow on the silver breast of the river. Beyond,
rose the summits of the Siebengebirg. Solemn and dark, like a monk,
stood the Drachenfels, in his hood of mist, and rearward extended
the Curtain of Mountains, back to the Wolkenburg,--the Castle of the
Clouds.

But Flemming thought not of the scene before him. Sorrow
unspeakable was upon his spirit in that lonely hour; and, hiding his
face in his hands, he exclaimed aloud;

"Spirit of the past! look not so mournfully at me with thy great,
tearful eyes! Touch me not with thy cold hand! Breathe not upon me
with the icy breath of the grave! Chant no more that dirge of
sorrow, through the long and silent watches of the night!"

Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, "Treuenfels!" and he
remembered how others had suffered, and his heart grew still.

Slowly the landscape brightened. Down therushing stream came a
boat, with its white wings spread, and darted like a swallow through
the narrow pass of God's-Help. The boatmen were singing, but not the
song of Roland the Brave, which was heard of old by the weeping
Hildegund, as she sat within the walls of that cloister, which now
looked forth in the pale morning from amid the leafless linden
trees. The dim traditions of those gray old times rose in the
traveller's memory; for the ruined tower of Rolandseck was still
looking down upon the Kloster Nonnenwerth, as if the sound of the