There once was a knight full of sorrow and doubt,
With cheeks white as snow; indecision
Would cause him to totter and stagger about
As though he were trailing a vision.
And he was so wooden, so awkward and dumb
That flowers and maidens, whene'er he would come,
Would watch him and laugh in derision.

And often he'd sit in his gloom-shrouded place
(From men and their joys he had broken)
And hold out his arms in a yearning embrace,
Though never a word would be spoken ...
But just as the hours to midnight now ran
A marvelous singing and ringing began,
With a knock at his door for a token.

And lo, his love enters--a zephyr that blows;
Of shimmering sea-foam her dress is;
She glows and she grows like the bud of a rose,
Her veil gleams with gems, and her tresses
Fall to her feet in golden array;
Her eyes are impassioned. The lovers give way
And yield to each other's caresses.

He holds her so close that his heart almost breaks.
The wooden one now is afire;
The pallid one reddens, the dreamer awakes,
The bashful is bold with desire.
But she, she coquettes and she teases, and then
With her magical veil she must blind him again.
Who blindly does nought but admire.

In a watery palace of crystalline light
She has witched him, and all that was bitter
Grows golden and fair, all is magic and bright;
His eyes are bemused with the glitter.
The nixie still presses him close to her side;
The knight is the bridegroom, the nixie the bride--
Her maidens keep playing the zither.

Oh sweetly they sing and sweetly they play;
Fair feet in the dances are shown there;
The knight in his ardor is swooning away
And tighter he clasps her, his own there ...
Then all in an instant is plunged into gloom,
And our hero is sitting once more in his room,
In his poet's dim garret--alone there!