He stopped short, and clasping his hand, he said, with a deep sigh, "Alas, Sintram! my foster-child, darling of my heart, what has come over thee, thus fearfully stirring thee to rage ?" The youth stood awhile as if spell-bound; he looked in his old friend's face with a fixed and melancholy gaze, and his eyes became dim, like expiring watch-fires seen through a thick cloud of mist.

At length he sighed forth these words, almost inaudibly: "Good Rolf, good Rolf, depart from me! thy garden of heaven is no home for me; and if sometimes a light breeze blow open its golden gates, so that I can look in and see the flowery meadow-land where the dear angels dwell, then straightway between them and me come the cold north wind and the icy storm, and the sounding doors fly together, and I remain without, lonely, in endless winter." "Beloved young knight, oh, listen to me--listen to the good angel within you! Do you not bear in your hand that very sword with which the pure lady girded you?
does not her scarf wave over your raging breast?
Do you not recollect how you used to say, that no man could wish for more than had fallen to you ?" "Yes, Rolf, I have said that," replied Sintram, sinking on the mossy turf, bitterly weeping.

Tears also ran over the old man's white beard.
Before long the youth stood again erect, his tears ceased to flow, his looks were fearful, cold, and grim; and he said, "You see, Rolf, I have passed blessed peaceful days, and I thought that the powers of evil would never again have dominion over me.

So, perchance, it might have been, as day would ever be did the Sun ever stand in the sky.

But ask the poor benighted Earth, wherefore she looks so dark! Bid her again smile as she was wont to do! Old man, she cannot smile; and now that the gentle compassionate Moon has disappeared behind the clouds with her only funeral veil, she cannot even weep.