“I WAS gliding¹ over the Luneburg Heath,” the Moon said. “A lonely hut stood by the wayside, a few scanty² bushes grew near it, and a nightingale who had lost his way sang sweetly. He died in the coldness of the night: it was his farewell song that I heard.

“The morning dawn came glimmering³ red. I saw a caravan⁴ of emigrant⁵ peasant families who were bound to Hamburgh, there to take ship for America, where fancied prosperity would bloom for them. The mothers carried their little children at their backs, the elder ones tottered⁶ by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged⁷ at a cart that bore their scanty effects. The cold wind whistled, and therefore the little girl nestled closer to the mother, who, looking up at my decreasing disc, thought of the bitter want at home, and spoke⁸ of the heavy taxes they had not been able to raise. The whole caravan thought of the same thing; therefore, the rising dawn seemed to them a message from the sun, of fortune that was to gleam brightly upon them. They heard the dying nightingale sing; it was no false prophet, but a harbinger of fortune. The wind whistled, therefore they did not understand that the nightingale sung, ‘Fare away over the sea! Thou hast paid the long passage with all that was thine, and poor and helpless shalt thou enter Canaan. Thou must sell thyself, thy wife, and thy children. But your griefs shall not last long. Behind the broad fragrant⁹ leaves lurks¹⁰ the goddess of Death, and her welcome kiss shall breathe fever into thy blood. Fare away, fare away, over the heaving billows.’ And the caravan listened well pleased to the song of the nightingale, which seemed to promise good fortune. Day broke through the light clouds; country people went across the heath to church; the black-gowned women with their white head-dresses looked like ghosts that had stepped forth¹¹ from the church pictures. All around lay a wide dead plain, covered with faded brown heath, and black charred¹² spaces between the white sand hills. The women carried hymn¹³ books, and walked into the church. Oh, pray, pray for those who are wandering to find graves beyond the foaming¹⁴ billows.”