Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 6.djvu/532

498 lands. They then bent their course farther through carefully cultivated fruit and pleasure gardens, in an orderly and populous neighbourhood, until first a copse and then a wood received them as guests, and delighted their eyes with a limited but charming landscape. A green valley leading to the heights above, which had been lately mowed for the second time, and wore the appearance of velvet, having been copiously watered by a rich stream, now received them with a friendly welcome. They then bent their course to a higher and more open spot, which, upon issuing from the wood, they reached after a short ascent, and whence they obtained a distant view of the old castle, the object of their pilgrimage, which shone above the groups of trees, and assumed the appearance of a well-wooded rock. Behind them (for no one ever attained this height without turning to look round) they saw, through occasional openings in the lofty trees, the prince's castle on the left, illuminated by the morning sun; the higher portion of the town, obscured by a light, cloudy mist; and, on the right hand, the lower part, through which the river flowed in many windings, with its meadows and its mills; whilst straight before them the country extended in a wide, productive plain.

After they had satisfied their eyes with the landscape, or rather, as is often the case in surveying an extensive view from an eminence, when they had become desirous of a wider and less circumscribed prospect, they rode slowly along a broad and stony plain, where they saw the mighty ruin standing with its coronet of green, whilst its base was clad with trees of lesser height; and proceeding onward they encountered the steepest and most impassable side of the ascent. It was defended by enormous rocks, which had endured for ages: proof against the ravages of time, they were fast rooted in the earth, and towered aloft. One part of the castle had fallen, and lay in huge fragments irregularly