From the water’s coolness I drink embers
The novel Godwi established the Rhine’s reputation as a Romantic locus of longing. The “Fragmentary Continuation” at the end of the second volume is set on the banks of the Middle Rhine. It contains the poem “At Bacharach on the Rhine”, in which Brentano creates a Romantic myth still popular today. The character Lore Lay that he invented was soon mistaken for an ancient figure of legend.