Well said Princess Susan! I could not have given a better description. I can just add that Empress Elisabeth based her poetry on that of her idol, Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) and in fact seemed to believe that her poems were dictated to her by Heine himself. However, the comparison ends there, as while Heine's wit and irony were sharp and elegant, Elisabeth could not measure up to his standards (very few could!) and tended to be ponderous and heavy. Not many authors have actually studied Elisabeth's poetry in any detail (Brigitte Hamann being one of the few), but it is an interesting exercise, as it sheds a great deal of light on Elisabeth's character etc.
Here is another quotation, which may be a continuation of the poem quoted by Princess Susan above (at any rate it was written at around the same time, shortly after Elisabeth's marriage) "Farewell you quiet rooms, Farewell you ancient castle, Those first dreams of love, They rest beneath the waters of the lake".
Elisabeth stopped writing poetry after the death of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889.
