Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.

Würtemberg

Würtemberg

By From the German

(From Count Eberhard)
Translated by R. Harrison

WELL: you shall hear a simple tale:

One night I lost my way

Within a wood, along a vale,

And down to sleep I lay.

And there I dreamed that I was dead,

And funeral lamps were shining

With silver lustre round my head,

Within a vault reclining.

And men and women stood beside

My cold, sepulchral bed;

And, shedding many tears, they cried,

“Duke Eberhard is dead!”

A tear upon my face fell down,

And, waking with a start,

I found my heart was resting on

A Würtembergian heart!

A woodman, mid the forest-shade,

Had found me in my rest,

Had lifted up my head, and laid

It softly on his breast!

The princes sat, and wondering heard,

Then said, as closed the story,

“Long live the good Duke Eberhard,—

His people’s love his glory?”