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Translated by H. W. Dulcken
IT was an ancient monarch | |
| Ruled where the Rhine doth flow, | |
| And naught he loved so little | |
| As sorrow, feud, and woe: | |
| His warriors they were striving | 5 |
| For a treasure in the land; | |
| In sooth they near had perished | |
| Each by his brother’s hand. | |
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| Then spake he to the nobles: | |
| “What boots this gold,” he said, | 10 |
| “If with the finder’s life-blood | |
| The price thereof is paid? | |
| The gold, to end the quarrel, | |
| Cast to the Rhine away; | |
| There lie the treasure hidden, | 15 |
| Till dawns the latest day!” | |
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| The proud ones took the treasure, | |
| And cast it to the main; | |
| I ween it all hath melted, | |
| So long it there hath lain: | 20 |
| But, wedded to the waters | |
| That long have o’er it rolled, | |
| It clothes the swelling vineyards | |
| With yellow gleam, like gold. | |
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| O, that each man were minded, | 25 |
| As thought this monarch good, | |
| That never care might alter | |
| His high, courageous mood! | |
| Then deeply would we bury | |
| Our sorrows in the Rhine, | 30 |
| And, glad of heart and grateful, | |
| Would quaff his fiery wine. | |
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