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From the German by Charles Timothy Brooks
“OLD man, God bless you! does your pipe taste sweetly? | |
| A beauty, by my soul! | |
| A red-clay flower-pot, rimmed with gold so neatly! | |
| What ask you for the bowl?” | |
| |
| “O sir, that bowl for worlds I would not part with; | 5 |
| A brave man gave it me, | |
| Who won it—now what think you?—of a bashaw | |
| At Belgrade’s victory. | |
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| “There, sir, ah! there was booty worth the showing,— | |
| Long life to Prince Eugene! | 10 |
| Like after-grass you might have seen us mowing | |
| The Turkish ranks down clean.” | |
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| “Another time I ’ll hear your story;— | |
| Come, old man, be no fool; | |
| Take these two ducats,—gold for glory, | 15 |
| And let me have the bowl!” | |
| |
| “I ’m a poor churl, as you may say, sir; | |
| My pension ’s all I ’m worth: | |
| Yet I ’d not give that bowl away, sir, | |
| For all the gold on earth. | 20 |
| |
| “Just hear now! Once, as we hussars, all merry, | |
| Hard on the foe’s rear pressed, | |
| A blundering rascal of a janizary | |
| Shot through our captain’s breast. | |
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| “At once across my horse I hove him,— | 25 |
| The same would he have done, | |
| And from the smoke and tumult drove him | |
| Safe to a nobleman. | |
| |
| “I nursed him, and, before his end, bequeathing | |
| His money and this bowl | 30 |
| To me, he pressed my hand, just ceased his breathing, | |
| And so he died, brave soul! | |
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| “The money thou must give mine host,—so thought I,— | |
| Three plunderings suffered he: | |
| And, in remembrance of my old friend, brought I | 35 |
| The pipe away with me. | |
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| “Henceforth in all campaigns with me I bore it, | |
| In flight or in pursuit; | |
| It was a holy thing, sir, and I wore it | |
| Safe-sheltered in my boot. | 40 |
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| “This very limb, I lost it by a shot, sir, | |
| Under the walls of Prague: | |
| First at my precious pipe, be sure, I caught, sir, | |
| And then picked up my leg.” | |
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| “You move me even to tears, old sire: | 45 |
| What was the brave man’s name? | |
| Tell me, that I, too, may admire, | |
| And venerate his fame.” | |
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| “They called him only the brave Walter; | |
| His farm lay near the Rhine.”— | 50 |
| “God bless your old eyes! ’t was my father, | |
| And that same farm is mine. | |
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| “Come, friend, you ’ve seen some stormy weather, | |
| With me is now your bed; | |
| We ’ll drink of Walter’s grapes together, | 55 |
| And eat of Walter’s bread.” | |
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| “Now,—done! I march in, then, to-morrow; | |
| You ’re his true heir, I see; | |
| And when I die, your thanks, kind master, | |
| The Turkish pipe shall be.” | 60 |
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