HISTORICAL POEMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1956, 20 August 1891, Page 34

HISTORICAL POEMS.

A SERIES OF GERMAN BALLADS, Done Into English Vebsb bt O. BAETEBTZ.

Count Eberhard yon Bart, who was bora 1446 (the date of the marriage of Margaret of Anjou), succeeded to the inheritance of his ancestors in 1457, under the guardianship of the Emparor Frederick 11. He is considered one of the best xulen that bis country ever had, and was greatly belovei by bit subjects, He died in 1496. He was raited to the ducal dignity by tha .Emperor Maximilian I. The subject of the present ballad is derived from Gamerarlus' life of Melauohthon (Qotzlnger, " Deutche Dioter," I, p. 670). The diet held at Worms in 1495 is the one alluded to in the present poem.

THE RICHEST PRINCE. (1495.)

Boasting of their noble countries, Vaunting in no measuied terms. Sit full many German princes At the diet held at Worms, " Glorious," said the Sixon Crown Prinoe t " Is my country and its might, And is Been upon our mountains Many a vein of silver bright." " See my undulating meadows," Spoke the Palsgrave of the Rhine, " Golden wheat sheaves in the valleys, On the mountains noble wine." " Lordly cities, ancient cloisters," Ludwig of Bavaria said, " Sure my land than all your countries In renown is far ahead." Then Count Eberhard responded — Wurtembarg's beloved lord : " My country has no stately towns Nor hills with silver stored, But one jewel there ia buried

Worth your wine and gold mayhap, I my head seoure can pillow Erery evening in if s lap." The a outoried Bavaria's Crown Prince —

He of Sax'ny, of the Rhine : " Count Eberhnrd, you are richest — The palm is surely thine ! " — JUSTINIDS KeBNBB,

On September 7, 1558 (the date of the burning of Arohbiehop Oranmer in England), Oharlei V, worn out with toll and dlsap. pointment. abdicated, and in 1557 retired to the monastery of San Yuste, near Placenzla, la the west of Spain. The] arrival of Charles at the gate of the monastery is the scene imagined by the poet. It in a stormy night, Nature suiting the aspeot of the worn-out Emperor's mind. Themonaroh'g only request is for quiet and solitude in which to await his death. Charles V died on September 21, 1558 (the date of England's loss of GaUls). "He resolved to celebrate his own obsequies before hit death. He ordered this tomb to be erected in the? monastery. His domestios marohed thither in funeral prooession, with b'.aok tapers Id their hands. ... He himself followed la his shroud. He was laid in his coffin (saroophag) with much solemnity. The servioe of the dead was chanted. This affected him so much, that next day he was seized with a fever, and his feeble frame .could not long resist its violence."

Ghirles V held the crown* of Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Naples, and Sicily, together with the new world diicovered by Oolumbui. The " auoient empire " wai indeed burled with Charles V. It is true that the existence of th* "empire" was protracted for another 250 years, but it was a mere name, without any living reality, his(t)\ov a/xavpOV. This difsolutloa and diimemberment was, if poieible, carried still further by the moot deßtraotive war ia the history of Germany—the Thirty Years' War.

THE PILGRIM BEFORE SAN YUSTE.

(1557.) 'Tis night — the storm is raging sore ; Ye Spanish friars, ope 1 to me the door ! Let me rest here till waked by passing bell Whiob soon must call to heaven or to bell t Ye brothers, for your emperor prepare A monk's cowl and a humble sarcoph bare ; A dreary cell appoint me— why repine ? More than the half of this fair world was

mine! This head that oondesoendeth to be shorn ' How many a noble coronet did adorn ? These shoulders where the cowl must now ba

placed Have the Imperial ermine of ttimaa graced. Now ore my death shall I be buried here, And fall in ruins— like my country dear. — PIiATKN,

—The Thirty-years' war was a series of wars between the Catholics and Protestants of Germany in the seventeenth century. It began in Bohemia in 1618, and ended in 1648 with the " Peace of Westphalia."