Then lost was banner, spear, and shield,

At Sempach in the flight,

The cloister vaults at Konig'sfield

Hold many an Austrian knight.

It was the Archduke Leopold,
So lordly would he ride,

But he came against the Switzer churls,
And they slew him in his pride.

The heifer said unto the bull,

"And shall I not complain?

There came a foreign nobleman
To milk me on the plain.

"One thrust of thine outrageous horn

Has gall'd the knight so sore,

That to the churchyard he is borne,

To range our glens no more."

An Austrian noble left the stour,

And fast the flight 'gan take;

And he arrived in luckless hour
At Sempach on the lake,

He and his squire a fisher call'd,
(His name was Hans Von Rot)
"For love, or meed, or charity,

Receive us in thy boat."

Their anxious call the fisher heard,

And, glad the meed to win,

His shallop to the shore he steer'd,

And took the flyers in.

And while against the tide and wind
Hans stoutly row'd his way,
The noble to his follower sign'd

He should the boatman slay.

The fisher's back was to them turn'd,

The squire his dagger drew,

Hans saw his shadow in the lake,

The boat he overthrew.

He 'whelm'd the boat, and as they strove, He stunn'd them with his oar,

"Now, drink ye deep, my gentle sirs,

You'll ne'er stab boatman more.

"Two gilded fishes in the lake

This morning have I caught,

Their silver scales may much avail,
Their carrion flesh is naught."

It was a messenger of woe

Has sought the Austrian land;

"Ah! gracious lady, evil news!

My lord lies on the strand.

2 B

"At Sempach, on the battle field,

His bloody corpse lies there :"

"Ah, gracious God!" the lady cried, "What tidings of despair!"

Now would you know the minstrel wight,
Who sings of strife so stern,

Albert the Souter is he hight,
A burgher of Lucerne.

A merry man was he, I wot,
The night he made the lay,
Returning from the bloody spot,

Where God had judged the day.

355

THE

NOBLE MORINGER.

AN ANCIENT BALLAD,

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.

THE original of these verses occurs in a collection of German popular songs, entitled Sammlung Deutchen Volkslieder, Berlin 1807, published by Messrs Busching and Von der Hagen, both, and more especially the last, distinguished for their acquaintance with the ancient popular poetry and legendary history of Germany.

In the German Editor's notice of the ballad, it is stated to have been extracted from a manuscript Chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to Saint Leonard in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally sung in the neighbourhood at that early period. Thomann, as quoted by the German Editor, seems faithfully to have believed the event he narrates. He quotes tomb-stones and obituaries to prove the existence of the personages of the ballad, and discovers that there