As for him who succeeds in shooting thee down,
The crown and sceptre shall proudly
Reward the worthy; the trumpets we’ll blow,
“Long life to the king,” shouting loudly.[42]
CAPUT IV.
’Twas late at night when I reach’d Cologne,
The Rhine was past me rushing,
The air of Germany on me breath’d,
And I felt its influence gushing
Upon my appetite. I ate
Some omelets, together with bacon;
And as they were salt, some Rhenish wine
Was by me also taken.
The Rhenish wine gleams like very gold,
When quaff’d from out a green rummer;
If thou drink’st a few pints in excess, ’twill give
Thy nose the colour of summer.
So sweet a tickling attacks the nose,
One’s sensations grow fonder and fonder;
It drove me out in the darkening night,
Through the echoing streets to wander.
The houses of stone upon me gazed,
As if wishing to tell me the mysteries
And legends of times that have long gone by,—
The town of Cologne’s old histories.
Yes, here it was that the clergy of yore
Dragg’d on their pious existence;
Here ruled the dark men, whose story’s preserved
By Ulrich von Hutten’s[43] assistance.
’Twas here that the nuns and monks once danced
In mediæval gyrations,
Here Cologne’s own Menzel, Hoogstraaten[44] by name,
Wrote his bitter denunciations.
’Twas here that the flames of the funeral pile
Both books and men once swallow’d;
The bells rang merrily all the while,
And Kyrie Eleison follow’d.