“Let Drickes be Chancellor, calling himself
“Count Drickes of Drickeshausen,
“And Marizebill the Mistress of State,
“With the Emperor fondly carousing.[92]
“Within his good sacred town of Cologne
“Will be Kobes’s habitation;
“And when the Cologners hear the glad news,
“They’ll have an illumination.
“The bells, the iron dogs of the air,
“Into joyous barks will be breaking,
“And the three holy kings from the land of the East
“In their chapel will soon be awaking.
“They’ll step outside with their clattering bones,
“All dancing with rapture and springing;
“I hear them the Hallelujah’s strains
“And Kyrie Eleison singing.”—
Thus spoke the dread white nightly ghost
With loud uproarious laughter;
Through all the resounding halls of the place
The echo rang wildly long after.
13. EPILOGUE.
Graves they say are warm’d by glory;
Foolish words and empty story!
Better far the warmth we prove
From a cow-girl deep in love,
With her arms around us flung,
Reeking with the smell of dung.
And that warmth is better too
That man’s entrails pierces through
When he drinks hot punch and wine,
Or his fill of grog divine,
In the vilest, meanest den
’Mongst the thieves and scum of men,
Who escape the gallows daily,
But who breathe and live all-gaily,
With as enviable fate
As e’en Thetis’ son so great.—
Rightly did Pelides say:
Living in the meanest way
In the upper world’s worth more,
Than beside the Stygian shore
King of shades to be; a hero
Such as Homer sang is zero.