Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
The Happiest Land
By From the GermanT
By an alehouse on the Rhine,
Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine.
Around the rustic board;
Then sat they all so calm and still,
And spake not one rude word.
A Swabian raised his hand,
And cried, all hot and flushed with wine,
“Long live the Swabian land!
Cannot with that compare;
With all the stout and hardy men
And the nut-brown maidens there.”
And dashed his beard with wine;
“I had rather live in Lapland,
Than that Swabian land of thine!
It is the Saxon land!
There have I as many maidens
As fingers on this hand!”
A bold Bohemian cries;
“If there ’s a heaven upon this earth,
In Bohemia it lies.
And the cobbler blows the horn,
And the miner blows the bugle,
Over mountain gorge and bourn.”
And then the landlord’s daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,
And said, “Ye may no more contend,—
There lies the happiest land!”