Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
The King of the Seven Hills
By Joseph Matzerath (18151876)I
And all his people called him “good,”—no other name is known.
His children all were beautiful and cheerful as the day.
And to the poorest subject there he gave a friendly hand.
He bade his servants bear him to a neighboring mountain high:
While through the valleys, brightly green, flowed peacefully the Rhine;
While round them stood the mighty hills in darkly-blue array;
Stern guardians! on their charge below forever looking down.
He cries, “My own loved country! I must bless thee ere I go!
How beauteous are the pastures all that on thy margin shine.
Let me spend my breath in blessing thee, and so, contented, die.
May sorrow and oppression come within your borders never!
Forever ’neath the guardianship of the Almighty’s eye!”
And the halo of the setting sun shone all around his head.
But his blessing still is resting on the land he called his own.