C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Luck of Edenhall
By Johann Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862)
O
Bids sound the festal trumpet’s call;
He rises at the banquet board,
And cries, ’mid the drunken revelers all,
“Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall!”
The house’s oldest seneschal,—
Takes slow from its silken cloth again
The drinking-glass of crystal tall:
They call it The Luck of Edenhall.
Fill with red wine from Portugal!”
The graybeard with trembling hand obeys:
A purple light shines over all;
It beams from the Luck of Edenhall.
“This glass of flashing crystal tall
Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite;
She wrote in it, If this glass doth fall,
Farewell then, O Luck of Edenhall!
Of the joyous race of Edenhall!
We drink deep draughts right willingly;
And willingly ring, with merry call.
Kling! klang! to the Luck of Edenhall!”
Like to the song of a nightingale;
Then like the roar of a torrent wild;
Then mutters at last, like the thunder’s fall,
The glorious Luck of Edenhall.
The fragile goblet of crystal tall:
It has lasted longer than is right:—
Kling! klang! with a harder blow than all
Will I try the Luck of Edenhall!”
Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall;
And through the rift the flames upstart:
The guests in dust are scattered all
With the breaking Luck of Edenhall!
He in the night had scaled the wall;
Slain by the sword lies the youthful lord,
But holds in his hand the crystal tall,
The shattered Luck of Edenhall.
The graybeard,—in the desert hall
He seeks his lord’s burnt skeleton;
He seeks in the dismal ruin’s fall
The shards of the Luck of Edenhall.
Down must the stately columns fall:
Glass is this earth’s Luck and Pride;
In atoms shall fall this earthly ball,
One day, like the Luck of Edenhall.”