Ludwig Uhland: “The Ancestral Vault”

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Excerpt, “Ballads from the German.”  Translator, Henry Englis.  1864.

Nor-Varagavank-3

The Ancestral Vault

.

There went a hoary war-worn sire

Across the solitary wold,

Up to the sanctuary old,

And stepped into the gloomy choir.

 .

In ranks, the bannered vault along,

The grim ancestral coffins lay;

And through the darkness came alway

A warning, wondrous strain of song.

.

“Ye warriors, in your shrouds of mail,

Your stately burial-dirge I hear;

It calls me to yon empty bier—

It bids your latest kinsman hail.”

.

There stood, by shadows half concealed,

One empty bier amongst the dead;

He laid him in the narrow bed,

Cold pillowed on his dinted shield.

.

His sword, recumbent on his breast,

Was folded in the sleep of death;

Hushed was the ghostly anthem’s breath,

And the dead warriors were at rest.

 

, August 16, 2015. J.L. Uhland, Ludwig Uhland

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