Classic Poem

Count Eberhard-im-Bart
From Würtemburg's fair land
Went on a pious pilgrimage
To Palestina's strand.

As through a leafy wood
He took his lonely way;
He cut from off a hawthorn-bush
A green and healthy spray.

Upon his cap of steel
He placed it carefully;
He wore it in the battle's brunt,
And o'er the flowing sea.

And when he reached his home,
He placed it in the earth;
Where soon to many a swelling shoot
The genial spring gave birth.

The Count, good knight and true,
As year by year went by,
Would mark how strong, how tall it grew
With well-contented eye.

The Count was old and weak,
The sprig was now a tree;
Beneath its shade he oft would sit
And dream deliciously.

The arching boughs o'erhead,
Low-murmuring, softly bore
Sweet memories of the olden time
And that far-distant shore.