Poems

Count Eberhard’s Hawthorn

Count Eberhard the Beard
From Wurttemberg’s domain
On a pious journey fared
To the shores of Palestine.

One day as he was riding
A woodland path in spring
From a hawthorn bush
He took a little cutting.

In his iron helmet
He placed the hawthorn spray;
He carried it off to war
Over the flowing sea.

And when he was back home
He set it in the earth,
And soon the leaves and buds
Into life were stirred.

The count, faithful and true,
Each year came to the sprig;
He was filled with joy
To see it grow so big.

The count shrank with age,
The sprig became a tree.
Beneath it the old man sat
In deepest reverie.

Its high-arching limbs,
Its whisper in his ear
Remind him of the past
And of the distant shore.