Safe at the valley’s ending,
The youths far off he spies;
Then faint and wounded, bending,
The hero falls and dies.
So his last hour o’ertook him,
Fighting like lion brave;
His truth, it ne’er forsook him,
He was faithful to the grave.
Now Eckart having perish’d,
The eldest son bore sway;
His memory still he cherish’d,
With grateful heart would say:
“From foes and wreck to save me,
Like lion grim he fought;
My throne, my life, he gave me,
And with his heart’s blood bought.”
And soon a wondrous rumour
The country round did fill,
That when a desp’rate humour
Doth send one to the Hill,
There straight a Shape will meet him,
The Trusty Eckart’s ghost,
And wistfully entreat him
To turn, and not be lost.
There he, though dead, yet ever
True watch and ward doth hold;
Upon the Earth shall never
Be man so true and bold.
PART II.
More than four centuries had elapsed since the Trusty Eckart’s death, when a noble Tannenhäuser, in the station of Imperial Counsellor, was living at Court in the highest estimation. The son of this knight surpassed in beauty all the other nobles of the land, and on this account was loved and prized by every one. Suddenly, however, after some mysterious inci-
