The Song of the Little Baltung. A. D. 395 by Charles Kingsley

A harper came over the Danube so wide, / And he came into Alaric's hall, / And he sang the song of the little Baltung / To him and his heroes all.

How the old old Balt and the young young Balt / Rode out of Caucaland, / With the royal elephant's trunk on helm / And the royal lance in hand.

Thuringer heroes, counts and knights, / Pricked proud in their meinie; / For they were away to the great Kaiser, / In Byzant beside the sea.

And when they came to the Danube so wide / They shouted from off the shore, / 'Come over, come over, ye Roman slaves, / And ferry your masters o'er.'

And when they came to Adrian's burgh, / With its towers so smooth and high, / 'Come out, come out, ye Roman knaves, / And see your lords ride by.'

But when they came lo the long long walls / That stretch from sea to sea, / That old old Balt let down his chin, / And a thoughtful man grew he.

'Oh oft have I scoffed at brave Fridigern, / But never will I scoff more, / If these be the walls which kept him out / From the Micklegard there on the shore.'

Then out there came the great Kaiser, / With twice ten thousand men; / But never a Thuring was coward enough / To wish himself home again.

'Bow down, thou rebel, old Athanarich, / And beg thy life this day; / The Kaiser is lord of all the world, / And who dare say him nay?'

'I never came out of Caucaland / To beg for less nor more; / But to see the pride of the great Kaiser, / In his Micklegard here by the shore.

'I never came out of Caucaland / To bow to mortal wight, / But to shake the hand of the great Kaiser, / And God defend my right.'

He shook his hand, that cunning Kaiser, / And he kissed him courteouslie, / And he has ridden with Athanarich / That wonder-town to see.

He showed him his walls of marble white -- / A mile o'erhead they shone; / Quoth the Balt, 'Who would leap into that garden, / King Siegfried's boots must own.'

He showed him his engines of arsmetrick / And his wells of quenchless flame, / And his flying rocks, that guarded his walls / From all that against him came.

He showed him his temples and pillared halls, / And his streets of houses high; / And his watch-towers tall, where his star-gazers / Sit reading the signs of the sky.

He showed him his ships with their hundred oars, / And their sides like a castle wall, / That fetch home the plunder of all the world, / At the Kaiser's beck and call.

He showed him all nations of every tongue / That are bred beneath the sun, / How they flowed together in Micklegard street / As the brooks flow all into one.

He showed him the shops of the china ware, / And of silk and sendal also, / And he showed him the baths and the waterpipes / On arches aloft that go.

He showed him ostrich and unicorn, / Ape, lion, and tiger keen; / And elephants wise roared 'Hail Kaiser! ' / As though they had Christians been.

He showed him the hoards of the dragons and trolls, / Rare jewels and heaps of gold -- / 'Hast thou seen, in all thy hundred years, / Such as these, thou king so old?'