Classic Poem

Unstern, bold and luckless youngster,
Often was by fate undone;
Many a time he nearly prospered,
Many a prize he nearly won.
Every star that rules propitious
Of success a plenteous store
Would have brought him, had his mother
Borne him but an hour before!

Fame in war, a hero's glory
Soon had been his own by right;
No one, through the countless army,
Fought with more courageous might;
Only — as to storm a castle
He his band impetuous led —
Comes a herald who, exhausted,
Waves a flag of truce o'erhead!

Fixed was Unstern's day of marriage,
Fair and lovely glows the bride;
Lo! there comes a wealthier suitor,
Truckling to her parents' pride.
Later, she who thus was stolen,
Widowed, would have eased his pain;
Had not he whose death was rumoured
Suddenly returned again!

Unstern would have rolled in riches
Gotten in the Newer World,
Lo! a raging storm his vessel
(Now in port) to ruin hurled!
He himself had 'scaped by swimming,
Grasping tight a floating plank;
But — as near the beach he drifted —
Slipped the board, and down he sank!

Soon had he arrived in heaven,
(Upward to the skies he flew),
But, by chance, a blundering demon
Crossed him on the way thereto.
" Surely this — so thought the demon —
Seems the soul I came to seize; "
Unstern by the throat he catches;
Like a madman, off he flees.

Lo! to save him comes an angel,
From the clouds he flashes down;
In the deepest pit infernal
Swiftly hurls the swarthy clown;
Unstern bears he, upward soaring,
Tow'rds the heights where dwell the blest;
Far o'er good and evil planets
Finds he now eternal rest.