A TALE OF MONTEFIASCONE.*

'T IS a small round flask wrapt in plaited reeds,

Filled with flickering, golden wine;

And a drop of the oil of olive-seeds

Fills the neck to keep it fine.

The oil is drawn from the neck with care,

That the luscious juice may flow;

And the rich perfume, like an incense rare,

Tells a tale of years ago.

In Augsburg town, on the river Lech,

Lived a bishop of noble fame;

His see was as fat as priest could wish;

Prince Ruprecht - was his name.

And one fine day, at the Kaiser's word,

In return for his loyal deeds,

He was sent on an embassy to Rome,

To attend to some temporal needs.

So with knights and chaplains he left the Lech,

And wound through the Jura chains;

Through the vales and defiles of the snowy Alps,

O'er Po with its fertile plains.

While a day in front of the stately suite

Rode a steward of trust and taste,

To choose the place where his lord might rest;

For the journey was not in haste.

And a strict command, as his way he took,

On the serving-man was laid:

'T was to taste the vintage of every town

Where the evening stop was made.

If the juice was clear, the fragrance sweet,

The flavor the very best,

He should write on the doors of the city gate

In capital letters, EST!

o one evening bright, as the journey led

Through an old Etruscan town,

Not loath was the servant to stop and taste

Its vintage of high renown.

He quaffed it deep, and he quaffed it long,

He sighed to drink again;

To seek for a better wine he knew

In all the world were vain.

So he rose in tears, and he sought an inn

Where his lord and suite might rest,

And wrote on the gate, to attract his eye,

The motto: EST! EST! EST!

When the hearty priest saw the triple name,

He rushed for the nearest inn,

And ordered the best of the sparkling juice

Stowed away in its deepest bin.

He drank one draught, and a hectic flush

Suffused the good man's face;

At the second draught a holy smile

Lit up the dusky place;

At the third he looked at the empty flasks,

And raised his fat right hand,

And blessed and absolved the bottles and cups,

Which he called an angel band.

At the fourth he fell in a gentle doze;

Then they carried him to his bed,

Where he slept the sleep of a blessed babe,

With a flask beneath his head.

The weeks, the months, and the years passed by

His servants had sunk to rest;

Still Ruprecht sat at the selfsame inn,

Drinking the EST! EST! EST!

At last good Ruprecht passed away

In a vision of golden wine,

And his heart was preserved in a single cask

Of the drink he thought so divine.

But Ruprecht was laid in the largest church,

Where a lamp burned day and night

By his effigy, dressed in episcopal robes,

Carved in marble of purest white;

And at his side was a marble flask,

The bishop's heraldic crest;

While his epitaph stated that he had died

Of drinking the EST! EST! EST!

Z.

*The story is authentic, as the tomb may be seen, as told in the story, in the town after which this poem is named.

- Tugger was his real name, but a friend suggests that it is too prosaic, so I have substituted the above.