The Election
In towers of Marienbourg[1] the bells are ringing,
The cannon thunder. loud, the drums are beating.
This in the Order is a solemn day.
The Komturs hasten to the capital,
Where, gathered in the chapter's conclave, they,
The Holy Spirit invoked, take counsel who
Is worthiest to bear the mighty sword,—
Into whose hands may they confide the sword?
One day, and yet another flowed away
In council; many heroes there contend.
And all alike of noble race, and all
Alike deserving in the Order's cause.
But hitherto the brethren's general voice
Placed Wallenrod the highest over all.
A stranger he, in Prussia all unknown,
But foreign houses of his fame were full.[2]
Following the Moors upon Castilian sierras,
The Ottoman through ocean's troubled waves,
In battle at the front, first on the wall,
To grapple vessels of the infidel
The first; and in the tourney, soon as he
Entered the lists and deigned his visor raise,
