Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/147

 To the verse above mentioned I select another to be included in this narrative. The Haslibacher hymn written in the sixteenth century and published in the Ausbund, a hymn book of the Mennonites which has gone through eight editions in America and is still used among the Amish of Lancaster County, always made a strong impression upon me because of its dramatic power and simplicity. It has many of the features of the ballad literature and of the Nibelungenlied. I translated it from the German when at Harrisburg, in the midst of my first session of the legislature, as a sort of relief from the onerous pressure of new and difficult official duties. The translation preserves the rhyme, meter and versification, and to a certain extent maintains the spirit of the original:

(Sola)

Rh