Were the words he spake; to wit: -
"When the tomb has housed and kept me
For the space of twenty days,
Thou canst paint the wished-for portrait
Of my body as it lays."
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When the tomb had called the poet,
And the twenty days were o'er,
Faithful to the very moment
Ruprecht waited at the door.
And within, in richest velvets,
On a marble couch he lay,
With his bowels all burst open
And his face half eaten away.
And his portrait there was painted
As within the tomb he lay,
And was hung up in his castle,
Where it hangeth to this day.
Z.