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.