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Eau de Cologne
THE BEAUTIFUL Queen of Hungary, | |
| A sad and weary woman was she, | |
| Since for many weeks a terrible pain | |
| Seemed burning and darting through her brain. | |
| Long were the nights, for little she slept; | 5 |
| Longer the days, for all day she wept; | |
| Wretched as woman with pain could be | |
| Was the beautiful Queen of Hungary. | |
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| Nothing at all could the doctors do, | |
| Though they searched their folios through and through; | 10 |
| And the wonder was, as the weeks went by, | |
| That of such torment she did not die. | |
| But her Majesty had a will of her own, | |
| And a brave little heart as ever was known, | |
| And very determined to live was she, | 15 |
| The beautiful Queen of Hungary. | |
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| Finding all pharmacy false and fair, | |
| Her Majesty took to penance and prayer. | |
| “Blessed Otilia, aid me!” she cried; | |
| “Sweet Juliana, be thou my guide!” | 20 |
| For these are the saints who the Church has said | |
| Should be called upon for a pain in the head, | |
| So she went to them for a remedy,— | |
| The beautiful Queen of Hungary. | |
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| Long she prayed, till at length it seemed | 25 |
| That though still waking and praying she dreamed. | |
| All around shone a living light | |
| Of angels in angels gleaming bright, | |
| A glory of faces in all the air, | |
| Each blended of faces still more fair, | 30 |
| And rapt in this radiant mystery | |
| Was the beautiful Queen of Hungary. | |
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| But where the splendor brightest shone | |
| Two fairer figures stood gazing down | |
| On the suffering Queen with a loving air, | 35 |
| The two she had called on in her prayer; | |
| O, the fondest lover has never known | |
| Such beauty in her he would call his own, | |
| And on earth such light you could never see | |
| As shone on the Queen of Hungary. | 40 |
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| Saint Juliana the silence broke, | |
| And thus to the kneeling lady spoke: | |
| “Long hast thou suffered,—’t is time to know | |
| The pleasure which comes when torments go. | |
| Mary the Mother is Rose of Heaven,— | 45 |
| By the Rosa Mystica life is given; | |
| Take, in her name, of rosemary, | |
| O penitent Queen of Hungary! | |
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| “Then of Melissa, the honeyed balm, | |
| Which soothed of old the martyr’s qualm, | 50 |
| Spirit of rose from the garden bower, | |
| Of fresh sweet mint and the orange-flower, | |
| Blended together these scents give forth | |
| The freshest fragrance known on earth; | |
| And since it was first revealed to thee, | 55 |
| They shall call it the water of Hungary.” | |
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| The heavenly recipé was tried | |
| With great success, and far and wide | |
| Men boasted much of its power to cure, | |
| And said that in headaches ’t was ever sure. | 60 |
| With time some changes o’er it came, | |
| Till at last they changed its very name, | |
| Yet ’t is true enough, and to many known, | |
| That this was the first of Eau de Cologne, | |
| So whenever you use it grateful be | 65 |
| To the sainted Queen Elsa of Hungary. | |
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