‘Der alte Turmhahn’

‘alte Turmhahn, Der’, an idyll (Idylle) by E. Mörike, begun in 1840, completed and published in 1852. It consists of 293 lines of Knittelverse, and Mörike, directing his irony upon himself, sets the idyll in his own parish ‘Zu Cleversulzbach im Unterland’. The old weathercock, taken down after 113 years, is rescued from the smithy by the pastor and set up in his study. The cock tells of his old and new life and, in doing so, reflects the idyllic life of the village parsonage.