‘Die Rache’

‘Rache, Die’, a short ballad of twelve lines by L. Uhland, written and published in 1810. The first line runs ‘Der Knecht hat erstochen den edlen Herrn’. The yeoman stabs and despoils his lord and himself perishes because he cannot control the stolen horse and is borne down by the weight of the stolen armour as he falls from the saddle into the Rhine. It is one of Uhland's most concise and powerful poems.