First Vampire Poem Ever

“Der Vampir”
by: Heinrich August Ossenfelder

My dear young maiden clingeth
Unbending, fast and firm
To all the long-held teaching
Of a mother ever true;
As in vampires unmortal
Folk on the Theyse’s portal *
Heyduck-like do believe. **
But my Christine thou dost dally,
And wilt my loving parry
Till I myself avenging
To a vampire’s health a-drinking
Him toast in pale tockay. ***

And as softly thou art sleeping
To thee shall I come creeping
And thy life’s blood drain away.
And so shalt thou be trembling
For thus shall I be kissing
And death’s threshold thou’ it be crossing
With fear, in my cold arms.
And last shall I thee question
Compared to such instruction
What are a mother’s charms?

1748
(2 years after Dom Augustin Calmet published his treatise on vampires,
Dissertations sur les Apparitions des Anges des Démons et des Esprits, et sur les revenants, et Vampires de Hongrie, de Bohème, de Moravie, et de Silésie

and 20 years after the beginning of the Vampire hysteria that swept East Prussia, Hungary and Austrian Serbia...)


NOTES
* Theyse (Tisza): it is the second biggest river in Hungary

** Heyduck: a semimilitary official of seventeenth and eighteenth
century Hungary.

*** Tokay: a well known type of Hungarian wine.