User:Phaisit16207/sandbox 3

1854 version
During Haydn's lifetime, his friend the musicologist Charles Burney, made an English translation of the first verse which is more poetical albeit less literal than the one given above:

God preserve the Emp'ror Francis Sov'reign ever good and great; Save, o save him from mischances In Prosperity and State! May his Laurels ever blooming Be by Patriot Virtue fed; May his worth the world illumine And bring back the Sheep misled! God preserve our Emp'ror Francis! Sov'reign ever good and great.

Burney's penultimate couplet about sheep has no counterpart in the original German and appears to be Burney's own contribution.

For translations into several of the languages that were spoken in the Austrian Empire, see Translations of Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser.