TO PARIS BY THE "HINDENBURG LINE."
A TEUTON TRIBUTE TO THE ORGANISER OF VICTORY.
That man at dawn should certainly be shot
For being such a liar,
Who says that you, my HINDENBURG, are not
As high as our All-Highest, mate of GOTT
(Or even slightly higher).
Stout thruster, in the push you have no peer,
Yet more supremely brilliant
This crowning stroke of progress toward the rear,
This strong recoil from which with heartened cheer
We hope to bound resilient.
Lo! the creative spirit's vital spark!
None but a genius, we say,
Would make his onset backward in the dark
Or choose this route for getting at the Arc
De Triomphe (Champs Elysées).
Nor to your care for detail are we blind;
Your handiwork we view in
The reeking waste our warriors leave behind;
We read the motions of a master-mind
In that red trail of ruin.
And not alone by yonder blackened beams,
By garth and homestead burning,
You put the sanguine enemy off your schemes,
Who gaily follows up and never dreams
That we'll be soon returning;
But by these speaking signs of godly hate,
This ruthless ravage (prosit!),
You teach a barbarous world how truly great
Our German Gospel, and how grim the fate
Of people who oppose it!
Then praised be Heaven because we cannot fail
With HINDENBURG to boss us;
And for each hearth stript naked to the gale
Let grateful homage plug another nail
In your superb colossus.
O.S.