Majestic Monarch! whom the other gods, For fear of their immediate removal, Consulting hourly, seek your awful nod’s Approval; Lift but your little finger up to strike, And lo! ‘the massy earth is riven’ (Shelley), The habitable globe is shaken like A jelly. By your express permission for the last Eight years the sun has regularly risen; And editors, that questioned this, have passed To prison. In Art you simply have to say, “I shall!” Beethoven’s fame is rendered transitory; And Titian cloys beside your clever all- -egory. 77 We hailed you Admiral: your eagle sight Foresaw Her Majesty’s benign intentions; A uniform was ready of the right Dimensions. Your wardrobe shines with all the shapes and shades, That genius can fix in fancy suitings; For levées, false alarums, full parades And shootings. But save the habit marks the man of gore Your spurs are yet to win, my callow Kaiser! Of fighting in the field you know no more Than I, Sir! When Grandpapa was thanking God with hymns For gallant Frenchmen dying in the ditches, Your nurse had barely braced your little limbs In breeches. 78 And doubtless, where he roosts beside his bock, The Game Old Bird that played the leading fiddle Smiles grimly as he hears your perky cock- -a-diddle. Be well advised, my youthful friend, abjure These tricks that smack of Cleon and the tanners; And let the Dutch instruct a German Boor In manners. Nor were you meant to solve the nations’ knots, Or be the Earth’s Protector, willy-nilly; You only make yourself and royal Pots- -dam silly. Our racing yachts are not at present dressed In bravery of bunting to amuse you, Nor can the licence of an honoured guest Excuse you. 79 But if your words are more than wanton play And you would like to meet the old sea-rover, Name any course from Delagoa Bay To Dover. Meanwhile observe a proper reticence; We ask no more; there never was a rumour Of asking Hohenzollerns for a sense Of humour!

80

XII. FROM THE LORD OF POTSDAM.

We, William, Kaiser, planted on Our throne By heaven’s grace, but chiefly by Our own, Do deign to speak. Then let the earth be dumb, And other nations cease their senseless hum! Seldom, if ever, does a chance arise For Us to pose before Our people’s eyes; But this is one of them, this natal day Whereon Our Ancient and Imperial sway, Which to the battle’s death-defying trump Welded the States in one confounded lump, (As many tasty meats are blent within The German sausage’s encircling skin) By Our decree is twenty-five precisely, And, under Us (and God) still doing nicely. Therefore ye Princelings, Plenipotentates, And Representatives of various States, A cool Imperial pint your Kaiser drains, Both to Our ‘more immediate’ domains, And to Our lands, Our isles beyond the sea, Our World-embracing Greater Germany! 81 Let loose the breathings of Our Royal Band, We give a rouse––hoch! hoch!––to Helgoland!

[Kaiserliche Kapelle plays: O Helgoland! mein Helgoland! Air––Die Wacht am Rhein.]

William, Kaiser, continues:––

There are that languish on this festal day Damned and impounded for lèse-majesté; We, William, in Our plentitude of grace, Propose to pardon every hundredth case; And though their sentence was no more than just We offer each a copy of Our bust, With option of a fine; but, be it known, Whoso again shall deem his life his own, Or find in Ours the faintest flaw or fleck, God helping, We will hang him by the neck. Yea, he shall surely curse his impious star That dares to question Who or where We are! Worship your Cæsar, and (C.V.) your God; Who spares the child may haply spoil the rod. Many Our uniforms, but We are one, And one Our empire over which the sun, Careering on his cloud-compulsive way, Sets once, but never more than once, a day. 82 The seas are Ours: world-wide upon the oceans Our fleet commands the liveliest emotions; Go where you will, you find Our German manners Prevailing under other people’s banners; Go where you will, you cannot but remark The cheap, but never nasty, German clerk; Observe Our exports; do you ever see Things made as they are made in Germany? Always at home on Earth’s remotest shores E.g., among Our loved, low-German Boers, Freely Our folk expectorate, and there Our German bands inflame the balmy air; Likewise again Our passionate bassoons Tickle the niggers of the Cameroons; Or others over whom Our Eagle flaps In places not at present on the maps. One more Imperial pint! your Kaiser drinks To German intercourse with missing links! Let loose the breathings of Our Royal Band, We give––hoch! hoch!––Our glorious Hinterland!

[Kaiserliche Kapelle plays: O Hinterland! mein Hinterland! (Air as before); during which William, Kaiser, resumes his throne.]