Here stump we round upon our crutches, round our Father's grave we go, And from our eyelids down our grizzled beards the bitter tears will flow.
'T was long ago, with Frederic living, that we
got our lawful gains:
A meagre ration now they serve us,—life's no
longer worth the pains.
Here stump we round, deserted orphans, and
with tears each other see,—
Are waiting for our marching orders hence,
to be again with thee.
Yes, Father, only could we buy thee, with our
blood, by Heaven, yes,—
We Invalides, forlorn detachment, straight
through death would storming press!
When the German princes issued to their subjects unlimited orders for Constitutions, to be filled up and presented after the domination of Napoleon was destroyed, all classes hastened, fervid with hope and anti-Gallic feeling, to offer their best men for the War of Liberation. Then the poets took again their rhythm from an air vibrating with the cannon's pulse. There was Germanic unity for a while, fed upon expectation and the smoke of successful fields. Most of the songs of this period have been already translated. Ruckert, in a series of verses which he called "Sonnets in Armor," gave a fine scholarly expression to the popular desires. Here is his exultation over the Battle of Leipsic:—
Can there no song
Roar with a might
Loud as the fight
Leipsic's region along?
Three days and three nights,
No moment of rest,
And not for a jest,
Went thundering the fights.
Three days and three nights
Leipsic Fair kept: Frenchmen who pleasured
There with an iron yardstick were measured,
Bringing the reckoning with them to rights.
Three days and all night
A battue of larks the Leipsicker make;
Every haul a hundred he takes,
A thousand each flight.
Ha! it is good,
Now that the Russian can boast no longer
He alone of us is stronger
To slake his steppes with hostile blood.