Nor are poets any more successful, when they propose to make camp-life and soldiers' feelings subjects for aesthetic consideration. Their lines are smooth, their images are spirited; but as well might the campaign itself have been conducted in the poet's study as its situations be deliberately transferred there to verse. The "Wallenstein's Camp" of Schiller is not poetry, but racy and sparkling pamphleteering. Its rhyming does not prevent it from belonging to the historical treatment of periods that are picturesque with many passions and interests, that go clad in jaunty regimental costumes, and require not to be idealized, but simply to be described. Goethe, in his soldier's song in "Faust," idealizes at a touch the rough work, the storming and marauding of the mediaeval Lanzknecht; set to music, it might be sung by fine dilettanti tenors in garrison, but would be stopped at any outpost in the field for want of the countersign. But when Goethe describes what he saw and felt in the campaign in France, with that lucid and observant prose, he reproduces an actual situation. So does Chamisso, in that powerful letter which describes the scenes in Hameln, when it was delivered to the French. But Chamisso has written a genuine soldier's song, which we intend to give. The songs of Körner are well known already in various English dresses. [2]
[Footnote 2: See translations of Von Zedlitz's Midnight Review,
of Follen's Blücher's Ball, of Freihgrath's Death of
Grabbe, of Rückert's Patriot's Lament, of Arndt's
Field-Marshal Blücher, of Pfeffel's Tobacco-Pipe, of
Gleim's War Song, of Tegner's Veteran, (Swedish,) of
Rahbek's Peter Colbjornsen, (Danish,) The Death-Song of
Regner Lodbrock, (Norse,) and Körner's Sword-Song, in Mr.
Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe. See all of Körner's
soldier songs well translated, the Sword-Song admirably, by
Rev. Charles T. Brooks, in Specimens of Foreign Literature, Vol.
XIV. See, in Robinson's Literature of Slavic Nations, some
Russian and Servian martial poetry.]
But the early poetry which attempts the description of feats at arms which were points in the welfare of nations—when, for instance, Germany was struggling to have her middle class against the privileges of the barons—is more interesting than all the modern songs which nicely depict soldiers' moods. Language itself was fighting for recognition, as well as industrial and social rights. The verses mark successive steps of a people into consciousness and civilization. Some of this battle-poetry is worth preserving; a few camp-rhymes, also, were famous enough in their day to justify translating. Here are some relics, of pattern more or less antique, picked up from that field of Europe where so many centuries have met in arms. [3]
[Footnote 3: Among such songs is one by Bayard Taylor, entitled Annie Laurie, which is of the very best kind.]
The Northern war-poetry, before the introduction of Christianity, is vigorous enough, but it abounds in disagreeable commonplaces: trunks are cleft till each half falls sideways; limbs are carved for ravens, who appear as invariably as the Valkyrs, and while the latter pounce upon the souls that issue with the expiring breath, the former banquet upon the remains. The celebration of a victory is an exulting description of actual scenes of revelling, mead-drinking from mounted skulls, division of the spoils, and half-drunken brags[4] of future prowess. The sense of dependence upon an unseen Power is manifested only in superstitious vows for luck and congratulations that the Strong Ones have been upon the conquering side. There is no lifting up of the heart which checks for a time the joy of victory. They are ferociously glad that they have beaten. This prize-fighting imagery belongs also to the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and is in marked contrast with the commemorative poetry of Franks and Germans after the introduction of Christianity. The allusions may be quite as conventional, but they show that another power has taken the field, and is willing to risk the fortunes of war. Norse poetry loses its vigor when the secure establishment of Christianity abolishes piracy and puts fighting upon an allowance. Its muscle was its chief characteristic. We speak only of war-poetry.
[Footnote 4: Braga was the name of the goblet over which the Norse drinkers made their vows. Probably no Secessionist ever threatened more pompously over his whiskey. The word goes back a great distance. Paruf is Sanscrit for rough, and Ragh, to be equal to. In reading the Norse poetry, one can understand why Brága was the Apollo of the Asa gods, and why the present made to a favorite Scald was called Bragar-Laun (Lohn). Bravo is also a far-travelled form.]
Here, for instance, is the difference plainly told. Hucbald, a monk of the cloister St. Amand in Flanders, wrote "The Louis-Lay," to celebrate the victory gained by the West-Frankish King Louis III. over the Normans, in 881, near Saucourt. It is in the Old-High-German. A few lines will suffice:—
The King rode boldly, sang a holy song,
And all together sang, Kyrie eleison.
The song was sung; the battle was begun;
Blood came to cheeks; thereat rejoiced the Franks;
Then fought each sword, but none so well as Ludwig,
So swift and bold, for 't was his inborn nature;
He struck down many, many a one pierced through,
And at his hands his enemies received
A bitter drink, woe to their life all day.
Praise to God's power, for Ludwig overcame;
And thanks to saints, the victor-fight was his.
Homeward again fared Ludwig, conquering king,
And harnessed as he ever is, wherever the need may be,
Our God above sustain him with His majesty!
Earlier than this it was the custom for soldiers to sing just before fighting. Tacitus alludes to a kind of measured warcry of the Germans, which they made more sonorous and terrific by shouting it into the hollow of their shields. He calls it barditus by mistake, borrowing a term from the custom of the Gauls, who sang before battle by proxy,—that is, their bards chanted the national songs. But Norse and German soldiers loved to sing. King Harald Sigurdson composes verses just before battle; so do the Skalds before the Battle of Stiklestad, which was fatal to the great King Olaf. The soldiers learn the verses and sing them with the Skalds. They also recollect older songs,—the "Biarkamal," for instance, which Biarke made before he fought.[5] These are all of the indomitable kind, and well charged with threats of unlimited slaughter. The custom survived all the social and religious changes of Europe. But the wild war-phrases which the Germans shouted for mutual encouragement, and to derive, like the Highlanders, an omen from the magnitude of the sound, became hymns: they were sung in unison, with the ordinary monkish modulations of the time. The most famous of these was written by Notker, a Benedictine of St. Gall, about the year 900. It was translated by Luther in 1524, and an English translation from Luther's German can be found in the "Lyra Germanica," p. 237.
[Footnote 5: Laing's Sea-Kings of Norway, Vol. II. p. 312; Vol.
III. p. 90.]