Classic Poem

From Cologne to Hagen some fifteen and six
Is the fare, rather under than over.
The diligence chanced to be full, so I rode
In a special chaise, without cover.

'Twas a late autumn morning both chilly and dull
Through the mud the carriage went wheezing.
But, in spite of the wretched weather and road,
I found it all rather pleasing.

Ah, this is my native air indeed,
By which my hot cheek fanned is,
And this mud of the highway in which I sink
The mud of my Fatherland is!

The horses kept wagging their tails like friends,
As if theirs had always been my road.
Atalanta's apples were not more fair
Than their pellets of dung on the high-road.

We posted through Mühlheim, a pretty town;
The people are busy and staid there.
In the May of eighteen thirty-one,
I remember, a visit I paid there.

There was bud, then, and blossom on bush and on bough,
The sunbeams were laughing and winking,
The birds were all singing and yearning in song,
And the people were hoping and thinking,

“These lanky, lean warrior-guests of ours
We shall soon be allowed to fire on.
When they take to their horses their stirrup-cup
We'll pour them from bottles of iron.

And Freedom her banner of red, white and blue
Will wave over dancing and revel;
She may even fetch Bonaparte up from the grave
In defiance of Death and the Devil.”

But alas! the knights are still to the fore,
And plenty of geese, whose haunches
Were lean as a lathe when they entered the land,
Now go with their jolly round paunches.

Pale as pictures of Faith, Hope, Charity,
Were the dogs when they settled down here;
But since then they have tippled their noses red
On the goodly wine of our town here.

And freedom has sprained her ankle bone,
And alas! the revel tarries,
And sadly the tricolor of France
Looks down from the towers of Paris.

The Emperor rose from the dead, 'tis true,
But the English worms had made him
A peaceful and a quiet man,
And again in the tomb they laid him.

I saw the procession, the gilded car;—
Amid the crowd stood staring;—
Saw the golden goddess of Victory
The golden coffin bearing.

Up the Champs Elysées, over the snow,
Where the heavy mists hung blinding,
On through the Arc de Triomphe proud
The solemn train came winding.

The musicians' fingers were stiff with cold,
And the music suffered badly;
The eagles on their standards seemed
To nod me a greeting sadly.

The people looked like so many ghosts,
Lost in their memories hoary;
Again they dreamed the magic dream
Of world-imperial glory.

I wept that day. I wept when I heard,
From the heart of a loving nation,
The “Vive l'Empereur!” ring out, as of old,
In deathless adoration.