Classic Poem

I mean to be quite easy and gay,
To see something new on each [new] day,
To the moment merrily trusting,
No thought on the past or the future casting
So, look, to the Kaiser I sold my bacon
And by him let the charge of all needful be taken
Order me on to the whistling cannon shot
Over the red and roaring Rhine,
The second man must go to pot, —
I mount and ride without loss of time.
But farther I humbly beg and pray,
That in other things I may have my way.
Marketenderin
Cousin! since then I've been wide and far,
To-day we come, to-morrow we go,
As it happens the besom of war
Shakes one and sweeps one to and fro
Wallenstein
Our life was but a battle and a march,
And like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless,
We stormed across the war-convulsed earth.
Kürassier —
This sword of ours is no plough or spade
You cannot delve or reap with the iron blade;
For us there springs no seed, no cornfield grows
The soldier no home nor kindred knows,
Must wander over the face of the earth,
Must warm his hands at another's hearth,
To the pomp of towns he bids adieu,
In the village green with its cheerful game,
In the vintage [time] or harvest-home,
No part or lot can the soldier claim.
Tell me then what good or worth he has
If the soldier cease to honour himself?
Leave him nothing of his own, what wonder
The creature should burn and kill and plunder?