In October 1849
The blustering wind has fallen mild,
And things at home are as before.
Germania, great simple child,
Is happy with her Christmas-tree once more.
Domestic bliss we now pursue;
All higher aims are bad, unstable;
The bird of peace, the swallow true,
Is nesting as aforetime, in our gable.
On wood and stream, the storm forgot,
The moon serenely sheds her light.
But there are sounds—was that a shot?—
The bullet may have hit some friend by night.
Some giddy pate may be their prize,
Who carried weapons; for the cunning
Of wise old Flaccus some despise,
Who, beaten, boldly saved himself by running.
Crack! Crack! A pyrotechnic show
Perhaps they give in Gœthe's honour;
Or Sontag—lyre of long ago—
Poor ghost, is having rockets showered upon her.
And Liszt, our Franz, appears again;
He is not stark and lying red
On some Hungarian battle-plain;
Russians and Croats could not strike him dead.
Freedom's last bulwark fell, to death
Poor Hungary bleeds; but Franz, good knight,
Still quite uninjured draws his breath,
His sabre in a drawer, safe out of sight.
Yes, Franz still lives, and, when he's old,
Great wonders will his grandsons hear
Of Hungary's wars: they will be told,
“'Twas thus I lay and smote them without fear!”
At Hungary's name it were no wonder
If—such a surging sea's below—
My German waistcoat burst asunder:
I seem to hear the welcoming trumpets blow!
And through my soul there thrills again
The grand old saga, dim but cherished:
The iron, savage, martial strain—
The song of how the Nibelungs fell and perished.
The lot of heroes is the same,
Unchanged the tales of arms victorious;
All that is altered is the name;
Still, in our time, we have our “Heroes Glorious.”
Their doom's the same; however bold
And proud and free the banners fly,
To-day the hero, as of old.
To brutish force at last must yield, and die.
Your doom the ox and bear combined
Have, with their double strength, assured;
You fell, but, Magyar, never mind!—
A deeper shame than yours we have endured.
By honest means your power they broke,—
Quite noble beasts both bears and kine;
But we have come beneath the yoke
Of wolves, and common curs and filthy swine.
They howl and bark and grunt; their smell
Alone I find a foul offence.
But Poet, hush! You are not well;
You'll hold your tongue if you have any sense.
And things at home are as before.
Germania, great simple child,
Is happy with her Christmas-tree once more.
Domestic bliss we now pursue;
All higher aims are bad, unstable;
The bird of peace, the swallow true,
Is nesting as aforetime, in our gable.
On wood and stream, the storm forgot,
The moon serenely sheds her light.
But there are sounds—was that a shot?—
The bullet may have hit some friend by night.
Some giddy pate may be their prize,
Who carried weapons; for the cunning
Of wise old Flaccus some despise,
Who, beaten, boldly saved himself by running.
Crack! Crack! A pyrotechnic show
Perhaps they give in Gœthe's honour;
Or Sontag—lyre of long ago—
Poor ghost, is having rockets showered upon her.
And Liszt, our Franz, appears again;
He is not stark and lying red
On some Hungarian battle-plain;
Russians and Croats could not strike him dead.
Freedom's last bulwark fell, to death
Poor Hungary bleeds; but Franz, good knight,
Still quite uninjured draws his breath,
His sabre in a drawer, safe out of sight.
Yes, Franz still lives, and, when he's old,
Great wonders will his grandsons hear
Of Hungary's wars: they will be told,
“'Twas thus I lay and smote them without fear!”
At Hungary's name it were no wonder
If—such a surging sea's below—
My German waistcoat burst asunder:
I seem to hear the welcoming trumpets blow!
And through my soul there thrills again
The grand old saga, dim but cherished:
The iron, savage, martial strain—
The song of how the Nibelungs fell and perished.
The lot of heroes is the same,
Unchanged the tales of arms victorious;
All that is altered is the name;
Still, in our time, we have our “Heroes Glorious.”
Their doom's the same; however bold
And proud and free the banners fly,
To-day the hero, as of old.
To brutish force at last must yield, and die.
Your doom the ox and bear combined
Have, with their double strength, assured;
You fell, but, Magyar, never mind!—
A deeper shame than yours we have endured.
By honest means your power they broke,—
Quite noble beasts both bears and kine;
But we have come beneath the yoke
Of wolves, and common curs and filthy swine.
They howl and bark and grunt; their smell
Alone I find a foul offence.
But Poet, hush! You are not well;
You'll hold your tongue if you have any sense.
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