From port to port the summons flew,
    Rang o’er our German wave;
  The Oder on her harness drew,
    The Elbe girt on her glaive;
  Neckar and Weser swell the tide,
    Main flashes to the sun,
  Old feuds, old hates are dash’d aside,
    All German men are one! 
      Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah! 
      Hurrah!  Germania!

  Suabian and Prussian, hand in hand,
    North, South, one host, one vow! 
  “What is the German’s Fatherland?”
    Who asks that question now? 
  One soul, one arm, one close-knit frame,
    One will are we today;
  Hurrah, Germania! thou proud dame,
    Oh, glorious time, hurrah! 
      Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah! 
      Hurrah!  Germania!

  Germania now, let come what may,
    Will stand unshook through all;

  This is our country’s festal day;
    Now woe betide thee, Gaul! 
  Woe worth the hour a robber thrust
    Thy sword into thy hand! 
  A curse upon him that we must
    Unsheathe our German brand! 
      Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah! 
      Hurrah!  Germania!

  For home and hearth, for wife and child,
    For all loved things that we
  Are bound to keep all undefiled
    From foreign ruffianry! 
  For German right, for German speech,
    For German household ways,
  For German homesteads, all and each,
    Strike home through battle’s blaze! 
      Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah! 
      Hurrah!  Germania!

  Up, Germans, up, with God!  The die
    Clicks loud—­we wait the throw! 
  Oh, who may think without a sigh
    What blood is doom’d to flow? 
  Yet, look thou up, with fearless heart! 
    Thou must, thou shalt prevail! 
  Great, glorious, free as ne’er thou wert,
    All hail, Germania, hail! 
      Hurrah!  Victoria! 
      Hurrah!  Germania!

* * * * *

  THE TRUMPET OF GRAVELOTTE[47] (Aug. 16, 1870)

  Death and Destruction they belched forth in vain,
    We grimly defied their thunder;
  Two columns of foot and batteries twain,
    We rode and cleft them asunder.

  With brandished sabres, with reins all slack,
    Raised standards, and low-couched lances,
  Thus we Uhlans and Cuirassiers wildly drove back,
    And hotly repelled their advances.

  But the ride was a ride of death and of blood;
    With our thrusts we forced them to sever;
  But of two whole regiments, lusty and good,
    Out of two men, one rose never.

  With breast shot through, with brow gaping wide,
    They lay pale and cold in the valley,
  Snatched away in their youth, in their manhood’s pride—­
    Now, Trumpeter, sound to the rally!

  And he took the trumpet, whose angry thrill
    Urged us on to the glorious battle,
  And he blew a blast—­but all silent and still
    Was the trump, save a dull hoarse rattle,