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Translated by H. W. Dulcken
FREDERICUS REX, our king and lord, | |
| To all of his soldiers “To arms!” gave the word; | |
| “Two hundred battalions, a thousand squadrons here!” | |
| And he gave sixty cartridges to each grenadier. | |
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| “You rascally fellows,” his majesty began, | 5 |
| “Look that each of you stands for me in battle like a man. | |
| They ’re grudging Silesia and Glatz to me, | |
| And the hundred millions in my treasury. | |
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| “The Empress with the French an alliance has signed, | |
| And raised the Roman kingdom against me, I find; | 10 |
| The Russians my territories do invade, | |
| Up, and show ’em of what stuff we Prussians are made. | |
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| “My generals, Schwerin, and Field-Marshal von Keit, | |
| And Major-General Ziethen, are all ready quite. | |
| By the thunders and lightnings of battle, I vow, | 15 |
| They don’t know Fritz and his soldiers now. | |
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| “Now farewell, Louisa; Louisa, dry your eyes; | |
| Not straight to its mark every bullet flies; | |
| For if all the bullets should kill all the men, | |
| From whence should we kings get our soldiers then? | 20 |
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| “The musket bullet makes a little round hole, | |
| A much larger wound doth the cannon-ball dole; | |
| The bullets are all of iron and lead, | |
| Yet many a bullet misses many a head. | |
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| “Our guns they are heavy and well supplied, | 25 |
| Not one of the Prussians to the foe hath hied; | |
| The Swedes they have cursed bad money, I trow; | |
| If the Austrians have better, who can know? | |
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| “The French king pays his soldiers at his ease, | |
| We get it, stock and stiver, every week, if we please; | 30 |
| By the thunders and the lightnings of battle, I say, | |
| Who gets like the Prussian so promptly his pay?” | |
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| Fredericus, my king, whom the laurel doth grace, | |
| Hadst thou but now and then let us plunder some place, | |
| Fredericus, my hero, I verily say, | 35 |
| We ’d drive for thee the devil from the world away. | |
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