THE RAYS of waning sunlight steal | |
| Along the overhanging eaves; | |
| The awnings droop and scarcely feel | |
| The wind that stirs the linden leaves; | |
| And here the curious strangers try | 5 |
| To wile away an idle hour, | |
| And watch the crowd that surges by | |
| All day before the Cafe Bauer. | |
| |
| Not all unmoved can one abide | |
| And with a careless heart survey | 10 |
| This city of imperial pride, | |
| Where men make history to-day; | |
| Here is no idle pleasure-mart | |
| To witch the fancy of an hour; | |
| Here throbs a nation’s living heart, | 15 |
| Here beats the pulse of conscious power. | |
| |
| On every side, displayed afar, | |
| Flung out with martial blazonry, | |
| Are symbols of successful war, | |
| While he who looks can ever see | 20 |
| Behind the veil that Peace has spread, | |
| The banners of a mighty camp, | |
| Can hear above the hum of trade | |
| The gathering armies’ ceaseless tramp. | |
| |
| And suddenly with naught to show | 25 |
| What stilled the tongue and checked the feet, | |
| As when a wind has ceased to blow, | |
| A hush comes o’er the busy street, | |
| A bugle sounds; and in reply | |
| Rolls forth a distant storm of drums; | 30 |
| Then down the Linden runs the cry: | |
| “The Kaiser comes! The Kaiser comes!” | |
| |
| Cold eyes, set lips, a restless glance | |
| That wanders in uneasy quest, | |
| With looks that like a living lance | 35 |
| Blaze from beneath the helmet-crest; | |
| Upon that face as on a page | |
| Has nature stamped with cruel truth | |
| The heartlessness of cynic age, | |
| The reckless insolence of youth. | 40 |
| |
| What morbid motive half defined, | |
| What oestrus-thought that stings and stays, | |
| Goads on his restless, brooding mind— | |
| This sceptred Sphinx of modern days? | |
| It is ambition’s poisoned wine— | 45 |
| The throb, perchance, of ceaseless pain— | |
| The spark of genius half divine— | |
| The burning of a madman’s brain? | |
| |
| And this is he whose sword and pen | |
| All Europe eyes with bated breath, | 50 |
| Whose word can arm a million men, | |
| Whose nod can hurl them on to death: | |
| A nation’s life, a nation’s ease, | |
| The honour of a nation’s name, | |
| The awful fates of war and peace, | 55 |
| All centred in a single frame. | |
| |
| O type of all the dreadful past | |
| When birth made brutes the lords of brain! | |
| When Hope stood naked to the blast, | |
| And cowering Freedom clanked her chain! | 60 |
| Thou art the last of all the line | |
| Of them that set with lordly beck | |
| The ruthless heel of right divine | |
| Forever on a nation’s neck! | |
| |
| Yet thus, perchance, must victors pay | 65 |
| The price that War has sternly set; | |
| The while, ere Peace returns to stay, | |
| There looms a conflict mightier yet | |
| Than that which burst in years before | |
| When German unity awoke | 70 |
| Saluted by the cannon’s roar | |
| Amid the mists of battle-smoke. | |
| |
| To scourge the land with sword and flame | |
| The northern Cossack grimly waits; | |
| The Dane remembers Duppel’s shame, | 75 |
| The Austrian broods o’er Koniggratz; | |
| While on the hills of fair Lorraine | |
| That front the slopes of Vendenheim— | |
| A tiger with a slender chain— | |
| The Gallic foeman bides his time. | 80 |
| |
| Stout-hearted sons of Fatherland! | |
| Who kneel to God but face the foe, | |
| And side by side together stand | |
| To sing the song of long ago | |
| That, rising from a myriad throats, | 85 |
| A nation’s battle-hymn divine, | |
| Thrills on the ear like bugle notes: | |
| “Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein!” | |
| |
| Such thoughts the musing fancy weaves | |
| Throughout the drowsy summer day, | 90 |
| While glints the sunlight on the eaves | |
| Along the Linden’s stately way | |
| Where still the curious strangers try | |
| To wile away an idle hour, | |
| And watch the crowd that surges by | 95 |
| All day before the Cafe Bauer. | |
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