C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Song of the Field-Marshal

By Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860)

WHAT’S the blast from the trumpets? Hussars, to the fray!

The field-marshal rides in the rolling mellay:

So gay on his mettlesome war-horse he goes,

So fierce waves his glittering sword at his foes.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

Oh, see as he comes how his piercing eyes gleam!

Oh, see how behind him his snowy locks stream!

So fresh blooms his age, like a well-ripened wine,

He may well as the battle-field’s autocrat shine.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

It was he, when his country in ruin was laid,

Who sternly to heaven uplifted his blade,

And swore on the brand, with a heart burning high,

To show Frenchmen the trade that the Prussians could ply.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

That oath he has kept. When the battle-cry rang,

Hey! how the gray youth to the saddle upsprang!

He made a sweep-dance for the French in the room,

And swept the land clean with a steel-ended broom.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

At Lützen, in the meadow, he kept up such a strife,

That many thousand Frenchmen there yielded up their life;

That thousands ran headlong for very life’s sake,

And thousands are sleeping who never will wake.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

On the water, at Katzbach, his oath was in trim:

He taught in a moment the Frenchmen to swim.

Farewell, Frenchmen; fly to the Baltic to save!

You mob without breeches, catch whales for your grave.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

At Wartburg, on the Elbe, how he cleared him a path!

Neither fortress nor town barred the French from his wrath;

Like hares o’er the field they all scuttled away,

While behind them the hero rang out his Huzza!

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

At Leipzig—O glorious fight on the plain!—

French luck and French might strove against him in vain;

There beaten and stiff lay the foe in their blood,

And there dear old Blücher a field-marshal stood.

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful: they’re shouting hurrah!

Then sound, blaring trumpets! Hussars, charge once more!

Ride, field-marshal, ride like the wind in the roar!

To the Rhine, over Rhine, in your triumph advance!

Brave sword of our country, right on into France!

And here are the Germans: juchheirassassa!

The Germans are joyful; they’re shouting hurrah!

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