“Keep watch, it’s nearly day,” from “The Meistersinger of Nuremburg” by Richard Wagner, for string quintet and harp. Exit of the Deputation. * * * * * The music by the Band of the Royal Bavarian 11th Regiment under the direction of the Conductor, Herr Kleiber. Harp: Fraulein Langhammer of the Municipal Theatre Orchestra. THE BISMARCK HYMN[4] Written by DR. RAIMUND GEISTER, composed by GEORG MEYER. The German Temple of Honour stands On a mountain by the Danube. Those who high from ’mid the German people rise Dwell there within that dome. It was built by the Royal architect Who with oak bordered it round-- The honoured German king who yonder Among his comrades dreams. Walhalla’s comrades, hear ye not Sounds from among the oaken wood? Triumphant through the mist cloud breaks The golden sunshine. With heavy step a hero draws near. It thrills my very blood Where is in Germany a man In high spirit resembling him? Comrades, what you yourselves look for The Norns to us deny, What I in my young breast conceived-- Bismarck, thou hast dared: An united people, an united Empire, The deed is colossal! Bismarck that was young Siegfried’s stroke. Hail to thee, Walhalla comrade!” Later the company joined in singing the national song, “Deutschland, Deutschland, über Alles.” Before turning from the beautiful temple of honour, the statuary groups on the northern and southern pediments should be examined. That on the north end represents Armin (or Herman) with his Germans fighting the Romans, while that on the south, symbolizing the regaining of German liberty after the battle of Leipzig in 1813, shows “Germania” seated and attended by male and female figures representing the Germanic states and the rivers Rhine and Moselle. Beautiful as is the view from the front of the Walhalla, it must be said that the place is more impressive if approached from the back than by the great flights of massy stone steps which occupy a goodly part of the hillside from the front. The extent and arrangement of these in alternate twin flights, now bifurcating and now meeting, detract somewhat from the impressiveness of the whole as seen from the river front. But the whole thing represents a grand idea grandly realized, and it is easy to believe that from whatever part of the German empire visitors come, they realize here the unity of their race and the greatness of their destiny. To render boldly a few anonymous lines quoted in the “Beschreibung der Walhalla”--the little souvenir guide to be bought there-- Germania’s furthest sons, Your valiant fathers yearn That the blood in your veins May mount higher, quicker flow, When the sound of joyous singing Mightily at Walhall’s ringing. FOOTNOTES: