If heart and style remain still true, I’ll not object, whatever you do. My friend, I never will mistake you, E’en though a Counsellor they make you. They now are raising a terrible din Because you’ve been sworn as a Counsellor in; From the Seine to the Elbe, regardless of reason, For months they’ve declaim’d thus against your sad treason: His progress onward is changed of late To progress backward; O, answer us straight-- On Swabian crabs are you really riding? Is’t only court-ladies you now take pride in? Perchance you are tired, and long for rest; All night on your horn you’ve been blowing your best And now on a nail you quietly stow it; No longer for Germany’s hobby you’ll blow it. You lie down in bed, and straightway close Your eyes, but vainly you seek for repose; Before the window the mockers salute us: Awake, Liberator! What! sleeping, Brutus? Ah, bawlers like these can never know why The best of watchmen ceases to cry; These young braggadocios cannot discover Why man his exertions at length gives over. You ask me how matters are going on here? No breeze is stirring, the atmosphere’s clear; The weathercocks all are perplex’d, not discerning The proper direction in which to be turning. 20. CONSOLING THOUGHTS. We sleep as Brutus slept of yore,-- And yet he awoke, and ventured to bore In Cæsar’s bosom his chilly dagger! The Romans their tyrants loved to stagger.-- No Romans are we, tobacco we smoke, Each nation its favourite taste can invoke; Each nation its special merit possesses-- The finest dumplings Swabia dresses. But Germans are we, kindhearted and brave, We sleep as soundly as though in the grave; And when we awake, our thirst is excessive, But not for the blood of tyrants oppressive. ’Tis our great pride to be as true As heart of oak and linden too; The land which oaks and lindens gives birth to Can never produce a Brutus of worth too. And e’en if amongst us a Brutus were found, No Cæsar exists in the country round; Despite all his search, he would find him never,-- We make good gingerbread however. We’ve six-and-thirty masters and lords, (Not one too many!) who wear their swords And stars on their regal breasts to protect them; The Ides of March can never affect them. We call them Father, and Fatherland We call the country they command By right of descent, and love to call so-- We love sour-crout and sausages also. And when our Father walks in the street We take off our hats with reverence meet; Our guileless Germany, injuring no man, Is not a den of murderers Roman. 21. THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. The world is topsy-turvy turn’d, We walk feet-upwards in it; The woodcocks shoot the sportsmen down, A dozen in a minute.