I was not displeased with the new costume Of the cavalry, I must confess it; And chiefly the headpiece, the helmet in fact With the steel point above it, to dress it. It seems so knightly, and takes one back To the sweet romance of past ages, To the Countess Johanna of Mountfaucon, Tieck, Uhland, Fouqué, and such sages. The middle ages it calls to mind, With their squires and noble inferiors, Who in their bosoms fidelity bore, And escutcheons upon their posteriors. Crusades and tourneys it brings back too, And love, and respect at a distance, And times of faith, ere printing was known, When newspapers had no existence. Yes, yes, I admire the helmet, it shows An intellect truly enchanting! Right royal indeed the invention was, The _point_ is really not wanting! If a storm should arise, a peak like this (The thought is terribly fright’ning) On your romantic head might attract The heavens’ most modern lightning! At Aix-la-Chapelle, on the posthouse arms, I saw the bird detested Yet once again. With poisonous glare His eyes upon me rested. Detestable bird! If e’er thou should’st fall In my hands, thou creature perfidious, I would tear thy feathers from off thy back, And hack off thy talons so hideous! And then I would stick thee high up on a pole In the air, thou wicked freebooter, And then to the joyful shooting match Invite each Rhenish sharpshooter. As for him who succeeds in shooting thee down, The crown and sceptre shall proudly Reward the worthy; the trumpets we’ll blow, “Long life to the king,” shouting loudly.[42] CAPUT IV. ’Twas late at night when I reach’d Cologne, The Rhine was past me rushing, The air of Germany on me breath’d, And I felt its influence gushing Upon my appetite. I ate Some omelets, together with bacon; And as they were salt, some Rhenish wine Was by me also taken. The Rhenish wine gleams like very gold, When quaff’d from out a green rummer; If thou drink’st a few pints in excess, ’twill give Thy nose the colour of summer. So sweet a tickling attacks the nose, One’s sensations grow fonder and fonder; It drove me out in the darkening night, Through the echoing streets to wander. The houses of stone upon me gazed, As if wishing to tell me the mysteries And legends of times that have long gone by,-- The town of Cologne’s old histories. Yes, here it was that the clergy of yore Dragg’d on their pious existence; Here ruled the dark men, whose story’s preserved By Ulrich von Hutten’s[43] assistance. ’Twas here that the nuns and monks once danced In mediæval gyrations, Here Cologne’s own Menzel, Hoogstraaten[44] by name, Wrote his bitter denunciations.