Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
Covenant-song before Battle
By Karl Theodor Körner (1791–1813)Translated by C. T. Brooks
A
Usher in this morn of wrath,
And the sun looks cold and bloody
Out upon our bloody path.
Startling news a world will waken
Ere a few more hours are past,
And e’en now the lots are shaken,
And the iron die is cast.
Brothers, the night-shades are flying!—take warning.
Now, by the fresh, holy light of the morning,
Swear, hand in hand, to be true to the last.
Insult, ignominy frown,—
Foreign slaves, with chains to bind us,
And our German oak bowed down.
Shamed has been the speech our mothers
Taught us, and our God blasphemed;
We have pawned our honor;—brothers,
German brothers, be it redeemed!
Brothers, the hour is come! Side by side stand now!
Turn Heaven’s wrath from your loved native land now!
Let the Palladium—the lost—be redeemed!
Lies a golden future time;
Open, sunny skies bend o’er us;
There, in Freedom’s blissful clime,
German art and music greet us,
Woman’s grace and love’s delight,
All old forms of greatness meet us,
Beauty’s charms again invite.
But bloody-red must that morning be breaking:
Brothers, our life’s last warm drop we are staking:
Our hope blooms only in martyrdom’s night!
As one man we ’ll meet the foe,
Lay our heart on Freedom’s altar,
And to death, unshrinking, go.
Fatherland, for thee we dare it;
At thy word we do and die,
That our loved ones may inherit
This day’s blood-bought liberty.
Free German oaks, let your branches be sweeping
Long o’er the graves where our ashes are sleeping!—
Fatherland, hear our oath! bear it on high!
Ties that long have bound us fast;
Be the poisonous south forever,
With its charms, behind us cast.
Yet stay not the tear that ’s springing,
Comrades, in each manly eye:
To the winds a last kiss flinging,
Give them up to God on high.
To all the warm lips that for us shall be pleading,
To all the fond hearts that shall lie crushed and bleeding,
God of all might and all mercy, be nigh!
Upward, heavenward, hearts and eyes!
Every earthly sun is sinking,
And the unfading splendors rise.
German brothers, quail not,—never!
Let each nerve a hero tell!
Faithful hearts part not forever;
For a little space, farewell!
Hark! They advance! How the deep thunder crashes!
Brothers, charge home through the hailstones and flashes!
We meet again in heaven! Farewell!