None but a genius, _we_ say,
Would make his onset backward in the dark
Or choose this route for getting at the Arc
De Triomphe (Champs Elysées).

Nor to your care for detail are we blind;
Your handiwork we view in
The reeking waste our warriors leave behind;
We read the motions of a master-mind
In that red trail of ruin.

And not alone by yonder blackened beams,
By garth and homestead burning,
You put the sanguine enemy off your schemes,
Who gaily follows up and never dreams
That we'll be soon returning;

But by these speaking signs of godly hate,
This ruthless ravage (_prosit!_),
You teach a barbarous world how truly great
Our German Gospel, and how grim the fate
Of people who oppose it!

Then praised be Heaven because we cannot fail
With HINDENBURG to boss us;
And for each hearth stript naked to the gale
Let grateful homage plug another nail
In your superb colossus. O.S.

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