not to be idealized, but simply to be described. Goethe, in his
soldier's song in "Faust," idealizes at a touch the rough work, the
storming and marauding of the mediaeval _Lanzknecht;_ set to
music, it might be sung by fine _dilettanti_ tenors in garrison,
but would be stopped at any outpost in the field for want of the
countersign. But when Goethe describes what he saw and felt in the
campaign in France, with that lucid and observant prose, he reproduces
an actual situation. So does Chamisso, in that powerful letter which
describes the scenes in Hameln, when it was delivered to the French.
But Chamisso has written a genuine soldier's song, which we intend to
give. The songs of Koerner are well known already in various English
dresses. [2]

[Footnote 2: See translations of Von Zedlitz's _Midnight Review_,
of Follen's _Bluecher's Ball_, of Freihgrath's _Death of
Grabbe_, of Rueckert's _Patriot's Lament_, of Arndt's
_Field-Marshal Bluecher_, of Pfeffel's _Tobacco-Pipe_, of
Gleim's _War Song_, of Tegner's _Veteran_, (Swedish,) of
Rahbek's _Peter Colbjornsen_, (Danish,) _The Death-Song of
Regner Lodbrock_, (Norse,) and Koerner's _Sword-Song_, in Mr.
Longfellow's _Poets and Poetry of Europe_. See all of Koerner's
soldier songs well translated, the _Sword-Song_ admirably, by
Rev. Charles T. Brooks, in _Specimens of Foreign Literature_, Vol.
XIV. See, in Robinson's _Literature of Slavic Nations_, some
Russian and Servian martial poetry.]

But the early poetry which attempts the description of feats at arms
which were points in the welfare of nations--when, for instance,
Germany was struggling to have her middle class against the privileges
of the barons--is more interesting than all the modern songs which