There's not a soldier's life for every ball that flies;
For if all the bullets singly hit their men,
Where could our Majesties get soldiers then?

"Now the hole a musket-bullet makes is small,--
'T is a larger hole made by a cannon-ball;
But the bullets all are of iron and of lead,
And many a bullet goes for many overhead.

"'T is a right heavy calibre to our artillery,
And never goes a Prussian over to the enemy,
For 't is cursed bad money that the Swedes have to pay;
Is there any better coin of the Austrian?--who can say?

"The French are paid off in pomade by their king,
But each week in pennies we get our reckoning;
Sacrament of Cross and Lightning! Turbans, spit away!
Who draws so promptly as the Prussian his pay?"

With a laurel-wreath adorned, Fridericus my King,
If you had only oftener permitted plundering,
Fredericus Rex, king and hero of the fight,
We would drive the Devil for thee out of sight!

[Footnote 13: His queen]

Among the songs which the military ardor of this period stimulated, the
best are those by Gleim, (1719-1803) called "Songs of a Prussian
Grenadier." All the literary men, Lessing not excepted, were seized
with the Prussian enthusiasm; the pen ravaged the domain of sentiment