blood, by Heaven, yes,--
We Invalides, forlorn detachment, straight
through death would storming press!

When the German princes issued to their subjects unlimited orders for
Constitutions, to be filled up and presented after the domination of
Napoleon was destroyed, all classes hastened, fervid with hope and
anti-Gallic feeling, to offer their best men for the War of Liberation.
Then the poets took again their rhythm from an air vibrating with the
cannon's pulse. There was Germanic unity for a while, fed upon
expectation and the smoke of successful fields. Most of the songs of
this period have been already translated. Ruckert, in a series of
verses which he called "Sonnets in Armor," gave a fine scholarly
expression to the popular desires. Here is his exultation over the
Battle of Leipsic:--

Can there no song
Roar with a might
Loud as the fight
Leipsic's region along?

Three days and three nights,
No moment of rest,
And not for a jest,
Went thundering the fights.

Three days and three nights
Leipsic Fair kept: Frenchmen who pleasured
There with an iron yardstick were measured,
Bringing the reckoning with them to rights.