"'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
to collect trophies for Father Friedrich. The desolation it produced in
the attempt to write the word Glory could be matched only by the
sword. But Gleim was a man of spirit and considerable power. The shock
of Frederic's military successes made him suddenly drop the pen with
which he had been inditing Anacreontics, and weak, rhymeless Horatian
moods.
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