let us stand at the Judgment Place,
An oath to swear to, face to face,
An oath of bronze no wind can shake,
An oath for our sons and their sons to take.
Come, hear the word, repeat the word,
Throughout the Fatherland make it heard.
We will never forego our hate,
We have all but a single hate,
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe and one alone--
_ENGLAND!_
In the Captain's Mess, in the banquet hall,
Sat feasting the officers, one and all,
Like a sabre blow, like the swing of a sail,
One seized his glass and held high to hail;
Sharp-snapped like the stroke of a rudder's play,
Spoke three words only: "To the Day!"
Whose glass this fate?
They had all but a single hate.
Who was thus known?
They had one foe and one alone--
_ENGLAND!_
Take you the folk of the Earth in pay,
With bars of gold your ramparts lay,
Bedeck the ocean with bow on bow,
Ye reckon well, but not well enough now.
French and Russian, they matter not,
A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot,
We fight the battle with bronze and steel,
And the time that is coming Peace will seal.
You we will hate with a lasting hate,
We will never forego our hate,
Hate by water and hate by land,
Hate of the head and hate of the hand,
Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,
Hate of seventy millions choking down.
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe and one alone--
_ENGLAND!_
This poem, according to the Taegliche Rundschau, has already had the fate
of every folksong--the version of it that was circulated among the
Bavarian troops lacks the middle stanza and has in other ways also been
"sung to pieces." But it has also been worked over artistically. The
Chemnitz Director of Church Music, Prof. Mayerhoff, has set the "Chant
of Hate Against England" to music for male voices. The song was rendered
publicly at a great meeting in a concert in the Alberthalle at Leipsic,
and was taken up in roaring chorus by the audience. The composer himself
accompanied his composition on the piano.
As can be seen, therefore, the popularity of the song and its sentiment is
by no means confined to Bavaria. It extends throughout the entire empire.
Of hundreds of voices in the press, let us mention only one. Councilor of
Justice Eschenbach of Berlin, in the Neue Gesellschaftliche Korrespondenz
w
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