I
returned to my inn, and slept as if rocked
To the music of angel-numbers.
One sleeps so soundly on German beds,
On the feathers so softly slumbers.
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Of
the national bolsters and pillows light
How often I've thought with yearning
When, an exile lone, upon mattresses hard
Through the long night-watches turning.
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One
sleeps so well on our German beds—
On none can a man dream better.
The German soul feels untrammelled and free
From every mortal fetter.
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Untrammelled
and free, to the heights of heaven
It wings in lofty soaring.
O German soul, how proud thy flight
When the German body is snoring!
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The
gods grow pale when they see thee come,
And many a star of even
By the rush and flap of thy mighty wings
Is quenched where it shone in heaven.
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6
To
France and Prussia the land belongs,
The Britons own the water,
But lords of the realm of dreams are we:
We won it without slaughter.
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In
the sky we practise hegemony proud:
Develop till none would know us;
Less favoured nations can only evolve
On the flat, dull earth below us.
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I
fell asleep, and thought in a dream
That up and down I wandered
Once more through the moonlit, echoing streets
Of the holy town and pondered.
