This
is the forest of Teutoburg
Of which Tacitus has written:
The classic morass where Varus stuck,
And the Roman host was smitten.
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text .
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note.
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2
By
Hermann, the noble Cheruscian prince,
They were beaten, and died inglorious;
The German nation triumphed here,
And rose from the mud victorious.
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text .
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x
3
Had
Hermann and his fair-haired hordes
Met the fate that was the foeman's,
German freedom had never been even a name,
For we had all been Romans.
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text .
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4
And
Latin customs and speech would have ruled,
In the land that ours by right is.
In Munich we should have had vestals now,
And Swabians called Quirites.
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text .
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5
And
Hengstenberg, an aruspex wise,
Would be raking in bowels of kine now;
As an augur, Neander be watching the flight
Of birds in search of a sign now.
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text .
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x
6
Birch-Pfeiffer
had tippled her turpentine neat,
As the Roman ladies used to.
(More sweetly, they say, those smelt who drank,
And not many, I fancy, refused to).
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text .
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x
7
Our
Raumer instead of a German scamp,
Would in Latin have hight scampatius,
And Freiligrath would have been writing his verse
Unrhymed, like Flaccus Horatius.
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text .
8
That
boorish beggar, Father John,
Would be known as Boorianus,
And Massmann, Me Hercule! Latin would talk,
As Marcus Tullius Massmanus.
