Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/86

 German yttrists and Poets. Dolo filias surreptas Salutamus vi receptas Reduces in laribus; Regum veterum palatia, Lotharingia, Alsatia; — Decor redid pristinus! Quantas urbes, quot castella Mosa munit ac Mosella, Sequana cum Ligeri : Omnes cepit forte pectus, Taciturni intellectus Atque chalvbs Kruppii. Petunt mare — Goeben turget; Scandunt alpes — Werder urget; Undique periculum : Perque montes, perque valles, Terror sequitur per calles Et Ulani spiculum! Et quae proba tot jactabat, Tot triumphos enarrabat, Delirans superbia — Panem petens a victore, Pacem a debellatore Cecidit Lutetia! Qui coronae Germanorum Post viduvium saeculorum Reddidisti gloriam. — Macte senex triumphator, Barbablanca, Imperator, Qui salvasti patriam! As a sample of his German style I quote from his own translation of the above poem the first verse : Heil dir, greiser Imperator, Barbablanca, Triumphator, Der du Frankreich niederzwangst Und der Krone' der Germanen, Wittwe langst des Ruhms der Ahnen, Glanz und Schimmer neu errangst! Ernst von Wildenbruch may be regarded in some sense as the voluntary — although not official — poeta laurcatus of the House of Hohenzollern. He was born in 1845 in Beirut in Syria, where his father was Prus sian consul. In his second year he went with his father to Berlin, and in his fifth to Athens, where his father held the post of ambassador; in his sixth to Constantinople. When he was twelve, his parents, owing to

65

the sickness of his mother, returned to Ger many. After a careful preparation at col leges in Halle, Berlin, and the Cadctcorps at Potsdam, he entered the Prussian army, in 1863, as an officer, but quitted service in 1865. In 1866 he participated as Landwehrofficier in the war against Austria, and entered in 1867 upon the study of law at the university of Berlin. Having taken part in the campaign of 1870, he came in 1871 as Referendar to Frankfurt an der Oder, and worked later in the Municipal Court in Ber lin. In 1877 he became a member of the Diplomatic Corps of the Empire, where he is still active as Legationsrath. He is per sona grata at the royal court, his ancestor being Prince Louis Ferdinand, who fell in the battle of Saalfeld in the disastrous year of 1806. Ernst von Wildenbruch very early in his career became famous as a poetical playwright. So far he has written a score or more dramas, the subjects being taken largely from the history of the fatherland and from English history. Among his popular pieces are " Die Karolinger" and "Christoph Marlow." He is the author of several novels and of two volumes of poems. In 1887 he married a granddaughter of the famous composer Carl Maria von Weber. There are scattered all over Germany legal poets of whom mention cannot be made. My distinguished townsman Ernst Wichert, to whom I am indebted for biographical notes, tells me of a poet, Theodor Horm, whose poems and stories have recently been well received in Germany. There is also Friedrich Kind, the jurist and poet who wrote the poetical text to Carl Maria von Weber's famous opera Der Freischiits; but it is impossible to do justice to all. Whether that best known German statesman and exjurist Bismarck, the Altkanzler, has written lyrical poetry, was impossible for me to as certain. One significant distich by him has found its way to the public. Fieldmarshal von Moltke was asked to immortalize his name in one of those Albums which hunters