Dear distant Germany, how often
I weep when I remember thee!
Gay France my sorrow cannot soften,
Her merry race gives pain to me.
In Paris, in this witty region,
’Tis cold dry reason that now reigns;
O bells of folly and religion,
How sweetly sound at home your strains!
Courteous the men! Their salutation
I yet return with feelings sad;
The rudeness shown in every station
In my own country made me glad!
Smiling the women! but their clatter,
Like millwheels, never seems to cease;
The Germans (not to mince the matter)
Prefer I, who lie down in peace.
And all things here with restless passion
Keep whirling, like some madden’d dream;
With us, they move in jog-trot fashion,
And well-nigh void of motion seem.
Methinks I hear the distant ringing
Of the soft bugle’s notes serene;
The watchman’s songs I hear them singing,
With Philomel’s sweet strains between.
At home the bard, a happy vagrant
In Schilda’s oak woods loved to rove;
From moonbeams fair and violets fragrant
My tender verses there I wove.