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In the Seven Months' War.

Should you hear men say that when France went under
In the wondrous year that is now gone by,
When the German battle-axe clove her asunder,
And the Seven Months' War passed over in thunder.
And prostrate and bleeding we saw her lie :

That when the French eagles were snared and taken,
By pairs, by dozens, by scores in tale;
When the standards of France crossed the Rhine in hundreds,
Though with German bearers, as it betel:

Should you hear men say that not one German banner,
No standard, no colour was left behind—
That all through the tempest of siege and battle,
You shall seek for a lost Teutsch flag and not find.

Then tell them—Not so! you speak, not knowing!
There was one German standard they could not save;
There was one battle-flag they did leave behind them,
And its bearers stayed with it, and lie in one grave.

For they raised a great mound down there in the South-East—
A mound not of earth as grave-mounds are,
When they raised the grave-hillocks of old Teutsch kindred
That the tribes in their wanderings might see them afar!

But this was a mound of German manhood,
Piled and heaped where they took their stand;
And beneath it lay buried the one German standard
Which came not back to the Fatherland.

They levelled the mound of noble Germans,
To lay them low in one great grave.
And at length they came down to the precious standard—
The one German standard that none could save.

Look, O Fatherland! See, O Kaiser!
Look, Teutsch mothers, with eyes tear-blind!
Slit with the shears of a hail of iron—
This is the flag which was left behind!

Is it the flag of the Hohenzollerns—
Sable and argent party per pale?
Is it the banner—black, red, and golden—
Which of old the Empire threw to the gale?

Who can tell? It is stained and riven in sunder,
Drenched in the mud of the battle-plain;
It is red—dull red—with an awful crimson,
Deep dyed in the heart's-blood of German men.

Bear it in triumph, O French, if it please you,
Hang ye it up in the Invalides Dome!
'Tis a Drapeau rouge—is it not? Keep it safely;
The German barbarians may yet fetch it home.

Sixty-first Prussian Infantry Regiment,
Honour and glory and fame be thine:
Well hast thou stood by thy battle-standards.
Well hast thou kept the watch by the Rhine!