The Death-Day of Körner

A song for the death-day of the brave--
A song of pride!
The youth went down to a hero’s grave,
With the sword, his bride.

He went, with his noble heart unworn,
And pure, and high--
An eagle stooping from clouds of morn,
Only to die.

He went with the lyre, whose lofty tone
Beneath his hand
Had thrill’d to the name of his God alone
And his fatherland.

And with all his glorious feelings yet
In their first glow,
Like a southern stream that no frost hath met
To chain its flow.

A song for the death-day of the brave--
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero’s grave,
With the sword, his bride.

He hath left a voice in his trumpet lays
To turn the flight,
And a guiding spirit for after days,
Like a watch-fire’s light.

And a grief in his father’s soul to rest,
Midst all high thought;
And a memory unto his mother’s breast,
With healing fraught.

And a name and fame above the blight
Of earthly breath,
Beautiful--beautiful and bright,
In life and death!

A song for the death-day of the brave--
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero’s grave,
With the sword, his bride!

‘They were but two--and when that spirit pass’d,
Woe to the one, the last!’

‘Gently a voice from afar is borne to the ear of the mourner;
Mildly it soundeth, yet strong, grief in his bosom to soothe;
Strong in the soul-cheering faith, that hearts have a share in his
sorrow,
In whose depths all things holy and noble are shrined.
From that land once dearly beloved by our brave one, the fallen,
Mourning blent with bright fame--cometh a wreath for his urn.
Hail to thee, England the free! thou see’st in the German no
stranger.
Over the earth and the seas, join’d be both lands, heart and hand!’