["How long the conflict may last lies in God's hand; it is not our
business to ask questions about it.... It is not the Prussian way
to praise oneself.... It is now a matter of holding out, however
long it lasts."--_Extract from Speech by the KAISER, delivered near
Arras._]
I fear that Father's lost his nerve.
As I peruse his last oration
I seem to miss the good old _verve_,
The tone of lofty exaltation,
The swelling note of triumph (_Sieg_)
That often carried half a league.
The drum on whose resounding hide
He brought to bear such weight and gristle
Has now been scrapped and laid aside
In favour of the penny whistle,
On which he plays so very small
You hardly hear the thing at all.
No more we mark the clarion shout--
"Go where the winds of victory whirl you!"
His eagle organ, petering out,
Whines like a sick and muted curlew;
A plaintive dirge supplants the paean
That used to rock the empyrean.
Poor Father must have changed a lot.
He had a habit (now he's shed it)
Of patronising "_Unser Gott_,"
And going shares in all the credit;
To-day he wears a humbler air,
And leaves to Heaven the whole affair.
He's modified his sanguine view
About the foes he meant to batter;
He talks no more of barging through;
He frankly owns it's just a matter
Of hanging on and sitting tight,
Possibly through the _Ewigkeit_.
"I never speak in boastful vein;
No Prussian does," he tells the Army.
It really looks as if his brain
Is going "gugga," which is barmy;
He's done some talking through his hat,
But never quite such tosh as that.
How to correct the sad decline
Which takes this form of futile prattle?
That pious feat might yet be mine
If I could only win a battle;
Cases are known of mental crocks
Restored by sharp and staggering shocks.