_Winter_, 1863.
There comes a blast like winter storm;
It roars as it were the flood.
Is the spring coming at Christmas-tide?
Does God himself help us in our need?
From all the hills on the right and left,
There again comes the German host!
It is to be now or never!
O, save the German honor!
We hear the eagle, he comes, he comes!
Once more we hope and wait!
Is it freedom at last he brings to us?
Is it truth what comes from thence?
Else Heaven help us, now it goes no more!
Help thou, and bring us our Duke!
Then will we die for German honor!
Then bury us in German earth!
_December_ 30, 1863.
It is not, however, in war songs or political invective that the poetical
genius of Klaus Groth shows to advantage. His proper sphere is the quiet
idyl, a truthful and thoughtful description of nature, a reproduction of
the simplest and deepest feelings of the human heart, and all this in the
homely, honest, and heartfelt language of his own “Platt Deutsch.” That
the example of Burns has told on Groth, that the poetry of the Scotch poet
has inspired and inspirited the poet of Schleswig-Holstein, is not to be
denied. But to imitate Burns, and to imitate him successfully, is no mean
achievement, and Groth would be the last man to disown his master. The
poem “Min Jehann” might have been written by Burns. I shall give a free
metrical translation of it, but should advise the reader to try to spell
out the original; for much of its charm lies in its native form, and to
turn Groth even into High-German destroys his beauty as much as when Burns
is translated into English.