Bismarck
“I have only one ambition left, I should like to have a good epitaph.”
Prince Bismarck.
In answer to a suggestion of the Pall Mall Gazette to meet Prince Bismarck’s wish, the following epitaphs, among others, were received and published:
He sowed his iron hail o’er many a field,
And dyed in the red the harvest seemed to be
The bloom and fruit of golden unity.
Now, Europe, wondering, sees the furrows yield.
Here, on the verge of Prussia’s border,
Moulder the bones of Prussia’s warder:
Sound may he sleep when the coming thunder
Shall rock his castle walls asunder.
If dust ye seek, and dust alone,
Prince Bismarck sleeps beneath this stone,
But if his soul you seek, depart!
His Germans keep that in their heart.
Behold the power of Europe in his grip:
On others’ blood he built an Empire’s throne;
Undaunted pride purchased a grievous slip;
Himself his God—his foes his very own.
Around this tomb hovers the spirit great,
Which for too brief a span did animate
The mighty frame that silent lies below,
Leaving this world to wonderment and woe.
Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, whose nod
The anxious nations watched, as of a god—
He forged an Empire, swayed it in its pride,
And then, to show that he was mortal, died.
I ruled as King, and not in vain,
I tamed the Austrian and the Dane,
I curbed proud France (for Europe’s good),
I placed our borders where she stood,
I made Germania One and Free,
I fell. I saw adversity.
Bismarck lies here. Early and late
He strove to make his country great.
Did he succeed? Let Sedan, Paris, tell;
But silence keep on how, himself, he fell.
Look kindly on this spot, here Bismarck lies.
Death’s kiss’d away the terror of his eyes.
And the brave heart by leisure has been made
A child’s, of which the world was once afraid;
Cleansed is the “blood”—the “iron’s” lost in love,
And now Earth’s Prince is crown’d a King above.
War’s fiery furnaces have fused the race of Teuton blood,
’Twas Bismarck fanned the blaze;
To strong Germania has been shaped the molten flood,
And Bismarck owns the praise.
To the immortal Founder of the
Fatherland’s Unity
this
Monument is dedicated by the grateful Germans, who will admiringly remember, for ever and ever, his high, patriotic aims, his unwavering steadfastness and purpose, his indomitable energy and courage, and the eminently practical means by which he realized the national aspirations.
What would Germany be without him?
A mere geographical expression.
His name will go down to Posterity as the Greatest of his nation.