Willibald Alexis: “Fredericus Rex”
Excerpt, “The Book of German Songs from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century.” Translated and Edited by H. W. Dulcken. 1856.

FREDERICUS REX
.
FREDERICUS REX, our king and lord,
To all of his soldiers “To arms!” gave the word;
“Two hundred battalions, a thousand squadrons here!”
And he gave sixty cartridges to each grenadier.
.
“You rascally fellows,” his majesty began,
“Look that each of you stands for me in battle like a man
They’re grudging Silesia and Glatz to me,
And the hundred millions in my treasury.
.
“The Empress with the French an alliance has signed,
And raised the Roman kingdom against me, I find;
The Russians my territories do invade,
Up, and show ’em of what stuff we Prussians are made.
.
“My generals, Schwerin, and Field-marshal Von Keit,
And Major-general Ziethen, are all ready quite.
By the thunders and lightnings of battle, I vow,
They don’t know Fritz and his soldiers now.
.
“Now farewell, Louisa; Louisa, dry your eyes;
Not straight to its mark ev’ry bullet flies;
For if all the bullets should kill all the men,
From whence should we kings get our soldiers then?
.
“The musket bullet makes a little round hole,
A much larger wound both the cannon ball dole;
The bullets are all of iron and lead,
Yet many a bullet misses many a head.
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“Our guns they are heavy and well supplied,
Not one of the Prussians to the foe hath hied;
The Swedes they have cursed bad money, I trow;
If the Austrians have better, who can know?
.
“The French king pays his soldiers at his ease,
We get it, stock and stiver, every week, if we please;
By the thunders and the lightnings of battle, I say,
Who gets like the Prussian so promptly his pay?”
.
Fredericus, my king, whom the laurel doth grace,
Hadst thou but now and then let us plunder some place,
Fredericus, my hero, I verily say,
We’d drive for thee the devil from the world away.
