The coach-wheels ploughed in mud,
In a late autumn morning dark and grey;
A sense of well-being pulsed through me,
Despite the bad weather and the way.

It is the air of home again,
That my glowing cheek could feel!
Even the filth on the country-roads
Carried my fatherland’s appeal!

Like old acquaintances greeting,
The horse’s tails cordially swung.
Atalanta’s apples appeared as fair
As their little cakes of dung!

We passed through Mühlheim. The town is fine,
The people are hardworking and quiet.
In May of eighteen thirty one,
Was the last time I came by it.

Everything then was blooming and bright,
The sunlight was laughing then,
The birds sang, full of longing,
There were hoping and thinking men.

“The scrawny overlords will soon depart”
That’s what the people used to think.
“And out of long flasks of iron,
We’ll serve their farewell drink!”

“And Freedom will come with dance and play,
With her banner, the white-blue-red;
Perhaps she’ll even be able to fetch
Napoleon from the dead!”

But alas! The lords are still around!
And many who came this way,
Foolish fellows, as thin as rakes,
Carry big bellies today.

Those pallid wretches used to look
Like love, like hope and like faith,
But from wine in excess, they now
Carry red noses on their face.

And Freedom has sprained her foot, she lost,
For springing and charging, all powers;
In Paris itself, the tricolour flags,
Look sadly down from their towers.

Since then, the Emperor has risen again,
But English worms have eaten his core,
And made a quit man out of him:
He let them burry him once more.

I saw his funeral rites myself,
And the golden coach that rolled
With victory’s golden goddesses,
Who carried his coffin of gold.

All along the Champs Elysées,
And through the Triumphal Arch,
On through mist, on over snow,
On went the funeral march.

The music was painfully out of tune,
And every musician froze.
The eagles on the standards
Looked nostalgic and morose.

The people looked like moving ghosts,
By old memories affected.
The fairy-tale imperial dream,
For a while, was resurrected.

I wept on that day. I couldn’t stop
My eyes from filling with tears,
When that old love cry “Vive l’Empereur!”
Resounded in my ears.