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FAMOUS SONGS
composed by Weber, has added greatly to the celebrity of the passionate stanzas.
Many other national songs were written later, such as " Deutschland iiber Alles," by Hoffmann von Fallersleben. The chief modern patriotic song is, of course, " Die Wacht am Rhein;" the hymn " Heil Dir im Siegeskranz/' by the way, is sung to the same tune as " God Save the Queen." (The histories of both of these songs will be found in later chapters of this work.) The Rhine comes in for a good share of notice in patriotic poems. The well-known song of Nicolaus Becker, written about the year 1840, and entitled "Sie sollen ihn nicht haben, den freien Deutschen Rhein" (" They— the French—shall not have it, the free German Rhine"), was answered by the satirical poem of Alfred de Musset," Nous l'avons eu, votre Rhin allemand" (" We have had it already, your Ger-man Rhine!").
In Prussia the favourite patriotic song in the fifties and sixties was " Ich bin em Preusse, Kennt ihr meine Farben?" (" I am a Prussian, do you know my colours?"). It is now some-what out of date, but the melody, by A. Neit-hardt, which is stirring, is frequently adapted to other songs. The patriotic songs of the present day are mostly tame and commonplace; there
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