They spat death and destruction,
We were not about to suffer it.
Two columns of foot soldiers, two batteries,
We rode over them and trampled them.

With swinging sabres, with bridles behung,
Deep the lances and high the banners,
Thus did we burst upon and scatter them, -
Cuirassiers we, and Lancers.

But it was bloody ride, a deathly ride;
Yes, they retreated from our blows,
But of two regiments that rode and fought,
Only every second man remained alive.

Their breast shot through, their brow hewn open,
Thus they lay, pale, upon the grass,
Torn away in their strength, in their youth, -
Now, trumpeter, sound the rallying call!

And he took the trumpet, and he breathed into it;
There, - the [trumpet] that with blasting rage
Had led us into the glorious fight,
The trumpet's voice faltered.

Only a toneless whimpering, a cry full of pain,
Surged forth from its metallic mouth;
A bullet had blown a hole in its brass,-
The wounded [trumpet] lamented the dead!

[Lamented] the valiant, the true, the watch along the Rhine,
The brothers who fell today, -
[Lamented] them all, it pierced our very marrow,
[The trumpet] took up a broken murmuring.

And then came the night and we rode off,
Round about the watch fires were glowing;
The horses snorted, the rain poured down,
And we thought of the dead, the dead.