22. To Friedrich Graeber, after July 27
fruits, which contain the most precious heart-blood, are the dogmas, and what goes beyond them is of the Evil one. This is what Schleiermacher teaches and I stand by it.
Adieu, dear Fritz. Think carefully about whether you really want to send me to hell and write me my sentence soon.
Yours,
Friedrich Engels
22
TO FRIEDRICH GRAEBER
IN BONN
[Bremen, after July 27, 1839] Dear Fritz,
Recepi litteras tuas hodie, et jamque tibi responsurus sum.[3] I cannot write very much to you — you are still in my debt, and I am expecting a long letter from you. Is your brother Wilhelm on holiday too? Is Wurm now studying with you in Bonn? God bless fat Peterb in his studia militaria. A little poem written on July 27c
may give you practice in liberalism and in reading ancient metre. Otherwise there is nothing in it.
GERMAN JULY DAYS 1839
How the waves mount up in the roaring gale, how the storm
comes relentlessly onwardsl Tall as a man are the foaming waves, and the skiff goes rising and
falling; From the Rhine there blows a whirling wind that musters the
clouds in the heavens,
a I received your letter today, and I am already about to answer you.— Ed.
Peter Jonghaus.— Ed. c That is, on the anniversary of the July 1830 revolution in France.— Ed.
That splits up oaks and whips up dust and lashes the waves in its
fury. Of you I think in my tossing skiff, you German kings and you
princes. How the patient people bore on their heads the gilded throne you
ascended, In triumph carried you through the land and sent the bold
conqueror fleeing.(1)
Brazenly arrogant then you became, you betrayed all the promises
given. Now a storm blows up out of France, and the people rise up in
their masses, And your throne is rocked like the skiff in the storm and your
hand loses hold of the sceptre. You above all, Ernst August, I challenge with angry defiance. Despotic and reckless, you flouted the law — now hark to the
storm as it rises! The people look up with piercing eyes and the sword barely rests
in the scabbard. Speak! Are you safe on your golden throne, as I in my boat on the
waters?
The business about the high waves on the Weser is quite true, also that I was sailing on it on the great day of the July revolution.
Give my regards to Wurm and tell him that he must write me a lot.
Yours,
Friedr. Engels First published in full in the book: Printed according to the original F. Engels, Schriften der Frühzeit, Berlin, Published in English for the first 19x20 time 23
Endnotes
[3] As can be seen from Engels' letter to his sister Marie of March 12, 1839 (see this volume, pp. 419-20), this poem was sent to Der Bremer Stadtbote in a fuller version. The publication of Th. Hildebrandt's poem Book Wisdom was mentioned in the Bremer Wöchentliche Nachrichten No. 36, 2. Beilage, S. 2, for March 25, 1839. However, the Publishers do not possess a copy of Der Bremer Stadtbote containing this poem.