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90 The National Music of America.
At Kitzen, near Leipsic, he was severely wounded, through an act of treachery, and lay in the woods during the night awaiting death. The calm courage of the man may be proved by the fact that he wrote his great " Abschied vom Leben " — " Farewell to Life" — during this dreadful night. He finally escaped to Carlsbad, but as soon as he was convalescent returned to duty. He was welcomed with enthusiasm; his poems, set to different national tunes, were sung around every camp-fire, and he had shown by his courage that they were not empty words. His pen it was that made Lutzow's troop terrible to the enemy, and gave an esprit du corps to the soldiers that was worth many regiments.
The corps was in almost daily action. The night before August 26, 1813, Koerner seems to have had one of those foreboding moods which can often be discerned in the war-songs which are collected in his volume, |
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