Many nice things posted, wow, Wotan your book is amazing too, and your artworks Damast are very vry nice!!! William your explanations are grabbed in my notes again!!!

Dean, Schlage, schlage denn empor what a supercard, the text is beautiful, actualy also not so simple, and, part of an old poem by Emanuel Geibel, written about 1859. But first, the transation;

Look, look up,
the cleansing glow of the world on fire!
Rise like a Pheonix from there,
Imperial Eagle of Germany!


It sure is old literature language, that you need to read in the correct period, in your head, if you know what I mean? An "Aar" is the old classic orginal german name for an eagle. On this old newspaper page from 1894, you can read the sentence "Heute wie damals schwebt der Kaiseraar schützend und schirmend über der Kaiserstadt", and here you can read the sentence "Horstend der Kaiseraar heute die Wacht" (also very pretty!), that means "today, nesting\from its nest, the Imperial Eagle guards", that refers to a german flag that waves above, and the proud german troops in that situation.

The poem (on your card) is from 1859, so, when Germany wasn"t an empire anymore, and YET. That empire was not really an empire, but it fell apart in 1804, when the Napoléonic wars were busy for about a year. The 2nd empire was founded after the Dänish, Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prusian wars, in 1871, so, that clears up the text of the poem, the empire rises from its own ashes, like phenixes do, to be newborn. And in this time of the 1st world war, it was very apropriate too.

You can read the rest of the poem here. Oh, the G.O.D. thing, I ~~think~~ its the initials of the artists name? But it makes me think of G.D., as in the latin "Dei Gratia"? Either way would be a guess .. Anyone else?

Bye,
KR


Nichts ist Ende, nichts ist Anfang.