| |
| ON with the cohorts,—on! A darkening cloud | |
| Of Cossack lances hovers o’er the heights; | |
| And hark!—the Russian thunder on the rear | |
Thins the retreating ranks.
The haggard French, | |
| Like summoned spectres, facing toward their foes, | 5 |
| And goading on the lean and dying steeds | |
| That totter ’neath their huge artillery, | |
| Give desperate battle. Wrapt in volumed smoke | |
| A dense and motley mass of hurried forms | |
| Rush toward the Beresina. Soldiers mix | 10 |
| Undisciplined amid the feebler throng, | |
| While from the rough ravines the rumbling cars | |
| That bear the sick and wounded, with the spoils, | |
| Torn rashly from red Moscow’s sea of flame, | |
| Line the steep banks. Chilled with the endless shade | 15 |
| Of black pine-forests, where unslumbering winds | |
| Make bitter music,—every heart is sick | |
| For the warm breath of its far, native vales, | |
| Vine-clad and beautiful. Pale, meagre hands | |
| Stretched forth in eager misery, implore | 20 |
| Quick passage o’er the flood. But there it rolls, | |
| ’Neath its ice-curtain, horrible and hoarse, | |
| A fatal barrier ’gainst its country’s foes. | |
| The combat deepens. Lo! in one broad flash | |
| The Russian sabre gleams, and the wild hoof | 25 |
Treads out despairing life.
With maniac haste | |
| They throng the bridge, those fugitives of France, | |
| Reckless of all, save that last, desperate chance,— | |
| Rush, struggle, strive, the powerful thrust the weak, | |
And crush the dying.
Hark! a thundering crash, | 30 |
| A cry of horror! Down the broken bridge | |
| Sinks, and the wretched multitude plunge deep | |
| ’Neath the devouring tide. That piercing shriek | |
| With which they took their farewell of the sky, | |
| Did haunt the living, as some doleful ghost | 35 |
| Troubleth the fever-dream. Some for a while, | |
| With ice and death contending, sink and rise, | |
| While some in wilder agony essay | |
| To hold their footing on that tossing mass | |
| Of miserable life, making their path | 40 |
| O’er palpitating bosoms. ’T is in vain! | |
| The keen pang passes and the satiate flood | |
Shuts silent o’er its prey.
The severed host | |
| Stand gazing on each shore. The gulf,—the dead | |
| Forbid their union. One sad throng is warned | 45 |
| To Russia’s dungeons, one with shivering haste | |
| Spread o’er the wild, through toil and pain to hew | |
| Their many roads to death. From desert plains, | |
| From sacked and solitary villages | |
| Gaunt Famine springs to seize them; Winter’s wrath, | 50 |
| Unresting day or night, with blast and storm, | |
| And one eternal magazine of frost, | |
Smites the astonished victims.
God of Heaven! | |
| Warrest thou with France, that thus thine elements | |
| Do fight against her sons? Yet on they press, | 55 |
| Stern, rigid, silent,—every bosom steeled | |
| By the strong might of its own misery | |
| Against all sympathy of kindred ties. | |
| The brother on his fainting brother treads; | |
| Friend tears from friend the garment and the bread,— | 60 |
| That last, scant morsel, which his quivering lip | |
| Hoards in its death-pang. Round the midnight fires, | |
| That fiercely through the startled forest blaze, | |
| The dreaming shadows gather, madly pleased | |
| To bask and scorch and perish,—with their limbs | 65 |
| Crisped like the martyr’s, and their heads fast sealed | |
| To the frost-pillow of their fearful rest. | |
| Turn back, turn back, thou fur-clad emperor, | |
| Thus toward the palace of the Tuileries | |
| Flying with breathless speed. Yon meagre forms, | 70 |
| Yon breathing skeletons, with tattered robes, | |
| And bare and bleeding feet, and matted locks, | |
| Are these the high and haughty troops of France, | |
| The buoyant conscripts, who from their blest homes | |
| Went gayly at thy bidding? When the cry | 75 |
| Of weeping Love demands her cherished ones, | |
| The nursed upon her breast,—the idol-gods | |
| Of her deep worship,—wilt thou coldly point | |
| The Beresina,—the drear hospital, | |
| The frequent snow-mound on the unsheltered march, | 80 |
Where the lost soldier sleeps!
O War! War! War! | |
| Thou false baptized, who by thy vaunted name | |
| Of glory stealest o’er the ear of man | |
| To rive his bosom with thy thousand darts, | |
| Disrobed of pomp and circumstance, stand forth, | 85 |
| And show thy written league with sin and death. | |
| Yes, ere ambition’s heart is seared and sold | |
| And desolated, bid him mark thine end | |
And count thy wages.
The proud victor’s plume, | |
| The hero’s trophied fame, the warrior’s wreath | 90 |
| Of blood-dashed laurel,—what will these avail | |
| The spirit parting from material things? | |
| One slender leaflet from the tree of peace, | |
| Borne, dove-like, o’er the waste and warring earth, | |
| Is better passport at the gate of Heaven. | 95 |
| |
