| |
| THE YELLOW snow-fog curdled thick, | |
| Dark, brooding, dull, and brown, | |
| About the ramparts hiding all | |
| The steeples of the town; | |
| The icicles, as thick as beams, | 5 |
| Hung down from every roof, | |
| When all at once we heard a sound | |
| As of a muffled hoof. | |
| |
| ’T was nothing but a soldier’s horse, | |
| All riderless and torn | 10 |
| With bullets; scarce his bleeding legs | |
| Could reach the gate. A morn | |
| Of horror broke upon us then; | |
| We listened, but no drum,— | |
| Only a sullen, distant roar | 15 |
| Telling us that they come. | |
| |
| Next, slowly staggering through the fog, | |
| A grenadier reeled past, | |
| A bloody turban round his head, | |
| His pallid face aghast. | 20 |
| Behind him, with an arm bound up | |
| With half a Russian flag, | |
| Came one, then three, the last one sopped | |
| His breast with crimson rag. | |
| |
| Quick all at once a sullen bell | 25 |
| Upon the gateway tower | |
| Broke out, to warn our citizens | |
| Napoleon’s savage power | |
| Had gone to wreck, and these the waifs | |
| Were making fast to land. | 30 |
| It bade us look to see the hulk | |
| Sucked hellward by the sand. | |
| |
| All day the frozen, bleeding men | |
| Came pouring through the place; | |
| Drums broken, colors torn to shreds, | 35 |
| Foul wounds on every face. | |
| Black powder-wagons, scorched and split, | |
| Broad wheels caked thick with snow, | |
| Red bayonets bent, and swords that still | |
| Were reeking from the blow. | 40 |
| |
| A drunken rabble, pale and wan, | |
| With cursing faces turned | |
| To where, still threatening in the rear, | |
| The port-fires lurid burned. | |
| The ground was strewn with epaulettes, | 45 |
| Letters, and cards, and songs: | |
| The barrels, leaking drops of gold, | |
| Were trampled by the throngs. | |
| |
| A brutal, selfish, goring mob, | |
| Yet here and there a trace | 50 |
| Of the divine shone out, and lit | |
| A gashed and suffering face. | |
| Here came a youth, who on his back | |
| His dying father bore; | |
| With bandaged feet the brave youth limped, | 55 |
| Slow, shuddering, dripping gore. | |
| |
| And even mid the trampling crowd, | |
| Maimed, crippled by the frost, | |
| I found that every spark of good | |
| Was not extinct and lost. | 60 |
| Deep in the ranks of savage men | |
| I saw two grenadiers | |
| Leading their corporal, his breast | |
| Stabbed by the Cossack spears. | |
| |
| He saved that boy whose tearful eyes | 65 |
| Were fixed upon the three,— | |
| Although too weak to beat his drum | |
| Still for his company. | |
| Half stripped, or wrapped in furs and gowns, | |
| The broken ranks went on; | 70 |
| They ran if any one called out | |
| “The Cossacks of the Don!” | |
| |
| The whispered rumor, like a fire, | |
| Spreads fast from street to street; | |
| With boding look and shaking head | 75 |
| The staring gossips meet: | |
| “Ten thousand horses every night | |
| Were smitten by the frost; | |
| Full thirty thousand rank and file | |
| In Beresina lost. | 80 |
| |
| “The Cossacks fill their caps with gold | |
| The Frenchmen fling away. | |
| Napoleon was shot the first, | |
| And only lived a day,— | |
| They say that Caulaincourt is lost,— | 85 |
| The guns are left behind; | |
| God’s curse has fallen on these thieves,— | |
| He sent the snow and wind.” | |
| |
| Tired of the clatter and the noise, | |
| I sought an inner room, | 90 |
| Where twenty waxlights, starry clear, | |
| Drove off the fog and gloom. | |
| I took my wanton Ovid down, | |
| And soon forgot the scene, | |
| As through my dreams I saw arise | 95 |
| The rosy-bosomed queen. | |
| |
| My wine stood mantling in the glass, | |
| (The goblet of Voltaire), | |
| I sipped and dozed, and dozed and sipped, | |
| Slow rocking in my chair, | 100 |
| When open flew the bursting door, | |
| And Caulaincourt stalked in, | |
| Tall, gaunt, and wrapped in frozen furs, | |
| Hard frozen to his skin. * * * * * | |
| The wretched hag of the low inn | 105 |
| Puffed at the sullen fire | |
| Of spitting wood, that hissed and smoked; | |
| There stood the Jove whose ire | |
| But lately set the world aflame, | |
| Wrapped in a green pelisse, | 110 |
| Fur-lined, and stiff with half-burnt lace, | |
| Trying to seem at ease. | |
| |
| “Bah! du sublime au ridicule | |
| Il n’y a qu’un pas,” | |
| He said. “The rascals think they ’ve made | 115 |
| A comet of my star. | |
| The army broken,—dangers?—pish!— | |
| I did not bring the frost. | |
| Levy ten thousand Poles, Duroc,— | |
| Who tells me we have lost? | 120 |
| |
| “I beat them everywhere, Murat,— | |
| It is a costly game; | |
| But nothing venture, nothing win,— | |
| I ’m sorry now we came. | |
| That burning Moscow was a deed | 125 |
| Worthy of ancient Rome,— | |
| Mind that I gild the Invalides | |
| To match the Kremlin dome. | |
| |
| “Well? well as Beelzebub himself!” | |
| He leaped into the sleigh | 130 |
| Sent forth to bear this Cæsar off | |
| Upon his ruthless way. | |
| A flash of fire!—the courtyard stones | |
| Snapped out,—the landlord cheered,— | |
| In a hell-gulf of pitchy dark | 135 |
| The carriage disappeared. | |
| |
