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The Midnight Review
Anonymous translation
AT midnight, from his grave, | |
| The drummer woke and rose, | |
| And, beating loud the drum, | |
| Forth on his errand goes. | |
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| Stirred by his fleshless arms, | 5 |
| The drumsticks rise and fall; | |
| He beats the loud retreat, | |
| Reveillé and roll-call. | |
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| So strangely rolls that drum, | |
| So deep it echoes round, | 10 |
| Old soldiers in their graves | |
| To life start at the sound. | |
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| Both they in farthest North, | |
| Stiff in the ice that lay, | |
| And who, too, warm repose | 15 |
| Beneath Italian clay, | |
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| Below the mud of Nile, | |
| And ’neath the Arabian sand, | |
| Their burial-place they quit, | |
| And soon to arms they stand. | 20 |
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| And at midnight from his grave | |
| The trumpeter arose, | |
| And, mounted on his horse, | |
| A loud, shrill blast he blows. | |
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| On airy coursers then | 25 |
| The cavalry are seen, | |
| Old squadrons, erst renowned, | |
| Gory and gashed, I ween. | |
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| Beneath the casque their blanched skulls | |
| Smile grim, and proud their air, | 30 |
| As in their bony hands | |
| Their long, sharp swords they bare! | |
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| And at midnight from his tomb, | |
| The chief awoke and rose, | |
| And, followed by his staff, | 35 |
| With slow steps on he goes. | |
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| A little hat he wears, | |
| A coat quite plain has he, | |
| A little sword for arms | |
| At his left side hangs free. | 40 |
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| O’er the vast plain the moon | |
| A paly lustre threw; | |
| The man with the little hat | |
| The troops goes to review. | |
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| The ranks present their arms, | 45 |
| Deep rolls the drum the while; | |
| Recovering then, the troops | |
| Before the chief defile. | |
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| Captains and generals round | |
| In circles formed appear; | 50 |
| The chief to the first a word | |
| Now whispers in his ear. | |
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| The word goes round the ranks, | |
| Resounds along the line; | |
| That word they give, is—France, | 55 |
| The answer—St. Hélène. | |
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| ’T is there at midnight hour | |
| The grand review, they say, | |
| Is by dead Cæsar held, | |
| In the Champs-Élysées. | 60 |
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