MALBROUCK, the prince of commanders, | |
| Is gone to the war in Flanders; | |
| His fame is like Alexander’s; | |
| But when will he come home? | |
| |
| Perhaps at Trinity Feast, or | 5 |
| Perhaps he may come at Easter. | |
| Egad! he had better make haste, or | |
| We fear he may never come. | |
| |
| For Trinity Feast is over, | |
| And has brought no news from Dover, | 10 |
| And Easter is past, moreover, | |
| And Malbrouck still delays. | |
| |
| Milady in her watch-tower | |
| Spends many a pensive hour, | |
| Not knowing why or how her | 15 |
| Dear lord from England stays. | |
| |
| While sitting quite forlorn in | |
| That tower, she spies returning | |
| A page clad in deep mourning, | |
| With fainting steps and slow. | 20 |
| |
| “O page, prithee, come faster! | |
| What news do you bring of your master? | |
| I fear there is some disaster, | |
| Your looks are so full of woe.” | |
| |
| “The news I bring, fair lady,” | 25 |
| With sorrowful accent said he, | |
| “Is one you are not ready | |
| So soon, alas! to hear. | |
| |
| “But since to speak I ’m hurried,” | |
| Added this page, quite flurried, | 30 |
| “Malbrouck is dead and buried!” | |
| And here he shed a tear. | |
| |
| “He ’s dead! he ’s dead as a herring! | |
| For I beheld his berring, | |
| And four officers transferring | 35 |
| His corpse away from the field. | |
| |
| “One officer carried his sabre, | |
| And he carried it not without labor, | |
| Much envying his next neighbor, | |
| Who only bore a shield. | 40 |
| |
| “The third was helmet-bearer,— | |
| That helmet which on its wearer | |
| Filled all who saw with tenor, | |
| And covered a hero’s brains. | |
| |
| “Now, having got so far, I | 45 |
| Find that—by the Lord Harry!— | |
| The fourth is left nothing to carry;— | |
| So there the thing remains.” | |
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