Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79. | | | | Magdeburg | | The Fall of Magdeburg | | John Bruce Norton (1815–1883) |
| | | “TROY and Jerusalem have fallen, but ne’er,” | |
| Wrote Tilly, “the destroying angel, sire, | |
| Lit, until now, a city’s funeral pyre, | |
| Like that which hath laid low the strong and fair, | |
| But heretic Magdeburg.”—O, bid me spare | 5 |
| The tale: my blood would freeze, or brain would fire, | |
| To tell the horrors which sectarian ire, | |
| Croat, Walloon, scarred Pappenheim, wrought there. | |
| Yet mid the flames, and thirty thousand dead, | |
| While salvos from the smoke-grimed cannon leaped, | 10 |
| The victors, lust-polluted, murder-fed, | |
| Mocked God in the Cathedral, chanting high | |
| “Te Deum,” and the demon Blasphemy | |
| Veiled on the altar-steps his face, and wept. | | | | |
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