WILD was the night, yet a wilder night | |
| Hung round the soldier’s pillow; | |
| In his bosom there waged a fiercer fight | |
| Than the fight on the wrathful billow. | |
| |
| A few fond mourners were kneeling by, | 5 |
| The few that his stern heart cherished; | |
| They knew by his glazed and unearthly eye | |
| That life had nearly perished. | |
| |
| They knew by his awful and kingly look, | |
| By the order hastily spoken, | 10 |
| That he dreamed of days when the nations shook, | |
| And the nations’ hosts were broken. | |
| |
| He dreamed that the Frenchman’s sword still slew, | |
| And triumphed the Frenchman’s “Eagle;” | |
| And the struggling Austrian fled anew, | 15 |
| Like the hare before the beagle. | |
| |
| The bearded Russian he scourged again, | |
| The Prussian’s camp was routed, | |
| And again on the hills of haughty Spain | |
| His mighty armies shouted. | 20 |
| |
| Over Egypt’s sands, over Alpine snows, | |
| At the Pyramids, at the mountain, | |
| Where the wave of the lordly Danube flows, | |
| And by the Italian fountain; | |
| |
| On the snowy cliffs, where mountain streams | 25 |
| Dash by the Switzer’s dwelling, | |
| He led again, in his dying dreams, | |
| His hosts, the broad earth quelling. | |
| |
| Again Marengo’s field was won, | |
| And Jena’s bloody battle; | 30 |
| Again the world was overrun, | |
| Made pale at his cannon’s rattle. | |
| |
| He died at the close of that darksome day, | |
| A day that shall live in story; | |
| In the rocky land they placed his clay, | 35 |
| “And left him alone with his glory.” | |
| |
