C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Joseph Christian Freiherr von Zedlitz (1790–1862)
The Midnight Review
A
From out his grave awakes,
And with his drum parading,
His wonted round he takes.
In eddying circles flew,
And beat the roll with vigor,
The larum and tattoo.
That drum amidst the gloom.
The warriors that slumbered
Awakened in their tomb;
’Mid northern ice and snow,
And they who lie in Italy
Where scorching summers glow,
And Araby’s glowing sand,
From out their graves arising
All take their arms in hand.
Quits, too, his grave to blow
His blast so shrill and piercing,
And rideth to and fro.
The ghastly dead behold!
The blood-stained ancient squadrons
With weapons manifold!
Beneath their helmets peer;
In their bony hands uplifted
Their gleaming swords appear.
The chieftain quits his grave;
Advances, slowly riding,
Amid his chosen brave.
His garb no regal pride,
And small is the polished sabre
That’s girded to his side.
The plain with silver rays;
That chief with the plumeless helmet
His warrior host surveys.
Then shoulder arms anew,
And pass with music’s clangor
Before him in review.
Round in a circle stand;
The chieftain whispers softly
To one at his right hand.
It fleeth o’er the plain:
“La France,”—this is their watchword;
The password, “St. Hélène!”
In the Elysian plain,
The dead and mighty Cæsar
Reviews his warrior train.