| |
| “OLD Norbert with the flat blue cap— | |
| A German said to be— | |
| Why let your pipe die on your lap, | |
| Your eyes blink absently?”— | |
| |
| —“Ah!… Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet | 5 |
| Of my mother—her voice and mien | |
| When she used to sing and pirouette, | |
| And touse the tambourine | |
| |
| “To the march that yon street-fiddler plies; | |
| She told me ’twas the same | 10 |
| She’d heard from the trumpets, when the Allies | |
| Her city overcame. | |
| |
| “My father was one of the German Hussars, | |
| My mother of Leipzig; but he, | |
| Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars, | 15 |
| And a Wessex lad reared me. | |
| |
| “And as I grew up, again and again | |
| She’d tell, after trilling that air, | |
| Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain | |
| And of all that was suffered there!… | 20 |
| |
| “—’Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms | |
| Combined them to crush One, | |
| And by numbers’ might, for in equal fight | |
| He stood the matched of none. | |
| |
| “Carl Schwartzenburg was of the plot, | 25 |
| And Blücher, prompt and prow, | |
| And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte: | |
| Buonaparte was the foe. | |
| |
| “City and plain had felt his reign | |
| From the North to the Middle Sea, | 30 |
| And he’d now sat down in the noble town | |
| Of the King of Saxony. | |
| |
| “October’s deep dew its wet gossamer threw | |
| Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn, | |
| Where lately each fair avenue | 35 |
| Wrought shade for summer noon. | |
| |
| “To westward two dull rivers crept | |
| Through miles of marsh and slough, | |
| Whereover a streak of whiteness swept— | |
| The Bridge of Lindenau. | 40 |
| |
| “Hard by, in the City, the One, care-crossed, | |
| Gloomed over his shrunken power; | |
| And without the walls the hemming host | |
| Waxed denser every hour. | |
| |
| “He had speech that night on the morrow’s designs | 45 |
| With his chiefs by the bivouac fire, | |
| While the belt of flames from the enemy’s lines | |
| Flared nigher him yet and nigher. | |
| |
| “Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine | |
| Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose | 50 |
| Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign | |
| For bleeding Europe’s woes. | |
| |
| “‘Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night | |
| Glowed still and steadily; | |
| And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight | 55 |
| That the One disdained to flee…. | |
| |
| “—Five hundred guns began the affray | |
| On next day morn at nine; | |
| Such mad and mangling cannon-play | |
| Had never torn human line. | 60 |
| |
| “Around the town three battle beat, | |
| Contracting like a gin; | |
| As nearer marched the million feet | |
| Of columns closing in. | |
| |
| “The first battle nighed on the low Southern side; | 65 |
| The second by the Western way; | |
| The nearing of the third on the North was heard; | |
| —The French held all at bay. | |
| |
| “Against the first band did the Emperor stand; | |
| Against the second stood Ney; | 70 |
| Marmont against the third gave the order-word: | |
| —Thus raged it throughout the day. | |
| |
| “Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls, | |
| Who met the dawn hopefully, | |
| And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs, | 75 |
| Dropt then in their agony. | |
| |
| “‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye Preachers stern! | |
| O so-called Christian time! | |
| When will men’s swords to ploughshares turn? | |
| When come the promised prime?’… | 80 |
| |
| “—The clash of horse and man which that day began, | |
| Closed not as evening wore; | |
| And the morrow’s armies, rear and van, | |
| Still mustered more and more. | |
| |
| “From the City towers the Confederate Powers | 85 |
| Were eyed in glittering lines, | |
| And up from the vast a murmuring passed | |
| As from a wood of pines. | |
| |
| “‘’Tis well to cover a feeble skill | |
| By numbers!’ scoffèd He; | 90 |
| ‘But give me a third of their strength, I’d fill | |
| Half Hell with their soldiery!’ | |
| |
| “All that day raged the war they waged, | |
| And again dumb night held reign, | |
| Save that ever upspread from the dark death-bed | 95 |
| A miles-wide pant of pain. | |
| |
| “Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand, | |
| Victor, and Augereau, | |
| Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston, | |
| To stay their overthrow; | 100 |
| |
| “But, as in the dream of one sick to death | |
| There comes a narrowing room | |
| That pens him, body and limbs and breath, | |
| To wait a hideous doom, | |
| |
| “So to Napoleon, in the hush | 105 |
| That held the town and towers | |
| Through these dire nights, a creeping crush | |
| Seemed inborne with the hours. | |
| |
| “One road to the rearward, and but one, | |
| Did fitful Chance allow; | 110 |
| ’Twas where the Pleiss’ and Elster run— | |
| The Bridge of Lindenau. | |
| |
| “The nineteenth dawned. Down street and Platz | |
| The wasted French sank back, | |
| Stretching long lines across the Flats | 115 |
| And on the bridge-way track; | |
| |
| “When there surged on the sky on earthen wave, | |
| And stones, and men, as though | |
| Some rebel churchyard crew updrave | |
| Their sepulchres from below. | 120 |
| |
| “To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau; | |
| Wrecked regiments reel therefrom; | |
| And rank and file in masses plough | |
| The sullen Elster-Strom. | |
| |
| “A gulf was Lindenau; and dead | 125 |
| Were fifties, hundreds, tens; | |
| And every current rippled red | |
| With Marshal’s blood and men’s. | |
| |
| “The smart Macdonald swam therein, | |
| And barely won the verge; | 130 |
| Bold Poniatowski plunged him in | |
| Never to re-emerge. | |
| |
| “Then stayed the strife. The remnants wound | |
| Their Rhineward way pell-mell; | |
| And thus did Leipzig City sound | 135 |
| An Empire’s passing bell; | |
| |
| “While in cavalcade, with band and blade, | |
| Came Marshals, Princes, Kings; | |
| And the town was theirs…. Ay, as simple maid, | |
| My mother saw these things! | 140 |
| |
| “And whenever those notes in the street begin, | |
| I recall her, and that far scene, | |
| And her acting of how the Allies marched in, | |
| And her touse of the tambourine!” | |
| |
