| |
| ON Vorska’s glittering waves | |
| The morning sunbeams play; | |
| Pultowa’s walls are thronged | |
| With eager multitudes; | |
| Athwart the dusty vale | 5 |
| They strain their aching eyes, | |
| Where to the fight moves on | |
| The conqueror Charles, the iron-hearted Swede. | |
| |
| Him famine hath not tamed,— | |
| The tamer of the brave. | 10 |
| Him winter hath not quelled; | |
| When man by man his veteran troops sunk down, | |
| Frozen to their endless sleep, | |
| He held undaunted on. | |
| Him pain hath not subdued; | 15 |
| What though he mounts not now | |
| The fiery steed of war, | |
| Borne on a litter to the field he goes. | |
| |
| Go, iron-hearted king! | |
| Full of thy former fame; | 20 |
| Think how the humbled Dane | |
| Crouched underneath thy sword; | |
| Think how the wretched Pole | |
| Resigned his conquered crown: | |
| Go, iron-hearted king! | 25 |
| Let Narva’s glory swell thy haughty breast; | |
| The death-day of thy glory, Charles, hath dawned! | |
| Proud Swede! the sun hath risen | |
| That on thy shame shall set! | |
| |
| Now, Patkul, may thine injured spirit rest! | 30 |
| For over that relentless Swede | |
| Ruin hath raised his unrelenting arm; | |
| For ere the night descends, | |
| His veteran host destroyed, | |
| His laurels blasted to revive no more, | 35 |
| He flies before the Muscovite. | |
| |
| Impatiently that haughty heart must bear | |
| Long years of hope deceived; | |
| Long years of idleness | |
| That sleepless soul must brook. | 40 |
| Now, Patkul, may thy injured spirit rest! | |
| To him who suffers in an honest cause | |
| No death is ignominious; not to thee, | |
| But upon Charles, the cruel, the unjust,— | |
| Not upon thee, on him | 45 |
| The ineffaceable reproach is fixed, | |
| The infamy abides. | |
| Now, Patkul, may thine injured spirit rest! | |
| |
