BACK to the river so lately passed o’er, | |
| Fast as that river flows, | |
| France takes flight to the Rhine once more | |
| From the might of her Austrian foes. | |
| |
| There was a young and lovely bride | 5 |
| Mid the ranks of those that fled; | |
| She followed the steps and she fought by the side | |
| Of him she had lately wed. | |
| |
| She had left her home in that fertile soil | |
| Where the vine and the olive grow, | 10 |
| For fields of blood, and to share in the toil | |
| That her lover must undergo. | |
| |
| Alas! that love which had nerved her heart | |
| To war and its daring deeds, | |
| Could not to her tender frame impart | 15 |
| The strength a soldier needs. | |
| |
| Now lingered that youth with his bride in the rear, | |
| For her limbs began to fail, | |
| And the hue of her cheek, though unchanged by fear, | |
| With weariness grew pale. | 20 |
| |
| He looked on her features in fond despair, | |
| As he held her to his breast; | |
| And her drooping head, as they tarried there, | |
| Sunk in his arms to rest. | |
| |
| From that hurried sleep when she woke again, | 25 |
| Far from her anxious sight | |
| The distant bands of her countrymen | |
| Had vanished in their flight. | |
| |
| Then together they left the beaten track, | |
| And sought the forest shade: | 30 |
| She wished from that host not a soldier back, | |
| While her own stood by to aid. | |
| |
| Hid from the search of pursuers there, | |
| For days and nights they sped; | |
| The fruits of the forest their only fare, | 35 |
| The leaves their only bed. | |
| |
| Fondly they thought that those paths might guide | |
| Once more to their native land; | |
| Vain hope! what sees that startled bride? | |
| Why grasps she her lover’s hand? | 40 |
| |
| ’T is the levelled gun of a foeman near, | |
| Half hid by the copsewood screen;— | |
| She clung, as a shield, to that breast so dear, | |
| And the fatal flash was seen! | |
| |
| They fell,—their heart’s blood stained the spot | 45 |
| Where yon lonely cypress grows; | |
| Their bodies, pierced by that single shot, | |
| In a single grave repose. | |
| |
