L’Aiglon. I am the expiation. | |
| All was not paid, and I complete the price. | |
| ’Twas fated I should seek his battle-field | |
| And here, above the multitudinous dead, | |
| Be the white victim, growing daily whiter, | 5 |
| Renouncing, praying, asking but to suffer, | |
| Yearning toward heaven, like sacrificial incense! | |
| And while betwixt the heavens and this field | |
| I am outstretched with all my soul and body, | |
| Father, I feel the shuddering furrows rise, | 10 |
| I feel the hill upheaved beneath my feet | |
| To lift me gently to the stooping heavens! | |
| ’Tis meet and right the battle-field should offer | |
| This sacrifice, that henceforth it may bear | |
| Pure and unstained its name of Victory. | 15 |
| Wagram, behold me! Ransom of old days, | |
| Son, offered for, alas! how many sons! | |
| Above the dreadful haze wherein thou stirrest, | |
| Uplift me, Wagram, in thy scarlet hands! | |
| It must be so! I know it! Feel it! Will it! | 20 |
| The breath of death has rustled through my hair! | |
| The shudder of death has passed athwart my soul! | |
| I am all white: a sacramental Host! | |
| What more reproaches can they hurl, O Father, | |
| Against our hapless fate?—Oh hush! I add | 25 |
| In silence Schonbrunn to Saint Helena!— | |
| ’Tis done!—But if the Eaglet is resigned | |
| To perish like the innocent, yielding swan, | |
| Nailed in the gloom above some lofty gate, | |
| He must become the high and holy signal | 30 |
| That scares the ravens and calls back the eagles. | |
| There must be no more moanings in the field, | |
| Nor dreadful writhings in the underwood. | |
| Bear on thy wings, O whirlwind of the plain, | |
| The shouts of conquerors and songs of triumph! | 35 |
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