The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

The Complete Poetical Works - Томас Харди


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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! . . .

      “—’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 Schwarzenberg was of the plot,

       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,

       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

       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.

      “Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed,

       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

       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

       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

       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.

      “Around the town three battles beat,

       Contracting like a gin;

       As nearer marched the million feet

       Of columns closing in.

      “The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;

       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;

       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,

       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?’ . . .

      “—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

       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;

       ‘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 deathbed

       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;

      “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

       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;

       ’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

       And on the bridge-way track;

      “When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,

       And stones, and men, as though

       Some rebel churchyard crew updrave

       Their sepulchres from below.

      “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

       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;

       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

      


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