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Poems

Год написания книги
2017
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Though shored by spear and crozier,
All know the arrant cheat,
And shun the square of pavement
Uncertain at his feet!
Yea, spare the wretch, each brooding
And secret-leaguers' chief,
And make no pistol-target
Of stars upon the thief.

The knell of God strikes seldom
But in the aptest hour;
And when the life is sweetest,
The worm will feel His power!

THE DESPATCH OF THE DOOM

("Pendant que dans l'auberge.")

{Bk. IV. xiii., Jersey, November, 1852.}

While in the jolly tavern, the bandits gayly drink,
Upon the haunted highway, sharp hoof-beats loudly clink?
Yea; past scant-buried victims, hard-spurring sturdy steed,
A mute and grisly rider is trampling grass and weed,
And by the black-sealed warrant which in his grasp shines clear,
I known it is the Future– God's Justicer is here!

THE SEAMAN'S SONG

("Adieu, patrie.")

{Bk. V. ix., Aug. 1, 1852.}

Farewell the strand,
The sails expand
Above!
Farewell the land
We love!
Farewell, old home where apples swing!
Farewell, gay song-birds on the wing!

Farewell, riff-raff
Of Customs' clerks who laugh
And shout:
"Farewell!" We'll quaff
One bout
To thee, young lass, with kisses sweet!
Farewell, my dear – the ship flies fleet!

The fog shuts out the last fond peep,
As 'neath the prow the cast drops weep.
Farewell, old home, young lass, the bird!
The whistling wind alone is heard:
Farewell! Farewell!

THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW

("Il neigeait.")

{Bk. V. xiii., Nov. 25-30, 1852.}

It snowed. A defeat was our conquest red!
For once the eagle was hanging its head.
Sad days! the Emperor turned slowly his back
On smoking Moscow, blent orange and black.
The winter burst, avalanche-like, to reign
Over the endless blanched sheet of the plain.
Nor chief nor banner in order could keep,
The wolves of warfare were 'wildered like sheep.
The wings from centre could hardly be known
Through snow o'er horses and carts o'erthrown,
Where froze the wounded. In the bivouacs forlorn
Strange sights and gruesome met the breaking morn:
Mute were the bugles, while the men bestrode
Steeds turned to marble, unheeding the goad.
The shells and bullets came down with the snow
As though the heavens hated these poor troops below.
Surprised at trembling, though it was with cold,
Who ne'er had trembled out of fear, the veterans bold
Marched stern; to grizzled moustache hoarfrost clung
'Neath banners that in leaden masses hung.

It snowed, went snowing still. And chill the breeze
Whistled upon the glassy endless seas,
Where naked feet on, on for ever went,
With naught to eat, and not a sheltering tent.
They were not living troops as seen in war,
But merely phantoms of a dream, afar
In darkness wandering, amid the vapor dim, —
A mystery; of shadows a procession grim,
Nearing a blackening sky, unto its rim.
Frightful, since boundless, solitude behold
Where only Nemesis wove, mute and cold,
A net all snowy with its soft meshes dense,
A shroud of magnitude for host immense;
Till every one felt as if left alone
In a wide wilderness where no light shone,
To die, with pity none, and none to see
That from this mournful realm none should get free.
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