| |
| HO! City of the gay! | |
| Paris! what festal rite | |
| Doth call thy thronging million forth, | |
| All eager for the sight? | |
| Thy soldiers line the streets | 5 |
| In fixed and stern array, | |
| With buckled helm and bayonet, | |
| As on the battle-day. | |
| |
| By square, and fountain side, | |
| Heads in dense masses rise, | 10 |
| And tower and battlement and tree | |
| Are studded thick with eyes. | |
| Comes there some conqueror home | |
| In triumph from the fight, | |
| With spoil and captives in his train, | 15 |
| The trophies of his might? | |
| |
| The Arc de Triomphe glows! | |
| A martial host is nigh; | |
| France pours in long succession forth | |
| Her pomp of chivalry. | 20 |
| No clarion marks their way, | |
| No victor trump is blown; | |
| Why march they on so silently, | |
| Told by their tread alone? | |
| |
| Behold, in glittering show, | 25 |
| A gorgeous car of state! | |
| The white-plumed steeds, in cloth of gold, | |
| Bow down beneath its weight; | |
| And the noble war-horse, led | |
| Caparisoned along, | 30 |
| Seems fiercely for his lord to ask, | |
| As his red eye scans the throng. | |
| |
| Who rideth on yon car? | |
| The incense flameth high,— | |
| Comes there some demi-god of old? | 35 |
| No answer!—No reply! | |
| Who rideth on yon car?— | |
| No shout his minions raise, | |
| But by a lofty chapel dome | |
| The muffled hero stays. | 40 |
| |
| A king is standing there, | |
| And with uncovered head | |
| Receives him in the name of France: | |
| Receiveth whom?—The dead! | |
| Was he not buried deep | 45 |
| In island-cavern drear, | |
| Girt by the sounding ocean surge? | |
| How came that sleeper here? | |
| |
| Was there no rest for him | |
| Beneath a peaceful pall, | 50 |
| That thus he brake his stony tomb, | |
| Ere the strong angel’s call? | |
| Hark! hark! the requiem swells, | |
| A deep, soul-thrilling strain! | |
| An echo, never to be heard | 55 |
| By mortal ear again. | |
| |
| A requiem for the chief, | |
| Whose fiat millions slew,— | |
| The soaring eagle of the Alps, | |
| The crushed at Waterloo:— | 60 |
| The banished who returned, | |
| The dead who rose again, | |
| And rode in his shroud the billows proud | |
| To the sunny banks of Seine. | |
| |
| They laid him there in state, | 65 |
| That warrior strong and bold,— | |
| The imperial crown, with jewels bright, | |
| Upon his ashes cold, | |
| While round those columns proud | |
| The blazoned banners wave, | 70 |
| That on a hundred fields he won | |
| With the heart’s-blood of the brave; | |
| |
| And sternly there kept guard | |
| His veterans scarred and old, | |
| Whose wounds of Lodi’s cleaving bridge | 75 |
| Or purple Leipsic told. | |
| Yes, there, with arms reversed, | |
| Slow pacing, night and day, | |
| Close watch beside the coffin kept | |
| Those veterans grim and gray. | 80 |
| |
| A cloud is on their brow,— | |
| Is it sorrow for the dead, | |
| Or memory of the fearful strife | |
| Where their country’s legions fled? | |
| Of Borodino’s blood? | 85 |
| Of Beresina’s wail? | |
| The horrors of that dire retreat, | |
| Which turned old History pale? | |
| |
| A cloud is on their brow,— | |
| Is it sorrow for the dead, | 90 |
| Or a shuddering at the wintry shaft | |
| By Russian tempests sped? | |
| Where countless mounds of snow | |
| Marked the poor conscript’s grave, | |
| And, pierced by frost and famine, sank | 95 |
| The bravest of the brave. | |
| |
| A thousand trembling lamps | |
| The gathered darkness mock, | |
| And velvet drapes his hearse, who died | |
| On bare Helena’s rock; | 100 |
| And from the altar near, | |
| A never-ceasing hymn | |
| Is lifted by the chanting priests | |
| Beside the taper dim. | |
| |
| Mysterious one, and proud! | 105 |
| In the land where shadows reign, | |
| Hast thou met the flocking ghosts of those | |
| Who at thy nod were slain? | |
| Oh, when the cry of that spectral host | |
| Like a rushing blast shall be, | 110 |
| What will thine answer be to them? | |
| And what thy God’s to thee? | |
| |
