Leipzig
“Old Norbert with the flat blue cap—A German said to be—Why let your pipe die on your lap,Your eyes blink absently?”—
—“Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wetOf my mother—her voice and mienWhen she used to sing and pirouette,And touse the tambourine
“To the march that yon street-fiddler plies:She told me ’twas the sameShe’d heard from the trumpets, when the AlliesHer city overcame.
“My father was one of the German Hussars,My mother of Leipzig; but he,Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,And a Wessex lad reared me.
“And as I grew up, again and againShe’d tell, after trilling that air,Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plainAnd of all that was suffered there! . . .
“—’Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-armsCombined them to crush One,And by numbers’ might, for in equal fightHe 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 reignFrom the North to the Middle Sea,And he’d now sat down in the noble townOf the King of Saxony.
“October’s deep dew its wet gossamer threwUpon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn,Where lately each fair avenueWrought shade for summer noon.
“To westward two dull rivers creptThrough 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 hostWaxed denser every hour.
“He had speech that night on the morrow’s designsWith his chiefs by the bivouac fire,While the belt of flames from the enemy’s linesFlared nigher him yet and nigher.
“Three sky-lights then from the girdling trineTold, ‘Ready!’ As they roseTheir flashes seemed his Judgment-SignFor bleeding Europe’s woes.
“’Twas seen how the French watch-fires that nightGlowed still and steadily;And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sightThat the One disdained to flee . . .
“—Five hundred guns began the affrayOn next day morn at nine;Such mad and mangling cannon-playHad never torn human line.
“Around the town three battles beat,Contracting like a gin;As nearer marched the million feetOf 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 PowersWere eyed in glittering lines,And up from the vast a murmuring passedAs from a wood of pines.
“‘’Tis well to cover a feeble skillBy numbers!’ scoffèd He;‘But give me a third of their strength, I’d fillHalf 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 deathbedA 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 deathThere comes a narrowing roomThat pens him, body and limbs and breath,To wait a hideous doom,
“So to Napoleon, in the hushThat held the town and towersThrough these dire nights, a creeping crushSeemed 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 PlatzThe wasted French sank back,Stretching long lines across the FlatsAnd on the bridge-way track;
“When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,And stones, and men, as thoughSome rebel churchyard crew updraveTheir sepulchres from below.
“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;And rank and file in masses ploughThe sullen Elster-Strom.
“A gulf was Lindenau; and deadWere fifties, hundreds, tens;And every current rippled redWith Marshal’s blood and men’s.
“The smart Macdonald swam therein,And barely won the verge;Bold Poniatowski plunged him inNever to re-emerge.
“Then stayed the strife. The remnants woundTheir Rhineward way pell-mell;And thus did Leipzig City soundAn Empire’s passing bell;
“While in cavalcade, with band and blade,Came Marshals, Princes, Kings;And the town was theirs . . . Ay, as simple maid,My mother saw these things!
“And whenever those notes in the street begin,I recall her, and that far scene,And her acting of how the Allies marched in,And her touse of the tambourine!”
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