wounded struggling in agony a calm lulling sleep, against which struggling was vain; for in the midst of a frost-locked and devastated country help was not. 16. The stern winter hid for months the horrors, but as spring once more visited the earth, and its snowy garment slowly dissolved away in the swollen rivers, the sun began to shine upon the relics of the war. Arms, accoutrements, the tawdry trappings of the privates and the rich uniforms of the officers, all were there; but in all the fearful stiffness of death to a man almost, either young or in the prime of life, there were 300,000 corpses of their enemy for the Russians to bury; and in vast funeral pyres, as of sacrifices to the bloodstained god of French glory, 160,000 dead horses to burn. Magnificence of ruin! what has time, Of all the wild rage of storm, or deadly clime, How glorious shone the invaders' pomp afar! Like pampered lions from the spoil they came: The land before them silence and despair, The land behind them massacre and flame. Blood will have tenfold blood! What are they now ?-A name. 6 In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes and shrieks and sights unholy ! Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night raven sings; There under ebon' shades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks, 8 In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou goddess, fair and free, In heav'n yclep'd' Euphrosyne,10 And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Haste thee, Nymph," and bring with thee, Jest and youthful Jollity, 12 17 Quips, and cranks 13 and wanton wiles,' 20 14 5 10 15 20 25 30 From his watch-tower 21 in the skies, 35 And to the stack, or the barn-door, green, 40 45 Right against the eastern gate, 30 29 50 28 Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 55. Whilst the landscape round it measures- 60 33 37 34 Where the nibbling flocks do stray; 39 38 To the tann'd haycock in the mead. 65 70 75 |