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Thomas Hardy - Leipzig
Work rating: Low

"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 wet
       Of my mother—her voice and mien
     When she used to sing and pirouette,
       And touse the tambourine

     "To the march that yon street-fiddler plies;
       She told me `twas the same
     She`d heard from the trumpets, when the Allies
       Her 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 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 Schwartzenburg 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-crossed,
       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 battle 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 death-bed
       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 on 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
       An 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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