Until his conquering, all-triumphant word,
Shall put to flight the Devil's marshaled powers, And men and angels shout, “THE VICTORY IS OURS."
But hark! while pæons of triumphant mirth
Rise from our native land, with joy, to heaven,
A muttering storm begins to shake the earth, 64
Across the sea, as if her womb were riven,
And in her throes most fearful portents given
Of monstrous births. Hear th' tramp of armed
O'er fields where maddened hosts of yore have striven.
Lo! Gaul sends forth her vulture brood again; Her martial bugles shake the mountain, plain and glen.
Behold her glittering pageant proudly wave
Her martial plumes; her armor glitters far,-
A million men go forth. To what? The grave.
Ah! see what pride and circumstance of war!
Soon ends the pomp, soon sets her glory's star.
Get ready God's great wine-press of dread wrath,
Heap high a sacrifice piacular,
With vine of earth, reaped from destruction's path, Death's steeds, wade to your bridles in the gory math.
Ah! what destruction in this monstrous war!
What bloody torrents deluge that fair land!
What din, infernal thunders, near and far!
In vain the Gauls the German hosts withstand;
Thy day, Sedan, breaks down his high command
Who grasped for empire, though to wade in blood
Unto a throne, or stain his royal hand
With blackest crimes, were needed. There he stood And sowed the dragon's teeth, to reap a serpent brood.
Proud man! in shame thy haughty pride doth end,
A deep disgrace thy royal purple stains;
No fawning sycophants thy way attend,
Thou art saluted by no martial strains.
A captive, thy forsaken soul complains
Of treachery, when impotence alone,
Joined with that pride of power which filled thy
brains,
Uncrowned thy head, and drove thee from thy throne;
But it is well that thou shouldst for thy sins atone.
Look at the ruin thine ambition makes;
See how have fallen myriads true and brave;
With war's dread larums thine whole Empire
Near half thy realm is one vast, reeking grave,
And thy proud capital no power can save ;-
The cannon thunder at her trembling gates,
And millions there with cold and famine rave; Poor Paris reels amid her maddening straits, She falls! she falls! forsaken by her fickle fates.
Look at the myriad homes now desolate,-
Their sun gone down in shades of deepest night,—
What lands made bare! what cities subjugate!
Or laid in smouldering ruins in the fight!
Till La Belle France mourns at her ruined plight.
Where is that valor which at Jena steeled
Her mighty arms, and burned with mad delight In hell of strife, and shattered Prussia's shield? Hear France lamenting o'er Sedan's besprinkled field.
The morning sun rose clear and bright,
Which roused these legions with its light;
All gay with life, with vigor warm,
As in long glittering lines they form,
At evening, when its ghastly rays
Are struggling through the battle's haze,
They fall on heaps of slaughtered men,
Which strew for miles the bloody plain.
Look o'er this field, this ghastly field,
Where battle's thunders lately pealed;
How torn and bloody! heaped and crushed!
Where charging squadrons o'er it rushed;
See wreck and ruin, blood and death!
And tell me, now, if glory's wreath,
And glory's praise, which is but breath,
Repay the ills which wars bequeath
Where is the soldier's martial fire
Which burned upon his cheeks at morn?
Where is ambition's costly hire,
Which nerved his arm in fight upborne?
The fire is quenched upon his cheeks,
And glory's wreath is rudely torn,—
His praises are the orphan's shrieks,
His deeds a million widows mourn.
Ah! France, how fearful is thy bitter cup!
Pressed to thy pale and bloody, quivering lips,
It burns thy soul, yet thou must drink it up,
Though from its brimming fullness madness drips,
And thou must sit in dust, on ghastly heaps
Of ruin. Child of mighty Babylon,
How art thou fall'n into profoundest deeps
Of rage and woe; torn from thy brows thy crown, And shattered, tottering, fallen, thine imperial throne.
Peace comes; the German hosts from thee retire,
Proud Paris. Ah! now what do we behold? 65
Thy boulevards flame with revolution's fire,
Fraternal blood bestains thee as of old;
Thy royal halls to mad sedition sold;
And there in revels bloody riot runs.
Where is the man unscrupulous and bold,
To wake to glory once again thy sons?
Better than this the reign of thy Napoleons.
Sad nation, to be free thy heart aspires,
But thou canst not the blessed boon preserve;
Thou hast forgotten God, and burn'st with fires
Of lust, which rob thee of all manly nerve.
Forsake thy crimes, if thou wouldst freedom serve;
Give to thy land an open Bible's pages,
Nor dare again from God's great law to swerve;
Give to thy sons the wisdom of past ages,
Restrain thy daughters from those ways which lust enrages.
Corrupt them not with thine abominations,
Nor sell them for the harlot's hire of sin;-
And to avoid these awful visitations,
At once this reformation's work begin ;
Till then shalt thou be torn without, within,
For God a controversy hath with thee
For thine enormous crimes, and skin for skin
He will require. Ah! dread calamity
Shall come on thee in protean forms, by land and sea.
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