Return thou and drink of the rebel Seine's tides,
Where twice thou hast bathed thy blood-covered sides
Let the neigh of thy pride, my faithful steed, ring,
And under thy hoof trample people and king!
Besieged as in war, by servants enslaved,
Prince, noble, and priest, my benison craved:
"Come be our masters," they cried, in their grief;
"Our tyrants but check, and we'll bow to your chief."
I have raised my lance-before it they fall,
Both sceptre and cross, proud noble and all.
Let the neigh of thy pride, my faithful steed, ring,
And under thy hoof trample people and king!
A giant's grim phantom, I saw through the haze
On our bivouacs fix its soul-piercing gaze :
"My reign recommences," it cried, and afar
It pointed its axe to the Occident star.
Immortal ghost! royal shade of the Hun!
Son of Attila, thy mandate is done!
Let the neigh of thy pride, my faithful steed, ring,
And under thy hoof trample people and king!
All that glory with which proud Europe's elate,
Attainments which offer no shield to her fate,
Shall be swallowed in dust, from billows that meet
Around my stanch form, scattered wide from thy feet.
Efface, Oh! efface thou, in this thy new cause,
Temples, palaces, customs, memory, laws.
Let the neigh of thy pride, my faithful steed, ring,
And under thy hoof trample people and king!
The noble chieftain of a gallant band,
A home imploring in a stranger land,
Addressed in grief the children of the wild-
Europe in us her bravest hath exiled;
Oh, happy children of this forest's gloom,
Learn ye the horrors of our wretched doom!
We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
It still shakes monarchs, in their princely domes,
And us hath banished from our happy homes,
Whence we but issued to assert our right,
And twenty kingdoms owned our fearful might:
To conquer peace, we marched triumphantly,
She fled before the arms of victory!
We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
In India, Albion trembled to her core,
When from our ranks of gallant hearts of yore,
The songs of joy have troubled with their breath
The pyramids' old echoing vaults of death!
Ages will lack their stores of memory,
For such exploits, such spoils of victory!
We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
At length, from out our ranks there issues one:
"I am the God of all beneath the sun,"
He says! and lo, his thunder mutters o'er!
Great kings behold, and tremble, and adore!
Far off they see, and bow before this Lord,
And with one voice his praise alone accord.
We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
He falls and we, the vet'rans of his Fame,
Who with his scars do bear his conqu'ring name,
We steer our course to where retreat invites,
Our land lamenting, and its blest delights.
Her fame for ever shipwrecked in the war
Which crushed her empire at the fatal Loire.
We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
The chief is silent-speaks a savage then:
"God calms the storm, gives peace to troubled men;
Warriors, our treasures share: our prairies wide,
With us these streams, these shady groves divide."
Engrave, then, on the tree of liberty,
These accents of a son of victory:
"We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
Plain of retreat, thou'rt consecrate-arise!
Lift up thyself, new city, to the skies!
Be thou a port secure, a safe retreat,
When warring waves of fickle Fortune meet.
Perchance our sons, when you these scenes rehearse,
Will join with you in swelling loud the verse-
We are the French, renowned in story;
Take pity, savages, upon our glory!
To make this article more complete, we subjoin a few additional translations, from No. XIV. of Tait's Magazine, in which the spirit of the original has been admirably preserved.
"No writer, with whom we are acquainted, has surpassed, few have equalled Beranger, in the blending of gayety with pathetic sentiment. An exquisite pensiveness tempers his social mirth; it adds an indescribable charm to his patriotic aspirations; it beautifies, in an especial manner, the utterances of his love. With what a novel grace has it here invested an address to his young mistress! The poet anticipates a time when he shall be no more, and she, the beautiful, the light-hearted, his gray-haired surviver, with whose imagined thoughts he composes his own epicedium. We have rarely met with a subject so difficult, or so finely handled. He converts to favor and to prettiness' a prospect, the intrusion of which, in the moment of young passion, is naturally chilling and importunate; and throws his funeral garland, like a spring offering, at the feet of his beloved.
'Yes! age will fade your cheek, my fair and bright!
Old age will come, when I shall be no more;
Methinks that Time, impatient in his flight,
Hath twice my vanished summers counted o'er.
Survive me, love! When age's pains betide,
Recall the words I murmured at your feet;
And, cheerful matron, by your calm fireside,
Your buried lover's favorite songs repeat!
"When curious eyes peruse your wrinkled cheek,
To trace what beauties once inspired my song,
The young, who love of tender themes to speak,
Will ask: And what was he you mourned so long?"
Then, if you can, describe my love, nor hide
Its depth, its passion, even its jealous heat:
And, cheerful matron, by your calm fireside,
Your buried lover's favorite songs repeat!
"They'll ask: 'And knew this friend the skill to plead?"
You then may say, without a blush, 'I loved !'—
'Could baseness tempt him to unworthy deed?'
You'll answer 'No! by proud emotions moved.
Say he was fond and gay, and loved to guide
A sportive lyre, with accents sad and sweet:
And, cheerful matron, by your calm fireside,
Your buried lover's favorite songs repeat'
"You, whom I taught to weep for France's wrongs,
Her modern champions' progeny may tell,
Their sire's renown, and Hope, inspired my songs,
To soothe my sorrowing country, when she fell!
When in the dismal North the laurels died,
Of twenty summers, in its bitter sleet :-
And, cheerful matron, by your calm fireside,
Your buried lover's favorite songs repeat!
"Joy of my heart! if e'er my slender fame
A pleasant thought to cheer your age should bring ;-
And when your weak hand decks my picture's frame,
With a few flowers, in each successive spring;-
Think, in a world unseen, where tears are dried,
Again, to part no more, our souls shall meet,-
* Our poet was fond of comparing Napoleon and his military followers with Charlemagne and his Peers.
And, cheerful matron, by your calm fireside,
Your buried lover's favorite songs repeat !"
But this, however exquisite, is not Beranger's highest style of writing. We will follow him to the contemplation of a more remote and sombre object; the representation of which, but for his impressive success, might well have been deemed beyond the capacity of a song. It is the gloomy and terrible Louis XI.; and with what thorough mastery does he not depict the moral of his tale, in a few short stanzas! For dramatic and poetical merit, we would place this composition by the side of any thing of the kind that has ever been produced. The scene is a village green, in the neighborhood of Plessis-lesTours; it opens amidst the mirth of a peasant's holiday.
Welcome! sport that sweetens labor!
Village maidens, village boys,
Neighbor hand in hand with neighbor,
Dance we, singing to the tabor,
And the sackbut's merry noise!
"Our aged king whose name we breathe in dread,
Louis, the tenant of yon dreary pile,
Designs, in this fair prime of flowers, 'tis said,
To view our sports, and try if he can smile.
Welcome! sport that sweetens labor!
Village maidens, village boys,
Neighbor hand in hand with neighbor,
Dance we, singing to the tabor,
And the sackbut's merry noise!
"While laughter, love, and song, are here abroad,
His jealous fears imprison Louis there;
He dreads his peers, his people-aye, his God;
But, more than all, the mention of his heir.
Welcome! sport that sweetens labor!
Village maidens, village boys,
Neighbor hand in hand with neighbor,
Dance we, singing to the tabor
And the sackbut's merry noise!
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