Muscovy.

CANTO IV.

་

MUSCOVY.

CANTO IV.

THE scattered remnants of the wretched host,

With feeble efforts still defend their post;

Inured to conquest, and unused to fly,

With desperate courage, further efforts try.

But vain their Chief's attempts, his awful nod,
'Gainst those who fight beneath the cross of God;
Each heavy hour brings on the bloody fight,
Throughout the dreary day and howling night.
Plunged in despair, and sick with war's alarms,

The Gauls, by thousands, yield their useless arms:

Or, never more to meet the solar ray,

They sink, and die upon the slippery way;

And hark! they hear the sullen waters roar
On Berezina's steep and rugged shore;
They hear the dark and angry spirits wail,
In fateful sighs upon the coming gale;
Loud and more loud, the busy dæmons, near,
Shriek the deep death-knell on the Gallic ear.
No pass, no passage for the fainting host,

Their prospects darkened, and their courage lost,
In eager
haste their leaders swift command

To rear a bridge upon the rocky strand;
With painful toil their orders to obey,
The wasted troops consume the awful day ;
And when the bridge by hasty force is reared,
Sudden the foe upon their flanks appeared.

'Twas then Megera, from her ebon car, Scattered her snakes amid the thickening war;

Through all the ranks of sinking France she ran, And breathed discordant on Napoleon's van; Brought on her furious train with frantic yell, And mingled madness with the battle's swell.

Still as they go, they fearful look behind, And grim Despair comes on the howling wind (29): The Cossacks come, terrific in their might,

Hurling the feeble foe to endless night.

Groans on the biting blast, and seeks the skies:

A thousand maddening furies fill the air,

Big with the horrors of the last despair;
Disorder reigns triumphant o'er the rest,
And 'mid the fiends erects his snaky crest.

Vainly the Gallic eagles then essay
To form the line, or lead the dark array:
Each separate soldier bent alone to save

His famished body from a Russian grave (30),