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"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; But what they killed each other for I could not well make out. But everybody said," quoth he, "That 'twas a famous victory! ( 110 )

66

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by:

They burned his dwelling to the ground,

And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide;
And many a childing mother then

And new-born baby died.

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

66

They say it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun.

But things like that, you know, must be

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,

And our good Prince Eugene."

"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he, "It was a famous victory!

111

112

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win.” -
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.

66

Why, that I cannot tell," said he, "But 'twas a famous victory!"

SOLD

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

SOUTHEY.

Our bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

113

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part; My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart,

"Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and worn;
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

CAMPBELL.

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THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

114

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

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No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

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