This to my elder brothers, schoolboys gay,
Was told by Uncle Louis on a day;
He bid me play, with tender voice and bland,
Thinking me still too young to understand.
Howe'er, I listened, and his tale was this:-
'A battle? Bah!-and know you what it is?
A deal of smoke. You rise at dawn, and late
You go to bed. Here's one that I'll relate:
The battle is called Eylau. As I wot,
I then was captain, and the Cross had got;
Yes, I was captain,-after all, in war
Man but a shadow is, and does not score;
But ne'er mind me. Eylau, you understand,
Is part of Prussia,-water, wood, and land,
Ice, winter everywhere, and rain, and snow.

'Well, we were camped a ruined wall below,
And round the ancient belfry tombs appear.
Bénigssens' tactics were, first to come near,
Then fly. The Emperor such arts disdains,
And the snow whitened over all the plains.
Spy-glass in hand, Napoleon passed our way;
The guard declared, 'To-morrow is the day.'
Old men and women fled in troops confused
With children. I looked on the graves and mused.
The night-fires lit, and colonel bending o'er,
Cried, 'Hugo!' Here!' 'How many men?' 'Six score.'
'Well, your entire company take round,
And there get killed.' 'Where?' 'In the burial-ground.'
I answered, 'Apter place you could not find.'
I had my flask; we drank; an icy wind
Blew. He said, 'Captain, death is close at hand.
Life's pleasant-'tis a thing you understand;
But none dies better than your jolly blade:
I give my heart, but sell my skin,' he said.
'Let's woman toast!-your post's the worst of all.'
(Our colonel oft a merry jest let fall.)
He adds, 'The foe from ditch and wall keep back;
Stay, there, 'tis rather open to attack.
This graveyard of the battle is the key;
Keep it.' 'We will.' 'Some straw will handy be.'
'We've none.' 'Sleep on the ground. Now tell me this:
Your drummer, is he brave?' 'As Barra is!'
'Good! Let him blindly, madly sound the charge:
Noise must be great when numbers are not large.
D'ye hear, you little scamp, what you are bid?'
'Yes, Captain,' said the grinning child, half hid
In snow and rime. The colonel then went on:
'The battle will be fought with guns alone;
I myself like cold steel, and hate the way
In which the dastard shells are made to slay.
Valiant the sword,-the shell's a traitor. Well,
The emperor sees to that. Naught more to tell,
And so, good-bye. The post you will not leave,
Nor budge a foot, till six to-morrow eve.'
The colonel left. I cried, 'Right turn!' and thence
We soon all entered in that narrow fence;
Grass walled around, a church amid the sod;
In gloom, and o'er the graves, the Blessed God.

'A sombre yard, with many a snowy plate,
Looked somewhat like the sea. We crenolate
The wall. I order all things, and decide
The ambulance shall 'neath the cross abide.
'We'll sup, then rest,' I said. Snow lay about;
Our clothes mere rags. 'Tis very fine, no doubt,
But still unpleasant when the weather's bad.
I made my pillow of a grave, and had
My feet benumbed,-my boots had lost their sole;
And captain soon and soldier, cheek by jowl,
No longer stirred, each sleeping o'er a corse.
So soldiers sleep; they neither know remorse,
Pity, nor fear,-not being in command;
And frozen by the snow, or burnt by sand,
They sleep. Besides, fighting keen joy supplies.
I said, 'Good-night,' and then I shut my eyes.
War has no time for pantomimes inept.
It snowed; the sky was sullen, and we slept.
Some tools we found, and made a mighty flame;
My drummer poked it up, and to me came,
To cast the reckoning as best he can.
Sons a great soldier was the little man!
The crucifix looked like a gibbet vast;
The snow still fell; the fire died out at last.
For how long time it was we slumbered so,
I say, the devil take me if I know!
Soundly we slept. In sleep is death rehears'd
'Tis good in war. I was right cold at first,
Then dreamt, and fancied many a skeleton
And spectre that great epaulets had on.
Slowly, though I upon my pillow lay,
I had a feeling as of coming day;
My lids, though closed, a sense of radiance found.
Sudden, through sleep a deep and sullen sound
Roused me,-'twas like a cannon's distant roar.
I woke, and something white was gathered o'er
My eyes. The snow, with soft and gentle fall,
During the silent night had wrapped us all
In shrouds. I start, and shake the snow away.
A bullet coming, whence I cannot say,
Awoke me quite. I bid it pass at large,
And cried, 'Drummer, get up, and sound the charge!'

'Then six score heads (as isles from ocean) all
Rose from the snow; the sergeant sounds the call.
The dawn then rose, red and with joyance glad,
As 'twere a bloody mouth with smiling clad.
My thoughts ran to my mother, and the wind
Seemed whispering to me, 'Oft in war we find
That with the rise of day death too doth rise.'
I mused; at first around all quiet lies,
Those cannon-shots only as signals were:
Before the ball, at times, some bars we hear,
Some prelude dancing with unmeaning strains.
The night had clogged the blood within our veins,
But coming battle made it hotly course.
The army 'gainst us came in all its force.
We held the key. A handful were my men,
On whom the shells, like woodman's axe, were then
About to rage. I wished myself elsewhere.
My men to skirmish, by the wall with care
I placed, who confidence and solace found
In hoped promotion, bought by grievous wound:
In war you confront death to clutch at fame.
My young lieutenant, from St. Cyr, who came,
Said to me, 'Morn, how sweet a thing I think!
How charming the sun's rays! The snow is pink;
Captain, all laughs, and shines. How fresh the air;
How white the fields; how peaceful, pure, and fair!'
I answered, 'Soon 'twill all to horror change.'
My thought were of the Rhine, the Alpine range,
The Adige, and our dreadful wars of yore.

'The battle burst: six hundred throats and more,
Enormous, belching forth the fire that fills
Their mouths, together clamoured from the hills;
All the whole plain one smoking gulf was seen.
My drummer beat the charge with fury keen.
With cannons mixed the trumpets proudly sound,
And the shells rained upon our burial ground
As if they wished to kill the very grave;
The rooks desert the tower theirs lives to save.
I recollect a shell burst in the earth,
And the corpse, started, rose form out his berth,
As if man's racket woke him in the tomb.
Then the fog hid the sunshine. Ball and bomb
Produced a noise dread, inconceivable.
Berthier, Prince of the Empire, Vice-Constable,
Charged on our right a Hanoverian corps
With thirty squadrons. These you saw no more,
Save the thickest, darkest mist, starred o'er by shell,
So wholly had the strife and battle fell
Within that tragic mist been lost to view.
A cloud fallen on the earth spread round and grew
From smoke which myriad cannons vomited.
Children, 'twas under this the armies bled.
Soft as the down floated the snow that night.
Good faith! we killed each other as we might:
We did our best. The dark and ruins through,
I saw my men like shadows come and go,-
Ghosts, like espaliers, which on walls you range.
The field brought to me musings deep and strange,-
Phantoms above, and the still dead below.
Some blazing cottages at distance glow.
The fog, through which was heard the mountain horn,
E'en thicker than before was towards us borne.
We now saw nothing but our burial ground;
We had the wall at mid-day for our bound.

As by a great black hand, so by the night
We were enclosed, and all things fade from sight.
Our church some seagirt rock appeared to be.
The bullets through the fog too closely see:
They keep us company, crushed the church roof
And shattered the stone cross, and gave us proof
That we were not alone on that dread plain.
We hungered, but no soup at hand,-'tis vain
To look for food in such a place. And worse,
The hail of balls fell with redoubled force.
Bullets are a