Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/261

While round those columns proud
    The blazoned banners wave,
That on a hundred fields he won,
    With the heart's-blood of the brave.

And sternly there kept guard
    His veterans scarred and old,
Whose wounds of Lodi's cleaving bridge,
    Or purple Leipsic told.
Yes, there, with arms reversed,
    Slow pacing, night and day,
Close watch beside the coffin kept
    Those veterans grim and gray.

A cloud is on their brow,—
    Is it sorrow for the dead?
Or memory of the fearful strife,
    Where their country's legions fled?
Of Borodino's blood?
    Of Beresina's wail?
The horrors of that dire retreat,
    Which turned old History pale?

A cloud is on their brow,―
    Is it sorrow for the dead?
Or a shuddering at the wintry shaft
    By Russian tempests sped?
Where countless mounds of snow
    Marked the poor conscripts' grave,