68
Dark Horror! bear me where the field of fight
Scatters contagion on the tainted gale,
When to the Moon's faint beam,
On many a carcase shine the dews of night,
And a dead silence stills the vale
Save when at times is heard the glutted Raven's scream.
Scatters contagion on the tainted gale,
When to the Moon's faint beam,
On many a carcase shine the dews of night,
And a dead silence stills the vale
Save when at times is heard the glutted Raven's scream.
Where some wreck'd army from the Conqueror's might
Speed their disastrous flight,
With thee fierce Genius! let me trace their way,
And hear at times the deep heart-groan
Of some poor sufferer left to die alone,
His sore wounds smarting with the winds of night;
And we will pause, where, on the wild,
The [1]Mother to her frozen breast,
On the heap'd snows reclining clasps her child
And with him sleeps, chill'd to eternal rest!
Speed their disastrous flight,
With thee fierce Genius! let me trace their way,
And hear at times the deep heart-groan
Of some poor sufferer left to die alone,
His sore wounds smarting with the winds of night;
And we will pause, where, on the wild,
The [1]Mother to her frozen breast,
On the heap'd snows reclining clasps her child
And with him sleeps, chill'd to eternal rest!
- ↑ I extract the following picture of consummate horror from the notes to a poem written in twelve syllable verse upon the campaign of 1794 and 1795; it was during the retreat to Deventer. "We could not proceed a hundred
