Talk:Warsaw

Surplus

• ’Twas a night to make the bravest
  Shrink from the tempest’s breath,
  For the winter snows were bitter,
  And the winds were cruel as death.
  All day on the roofs of Warsaw
  Had the white storm sifted down
  Till it almost hid the humble huts
  Of the poor outside the town.
  And it beat upon one low cottage
  With a sort of reckless spite,
  As if to add to their wretchedness
  Who sat by its hearth that night;
  Where Dorby, the Polish peasant,
  Took his pale wife by the hand,
  And told her that when the morrow came
  They would have no home in the land.
  No human hand would aid him
  With the rent that was due at morn;
  And his cold, hard-hearted landlord
  Had spurned his prayers with scorn.
  Then the poor man took his Bible,
  And read, while his eyes grew dim,
  To see if any comfort
  Were written there for him;
  When he suddenly heard a knocking
  On the casement, soft and light:
  It was n’t the storm; but what else could be
  Abroad in such a night?
  Then he went and opened the window,
  But for wonder scarce could speak,
  As a bird flew in with a jewelled ring
  Held flashing in his beak.
  “’Tis the bird I trained,” said Dorby,
  “And that is the precious ring
  That once I saw on the royal hand
  Of our good and gracious king.
  “And if birds, as our lesson tells us,
  Once came with food to men,
  Who knows,” said the foolish peasant,
  “But they might be sent again!”
  So he hopefully went with the morning,
  And knocked at the palace gate,
  And gave to the king the jewel
  They had searched for long and late.
  And when he had heard the story
  Which the peasant had to tell,
  He gave him a fruitful garden,
  And a home wherein to dwell.
  And Dorby wrote o’er the doorway
  These words that all might see:
  “Thou hast called on the Lord in trouble,
  And he hath delivered thee!”
  • Phœbe Cary, "The King’s Jewel", in Last Poems (1873)

• The yellow snow-fog curdled thick,
    Dark, brooding, dull, and brown,
  About the ramparts, hiding all
    The steeples of the town;
  The icicles, as thick as beams,
    Hung down from every roof,
  When all at once we heard a sound
    As of a muffled hoof.
  ’Twas nothing but a soldier’s horse,
    All riderless and torn
  With bullets: scarce his bleeding legs
    Could reach the gate. A morn
  Of horror broke upon us then;
    We listened, but no drum—
  Only a sullen, distant roar,
    Telling us that they come.
  Next, slowly staggering through the fog,
    A grenadier reeled past,
  A bloody turban round his head,
    His pallid face aghast.
  Behind him, with an arm bound up
    With half a Russian flag,
  Came one—then three—the last one sopped
    His breast with crimson rag.
  Quick all at once a sullen bell
    Upon the gateway tower
  Broke out, to warn our citizens
    Napoleon’s savage power
  Had gone to wreck, and these the waifs
    Were making fast to land.
  It bade us look to see the hulk
    Sucked hellward by the sand.
  All day the frozen, bleeding men
    Came pouring through the place;
  Drums broken, colours torn to shreds,
    Foul wounds on every face.
  Black powder-wagons, scorched and split,
    Broad wheels caked thick with snow,
  Red bayonets bent, and swords that still
    Were reeking from the blow.
  A drunken rabble, pale and wan,
    With cursing faces turned
  To where, still threatening in the rear,
    The port-fires lurid burned.
  The ground was strewn with epaulettes,
    Letters, and cards, and songs;
  The barrels, leaking drops of gold,
    Were trampled by the throngs.
  A brutal, selfish, goring mob,
    Yet here and there a trace
  Of the divine shone out, and lit
    A gashed and suffering face.
  Here came a youth, who on his back
    His dying father bore;
  With bandaged feet the brave youth limped,
    Slow, shuddering, dripping gore.
  And even ’mid the trampling crowd,
    Maimed, crippled by the frost,
  I found that every spark of good
    Was not extinct and lost.
  Deep in the ranks of savage men
    I saw two grenadiers
  Leading their corporal, his breast
    Stabbed by the Cossack spears.
  He saved that boy, whose tearful eyes
    Were fixed upon the three—
  Although too weak to beat his drum
    Still for his company.
  Half-stripped, or wrapped in furs and gowns,
    The broken ranks went on:
  They ran if any one called out
    “The Cossacks of the Don!”
  The whispered rumour, like a fire,
    Spreads fast from street to street;
  With boding look and shaking head
    The staring gossips meet:
  “Ten thousand horses every night
    Were smitten by the frost;
  Full thirty thousand rank and file
    In Beresina lost.
  “The Cossacks fill their caps with gold
    The Frenchmen fling away.
  Napoleon was shot the first,
    And only lived a day—
  They say that Caulaincourt is lost—
    The guns are left behind:
  GOD’s curse has fallen on these thieves—
    He sent the snow and wind.”
  Tired of the clatter and the noise,
    I sought an inner room,
  Where twenty wax lights, starry clear,
    Drove off the fog and gloom.
  I took my wanton Ovid down,
    And soon forgot the scene,
  As through my dreams I saw arise
    The rosy-bosomed queen.
  My wine stood mantling in the glass
    (The goblet of Voltaire),
  I sipped and dozed, and dozed and sipped,
    Slow rocking in my chair,
  When open flew the bursting door,
    And Coulaincourt stalked in—
  Tall, gaunt, and wrapped in frozen furs,
    Hard frozen to his skin.
  * * * *
  The wretched hag of the low inn
    Puffed at the sullen fire
  Of spitting wood, that hissed and smoked:
    There stood the Jove whose ire
  But lately set the world aflame,
    Wrapped in a green pelisse,
  Fur-lined, and stiff with half-burnt lace,
    Trying to seem at ease.
  “Bah! Du sublime au ridicule
    Il n’y a qu’un pas,”
  He said. “The rascals think they’ve made
    A comet of my star.
  The army broken—dangers?—pish!—
    I did not bring the frost.
  Levy ten thousand Poles, Duroc—
    Who tells me we have lost?
  “I beat them everywhere, Murat—
    It is a costly game;
  But nothing venture, nothing win—
    I’m sorry now we came.
  That burning Moscow was a deed
    Worthy of ancient Rome—
  Mind that I gild the Invalides
    To match the Kremlin dome.
  “Well? well as Beelzebub himself!”
    He leaped into the sleigh
  Sent for to bear this Cæsar off
    Upon his ruthless way.
  A flash of fire!—the courtyard stones
    Snapped out—the landlord cheered—
  In a hell-gulf of pitchy dark
    The carriage disappeared.
  • Walter Thornbury, "The Retreat from Moscow (As it appeared to a Polish Abbe, at Warsaw, December 16th, 1812)", in Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs (1875)