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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=534041" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Cemetary Of Eylau</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">This to my elder brothers, schoolboys gay,<br>Was told by Uncle Louis on a day;<br>He bid me play, with tender voice and bland,<br>Thinking me still too young to understand.<br>Howe'er, I listened, and his tale was this:—<br>'A battle? Bah!—and know you what it is?<br>A deal of smoke. You rise at dawn, and late<br>You go to bed. Here's one that I'll relate:<br>The battle is called Eylau. As I wot,<br>I then was captain, and the Cross had got;<br>Yes, I was captain,—after all, in war<br>Man but a shadow is, and does not score;<br>But ne'er mind me. Eylau, you understand,<br>Is part of Prussia,—water, wood, and land,<br>Ice, winter everywhere, and rain, and snow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Well, we were camped a ruined wall below,<br>And round the ancient belfry tombs appear.<br>Bénigssens' tactics were, first to come near,<br>Then fly. The Emperor such arts disdains,<br>And the snow whitened over all the plains.<br>Spy-glass in hand, Napoleon passed our way; <br>The guard declared, 'To-morrow is the day.'<br>Old men and women fled in troops confused<br>With children. I looked on the graves and mused.<br>The night-fires lit, and colonel bending o'er,<br>Cried, 'Hugo!' Here!' 'How many men?' 'Six score.'<br>'Well, your entire company take round,<br>And there get killed.' 'Where?' 'In the burial-ground.'<br>I answered, 'Apter place you could not find.'<br>I had my flask; we drank; an icy wind<br>Blew. He said, 'Captain, death is close at hand.<br>Life's pleasant—'tis a thing you understand;<br>But none dies better than your jolly blade:<br>I give my heart, but sell my skin,' he said.<br>'Let's woman toast!—your post's the worst of all.'<br>(Our colonel oft a merry jest let fall.)<br>He adds, 'The foe from ditch and wall keep back;<br>Stay, there, 'tis rather open to attack.<br>This graveyard of the battle is the key;<br>Keep it.' 'We will.' 'Some straw will handy be.'<br>'We've none.' 'Sleep on the ground. Now tell me this:<br>Your drummer, is he brave?' 'As Barra is!'<br>'Good! Let him blindly, madly sound the charge:<br>Noise must be great when numbers are not large.<br>D'ye hear, you little scamp, what you are bid?'<br>'Yes, Captain,' said the grinning child, half hid<br>In snow and rime. The colonel then went on:<br>'The battle will be fought with guns alone;<br>I myself like cold steel, and hate the way<br>In which the dastard shells are made to slay.<br>Valiant the sword,—the shell's a traitor. Well,<br>The emperor sees to that. Naught more to tell,<br>And so, good-bye. The post you will not leave,<br>Nor budge a foot, till six to-morrow eve.'<br>The colonel left. I cried, 'Right turn!' and thence<br>We soon all entered in that narrow fence;<br>Grass walled around, a church amid the sod;<br>In gloom, and o'er the graves, the Blessed God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'A sombre yard, with many a snowy plate,<br>Looked somewhat like the sea. We crenolate<br>The wall. I order all things, and decide<br>The ambulance shall 'neath the cross abide.<br>'We'll sup, then rest,' I said. Snow lay about;<br>Our clothes mere rags. 'Tis very fine, no doubt,<br>But still unpleasant when the weather's bad.<br>I made my pillow of a grave, and had <br>My feet benumbed,—my boots had lost their sole;<br>And captain soon and soldier, cheek by jowl,<br>No longer stirred, each sleeping o'er a corse.<br>So soldiers sleep; they neither know remorse,<br>Pity, nor fear,—not being in command;<br>And frozen by the snow, or burnt by sand,<br>They sleep. Besides, fighting keen joy supplies.<br>I said, 'Good-night,' and then I shut my eyes.<br>War has no time for pantomimes inept.<br>It snowed; the sky was sullen, and we slept.<br>Some tools we found, and made a mighty flame;<br>My drummer poked it up, and to me came,<br>To cast the reckoning as best he can.<br>Sons a great soldier was the little man!<br>The crucifix looked like a gibbet vast;<br>The snow still fell; the fire died out at last.<br>For how long time it was we slumbered so,<br>I say, the devil take me if I know!<br>Soundly we slept. In sleep is death rehears'd<br>'Tis good in war. I was right cold at first,<br>Then dreamt, and fancied many a skeleton<br>And spectre that great epaulets had on.<br>Slowly, though I upon my pillow lay,<br>I had a feeling as of coming day;<br>My lids, though closed, a sense of radiance found.<br>Sudden, through sleep a deep and sullen sound<br>Roused me,—'twas like a cannon's distant roar.<br>I woke, and something white was gathered o'er<br>My eyes. The snow, with soft and gentle fall,<br>During the silent night had wrapped us all<br>In shrouds. I start, and shake the snow away.<br>A bullet coming, whence I cannot say,<br>Awoke me quite. I bid it pass at large,<br>And cried, 'Drummer, get up, and sound the charge!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Then six score heads (as isles from ocean) all<br>Rose from the snow; the sergeant sounds the call.<br>The dawn then rose, red and with joyance glad,<br>As 'twere a bloody mouth with smiling clad.<br>My thoughts ran to my mother, and the wind<br>Seemed whispering to me, 'Oft in war we find<br>That with the rise of day death too doth rise.'<br>I mused; at first around all quiet lies,<br>Those cannon-shots only as signals were:<br>Before the ball, at times, some bars we hear,<br>Some prelude dancing with unmeaning strains.<br>The night had clogged the blood within our veins,<br>But coming battle made it hotly course.<br>The army 'gainst us came in all its force.<br>We held the key. A handful were my men,<br>On whom the shells, like woodman's axe, were then<br>About to rage. I wished myself elsewhere.<br>My men to skirmish, by the wall with care<br>I placed, who confidence and solace found<br>In hoped promotion, bought by grievous wound:<br>In war you confront death to clutch at fame.<br>My young lieutenant, from St. Cyr, who came,<br>Said to me, 'Morn, how sweet a thing I think!<br>How charming the sun's rays! The snow is pink;<br>Captain, all laughs, and shines. How fresh the air;<br>How white the fields; how peaceful, pure, and fair!'<br>I answered, 'Soon 'twill all to horror change.'<br>My thought were of the Rhine, the Alpine range,<br>The Adige, and our dreadful wars of yore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The battle burst: six hundred throats and more,<br>Enormous, belching forth the fire that fills<br>Their mouths, together clamoured from the hills;<br>All the whole plain one smoking gulf was seen.<br>My drummer beat the charge with fury keen.<br>With cannons mixed the trumpets proudly sound,<br>And the shells rained upon our burial ground<br>As if they wished to kill the very grave;<br>The rooks desert the tower theirs lives to save.<br>I recollect a shell burst in the earth,<br>And the corpse, started, rose form out his berth,<br>As if man's racket woke him in the tomb.<br>Then the fog hid the sunshine. Ball and bomb<br>Produced a noise dread, inconceivable.<br>Berthier, Prince of the Empire, Vice-Constable,<br>Charged on our right a Hanoverian corps<br>With thirty squadrons. These you saw no more,<br>Save the thickest, darkest mist, starred o'er by shell,<br>So wholly had the strife and battle fell<br>Within that tragic mist been lost to view.<br>A cloud fallen on the earth spread round and grew<br>From smoke which myriad cannons vomited.<br>Children, 'twas under this the armies bled.<br>Soft as the down floated the snow that night.<br>Good faith! we killed each other as we might:<br>We did our best. The dark and ruins through,<br>I saw my men like shadows come and go,—<br>Ghosts, like espaliers, which on walls you range.<br>The field brought to me musings deep and strange,—<br>Phantoms above, and the still dead below.<br>Some blazing cottages at distance glow.<br>The fog, through which was heard the mountain horn,<br>E'en thicker than before was towards us borne.<br>We now saw nothing but our burial ground;<br>We had the wall at mid-day for our bound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As by a great black hand, so by the night<br>We were enclosed, and all things fade from sight.<br>Our church some seagirt rock appeared to be.<br>The bullets through the fog too closely see:<br>They keep us company, crushed the church roof<br>And shattered the stone cross, and gave us proof<br>That we were not alone on that dread plain.<br>We hungered, but no soup at hand,—'tis vain<br>To look for food in such a place. And worse,<br>The hail of balls fell with redoubled force.<br>Bullets are awkward. Down they rain a-pelt;<br>Only what falls, and is unpleasant felt,<br>Are grains of flame, not sprinklings of a shower.<br>We were like men whose eyes are bandaged o'er.<br>All fell to pieces 'neath the shells,—the trees,<br>The church, the tower; and I found decrease<br>The shadows which I saw around the place.<br>From time to time one fell. 'Death kills apace,'<br>A sergeant says, like wolf ta'en in a net;<br>And as his sight the tombs snow-covered met,<br>'Why place us where already is complete<br>The tale of guests?'—Man's lot is like to wheat,<br>Thus to be mowed, and not the scythe to see.<br>Some shadows yet in the gloom living be;<br>The scamp, my drummer, still his might employed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We fired above the wall, now nigh destroyed.<br>Children, you have a garden: shot and ball<br>Rained on us, guardians of that fatal wall,<br>As you drench flowers with your water pot,<br>'Till six o'clock you must not leave the spot,'<br>This order all my thoughts were fixed upon.—<br>The lightnings flash 'mid feathers of the swan;<br>And 'mid the dark, the bullets' flaming track<br>Were all my eyes could see. 'Let us attack!'<br>The sergeant cried. 'Whom?—for I no one see.'<br>'I hear their voice, they trumpet bray,' said he,<br>'Let us rush forth! Shot, shell, upon us rain;<br>Death spits upon us here,' 'Let us remain.'<br>I add, 'The battle's brunt by us is borne.<br>We hold the key.' 'My patience well-nigh worn.'<br>The sergeant said.—Black were the fields, the sky,<br>But though full night, the evening was not nigh.<br>'Till six o'clock,' low to myself I said.<br>'By Jove! few better chances can be had<br>To advance,' said my lieutenant; when a ball<br>Carried him off. I felt no hope at all<br>Of winning. Victory is an arrant jade.<br>A pallid glare, which through the fog was made,<br>Vaguely lit up the graveyard; but afar<br>Was naught distinct, save that we needed air<br>To concentrate upon our heads the bombs.<br>The emperor placed us there among the tombs,<br>Alone, riddled with shot, which we returned;<br>But what he did with us we ne'er discerned.<br>We were the target midmost in that fight;<br>And to hold good, and battle on till night,<br>Till six o'clock to live the hours through,<br>Meanwhile to kill, was what we had to do.<br>Fierce, powder-blackened, shot we as we might,<br>And took but time our cartridges to bite;<br>Without a word our soldiers fought and died.<br>'Sergeant, d'ye see the foe retreat?' I cried.<br>'No.' 'What, then?' 'Naught.' 'Nor I.' 'A deluge?' 'Yes,<br>Of fire.' 'See you our men?' 'No, but I guess<br>From how the volleys sound, we're forty good,'<br>Cried a brave grumbler, who beside me stood.<br>(He'd won his stripes.) 'At most you'll thirty find.'<br>And all was snow and night; the piercing wind<br>Blew; and while shivering, we the rain-drops track,<br>A gulf of while spots 'gainst abyss of black.<br>Howe'er, the battle seemed becoming worse;<br>A kingdom perished 'neath an empire's force.<br>Behind the veil you guessed some dread event,<br>As lions upon mutual slaughter bent.<br>'Twas like the ancient giants' fabled war;<br>You heard discharges pealing near and far,<br>The crash of ruins,—the outskirts of the town<br>Of Eylau set on fire and burning down.<br>The drums their dreadful music now surpass,<br>Six hundred cannon make the unceasing bass.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'We killed each other; nothing yet was known<br>By France, that hour her greatest stake was thrown.<br>Was the good God on high against or for?<br>How dark! I pulled my watch out o'er and o'er.<br>At times the silent field gave forth a cry,—<br>Some fallen body writhed in agony;<br>Fast, one by one shot down, we met our doom;<br>Death-rattles filled the vast sepulchral gloom.<br>Kings have their soldiers as you have your toys.<br>I raised my sword, and shouting, 'Courage, boys!'<br>I waved it o'er my head. Strife now I wage,<br>Intoxicated, deaf, with so much rage;<br>Blow following blow by shot and shell were dealt.<br>Sudden, my arm—my right arm—hung. I felt<br>My sword drop to my feet upon the sward:<br>My arm was broken. I picked up my sword <br>With the other hand, and, 'Friends,' I gaily cried,<br>'To get this broken too is not denied.'<br>Then I began to laugh,—a useful whim;<br>For soldiers are not pleased to lose a lim,<br>And when their chief is wounded, rather glad.<br>How fled the time? One only hand I had,—<br>That my sword needed, whatsoe'er betide;<br>The other, drenched in blood, hung by my side.<br>I could no longer get my watch. When, lo!<br>My drummer stopped. 'Knave, are you frightened?' 'No;<br>I'm hungry,' said the child. Just then the plain<br>Seemed rocked and shaken, and was filled amain<br>With such a cry as up to heaven rose.<br>I felt myself grow weak,—the whole man goes<br>From out a wound. A broken arm, it drains.<br>To talk with some one when you're faint, sustains.<br>My sergeant spoke to me. At hazard, 'Yea,'<br>I cried; I did not want to faint away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Sudden the noise left off; the night less black.<br>'Victory!' they shout. I shouted 'Victory!' back;<br>And then some lights approaching us, I see.<br>Bleeding, upon one hand and either knee<br>I crawled, and cried, 'How do we stand?' and then<br>I added, 'All rise up, and count, my men.'<br>'Here!' said the sergeant. 'Here!' my scamp replied.<br>The colonel, sword in hand, stood by my side.<br>'Tell me by whom the victory was gained.'<br>'By you,' he said. The snow with blood was stained.<br>'Hugo, that's you; for 'tis your voice,' said he.<br>'Yes.' 'And how many are living?' 'Three.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Victor+Hugo">Victor Hugo</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=534041" data-title="The Cemetary Of Eylau de Victor Hugo" data-description="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..."></div>
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