10
Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily: and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;—
But hush! hark; a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did you not hear it ?—No; ’twas but the wind
Or the car rattling o’er the stoney street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours, with flying feet.
But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more
As if the clouds its echo would repeat:
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is!—it is the cannon’s opening roar!
Within a window’d niche of that high hall
Sat Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear,
And when they smiled because he deem’d it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well,
Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell
He rush’d into the field, and foremost, fighting, fell
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there was sudden partings, such as press
