|
Causing the creeping blood to chill
|
|
With the sharp cadence of despair?
|
|
|
|
Again they come, as if a heart
|
|
Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,
|
|
And every string had voice apart
|
|
To utter its peculiar woe.
|
|
|
|
Whence came they? From yon temple, where
|
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An altar, raised for private prayer,
|
|
Now forms the warrior's marble bed
|
|
Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.
|
|
|
|
The dim funereal tapers throw
|
|
A holy luster o'er his brow,
|
|
And burnish with their rays of light
|
|
The mass of curls that gather bright
|
|
Above the haughty brow and eye
|
|
Of a young boy that's kneeling by.
|
|
|
|
What hand is that, whose icy press
|
|
Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,
|
|
But meets no answering caress?
|
|
No thrilling fingers seek its clasp.
|
|
It is the hand of her whose cry
|
|
Rang wildly, late, upon the air,
|
|
When the dead warrior met her eye
|
|
Outstretched upon the altar there.
|
|
|
|
With pallid lip and stony brow
|
|
She murmurs forth her anguish now.
|
|
But hark! the tramp of heavy feet
|
|
Is heard along the bloody street;
|
|
Nearer and nearer yet they come,
|
|
With clanking arms and noiseless drum.
|
|
Now whispered curses, low and deep,
|
|
Around the holy temple creep;
|
|
The gate is burst; a ruffian band
|
|
Rush in, and savagely demand,
|
|
With brutal voice and oath profane,
|
|
The startled boy for exile's chain.
|
|
|
|
The mother sprang with gesture wild,
|
|
And to her bosom clasped her child;
|
|
Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye,
|
|
Shouted with fearful energy,
|
|
"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread
|
|
Too near the body of my dead;
|
|
Nor touch the living boy; I stand
|
|
Between him and your lawless band.
|
|
Take me, and bind these arms—these hands—
|
|
With Russia's heaviest iron bands,
|
|
And drag me to Siberia's wild
|
|
To perish, if 'twill save my child!"
|
|
|
|
"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,
|
|
Tearing the pale boy from her side,
|
|
And in his ruffian grasp he bore
|
|
His victim to the temple door.
|
|
"One moment!" shrieked the mother; "one!
|
|
Will land or gold redeem my son?
|
|
Take heritage, take name, take all,
|
|
But leave him free from Russian thrall!
|
|
Take these!" and her white arms and hands
|
|
She stripped of rings and diamond bands,
|
|
And tore from braids of long black hair
|
|
The gems that gleamed like starlight there;
|
|
Her cross of blazing rubies, last,
|
|
Down at the Russian's feet she cast.
|
|
He stooped to seize the glittering store;—
|
|
Up springing from the marble floor,
|
|
The mother, with a cry of joy,
|
|
Snatched to her leaping heart the boy.
|
|
But no! the Russian's iron grasp
|
|
Again undid the mother's clasp.
|
|
Forward she fell, with one long cry
|
|
Of more than mortal agony.
|
|
|
|
But the brave child is roused at length,
|
|
And, breaking from the Russian's hold,
|
|
He stands, a giant in the strength
|
|
Of his young spirit, fierce and bold.
|
|
Proudly he towers; his flashing eye,
|
|
So blue, and yet so bright,
|
|
Seems kindled from the eternal sky,
|
|
So brilliant is its light.
|
|
|
|
His curling lips and crimson cheeks
|
