The Fall of D'Assas

Alone through gloomy forest-shades
A soldier went by night;
No moonbeam pierced the dusky glades,
No star shed guiding light.

Yet on his vigil’s midnight round
The youth all cheerly pass’d;
Uncheck’d by aught of boding sound
That mutter’d in the blast.

Where were his thoughts that lonely hour?
--In his far home, perchance;
His father’s hall, his mother’s bower,
Midst the gay vines of France:

Wandering from battles lost and won,
To hear and bless again
The rolling of the wide Garonne,
Or murmur of the Seine.

Hush! hark!--did stealing steps go by?
Came not faint whispers near?
No! the wild wind hath many a sigh,
Amidst the foliage sere.

Hark, yet again!--and from his hand,
What grasp hath wrench’d the blade?
--Oh, single midst a hostile band,
Young soldier! thou’rt betray’d!

“Silence!” in under-tones they cry--
“No whisper--not a breath!
The sound that warns thy comrades nigh
Shall sentence thee to death.”

Still, at the bayonet’s point he stood,
And strong to meet the blow;
And shouted, midst his rushing blood,
“Arm, arm, Auvergne! the foe!”

The stir, the tramp, the bugle-call--
He heard their tumults grow;
And sent his dying voice through all--
“Auvergne, Auvergne! the foe!”