The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1862-09-20
5clclt portrp.
Midnight Parade OF Napoleon.
SUGGESTED BY A GERMAN BALLAD.

IT'S dead Of night, and the full moon light
Is struck with eclipse pale,
And deep and low, like voice of woe,
Through the forest comes the gale.
'1is like the hour when things have power
OF might and mystery:
When reason shakes, and man awakes
To all he breads to see.
And on yondcr cloud, like q mighty shroud
Hung DER the lifcess earth,
Are shifting bright, on the dazzled sight
Strange scenes of grief and myth
Pays, battles, banquets in high halls,
Wild plains with corses strcwed,
Kings crowned, kings stretched in funeral
pals,
Feast, pageant, frenzy, blood
There to the deep thy waters sweep,
Soft Seine through myrtles wound;
There to the brown Italian plain
The Alpine torrents bound;
There through the Austran's pleasant field
Thy pillows, Danube, pour
The Turkish lance, the Roman shield
Lie mouldering on thy shore.
And there the Nile battles many pile
Of old Egyptian kings;
There Dniepers bed is g, ry red;
There, Don, thy chri>t Il springs
Are dark and faint with the corsc's faint
And the wild Cossack sweeps by,
For the judgement has come, and the SHOWS
the tomb
Where the murderer's host must lie.
But what is the sound rolling round and
round?
IT'S the beat of a midnight drum;
And from many Il land the spectre band
At the sound of that 'larum come.
From South and from North they are flock.
ing forth,
From the field, from the ocean wave;
For these are all who held earth in thral,
Dark battaions of the grave.
And they come on the plain, like the drops
of ram
Falling thick in n thunder shower;
But no tootstcpts fall, no trumpet call,
Is heard through the sons OF power.
The moons last light quivers white
On a harvest of helm and spear
But no eyes Of man, could stretch from the
OF that host to the cloudy rear.
Still on they come from the earth S deep
womb,
In column and square and line
AL teShless bone, with eyes of stone
The moonbcams through them shine.
But their fingers grasp, with deathless clasp.
The bride and lance and sword
And the eagles wave DER the ghosts of the
brave,
Which once o err their glory scared.
And on front aud on wings, their chicftains
and kings
On their paving chargers ride;
There he whit sc crown was cloven down
On the Calabrese mountain side.'
There he who fell, when Austria yell
RANG wild from Morpnop's plain r
There he whose blood dyed the l., ipsc food
When the German shivered his chain.t
And he, the last, on whom Death had cast
The grasp of his icy hand,
With eyes that smte like the arrows flight,
In the front of the host takes his stand.
On bis brow of gloom is waved no plume,
On his breast is no steely ma:s,
But an IRON CROWN throws its flashes
On his spectral visagc pale.
And by his side is simply tied
A little long shcathed sword;
No gold is there, no jewell rare
Bctrays the battles lord;
But the lightnngs wrcathed round that steel
unsheathed,
And the thrones of Europe reeled,
For the sickle of death was in that sheath,
And the world was its harvest field.
On his charger white, through the live, long
night,
He passes in pale review
The skeletons, to whom earth's thrones
We're once but dust and dew;
And the banners stoop, as each CHASTITY troop
Moves before its stert lord
And one word OF woe each murmurs low,
SAINT HELENA is that word !!
Still on they crowd, from the worm and the
shroud,
Tn fcshless millions on;
And the star of pride is on each side,
And the spear in the grasp of bone
Till the march decays ON the ehieftain gaze
And the thistle alone is stirred,
AS the wind comes low with one word of woe,
SAINT HELENA is that word