Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.
The Battle of Pultowa
By Robert Southey (1774–1843)O
The morning sunbeams play;
Pultowa’s walls are thronged
With eager multitudes;
Athwart the dusty vale
They strain their aching eyes,
Where to the fight moves on
The conqueror Charles, the iron-hearted Swede.
The tamer of the brave.
Him winter hath not quelled;
When man by man his veteran troops sunk down,
Frozen to their endless sleep,
He held undaunted on.
Him pain hath not subdued;
What though he mounts not now
The fiery steed of war,
Borne on a litter to the field he goes.
Full of thy former fame;
Think how the humbled Dane
Crouched underneath thy sword;
Think how the wretched Pole
Resigned his conquered crown:
Go, iron-hearted king!
Let Narva’s glory swell thy haughty breast;
The death-day of thy glory, Charles, hath dawned!
Proud Swede! the sun hath risen
That on thy shame shall set!
For over that relentless Swede
Ruin hath raised his unrelenting arm;
For ere the night descends,
His veteran host destroyed,
His laurels blasted to revive no more,
He flies before the Muscovite.
Long years of hope deceived;
Long years of idleness
That sleepless soul must brook.
Now, Patkul, may thy injured spirit rest!
To him who suffers in an honest cause
No death is ignominious; not to thee,
But upon Charles, the cruel, the unjust,—
Not upon thee, on him
The ineffaceable reproach is fixed,
The infamy abides.
Now, Patkul, may thine injured spirit rest!