ain,
They bore me to the nearest hut,
They brought me into life again--
Me--one day o'er their realm to reign!
Thus the vain fool who strove to glut
His rage, refining on my pain,
Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850
Bound--naked--bleeding--and alone,
To pass the desert to a throne,--
What mortal his own doom may guess?
Let none despond, let none despair!
To-morrow the Borysthenes
May see our coursers graze at ease
Upon his Turkish bank,--and never
Had I such welcome for a river
As I shall yield when safely there.[275]
Comrades, good night!"--The Hetman threw 860
His length beneath the oak-tree shade,
With leafy couch already made--
A bed nor comfortless nor new
To him, who took his rest whene'er
The hour arrived, no matter where:
His eyes the hastening slumbers steep.
And if ye marvel Charles forgot
To thank his tale, _he_ wondered not,--
The King had been an hour asleep!

FOOTNOTES:

[br] {205}_la suite_.--[MS. and First Edition.]

[248] {207}[The Battle of Poltava on the Vorskla took place July 8,
1709. "The Swedish troops (under Rehnskjoeld) numbered only 12,500
men.... The Russian army was four times as numerous.... The Swedes
seemed at first to get the advantage, ... but everywhere the were
overpowered and surrounded--beaten in detail; and though for two hours
they fought with the fierceness of despair, they were forced either to
surrender or to flee.... Over 2800 officers and men were taken
prisoners."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 148, 149.]

[249] [Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow, October 15, 1812. He was
defeated at Vitepsk, November 14; Krasnoi, November 16-18; and at
Beresina, November 25-29, 1812.]

[250] ["It happened ... that during the operations of June 27-28,
Charles was severely wounded in the foot. On the morning of June 28 he
was riding close to the river ... when a ball struck him on the left
heel, passed through his foot, and lodged close to the great toe.... On
the night of July 7, 1709 ... Charles had the foot carefully dressed,
while he wore a spurred boot on his sound foot, put on his uniform, and
placed himself on a kind of litter, in which he was drawn before the
lines of the array.... [After the battle, July 8] those who survived
took refuge in flight, the King--whose litt