And as I paused beneath the arch I saw Their moonlit figures—slow, as in surprise— Descend the slope, and vanish on the haw. “‘Fool,’ some will say,” I thought. “But who is wise, Save God alone, to weigh my reasons why?” —“Hast thou struck home?” came with the boughs’ night-sighs. It was my friend. “I have struck well. They fly, But carry wounds that none can cicatrize.” —“Not mortal?” said he. “Lingering—worse,” said I. LEIPZIG (1813) _Scene_: _The Master-tradesmen’s Parlour at the Old Ship Inn_, _Casterbridge_. _Evening_. “OLD Norbert with the flat blue cap— A German said to be— Why let your pipe die on your lap, Your eyes blink absently?”— —“Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet Of my mother—her voice and mien When she used to sing and pirouette, And touse the tambourine “To the march that yon street-fiddler plies: She told me ’twas the same She’d heard from the trumpets, when the Allies Her city overcame. “My father was one of the German Hussars, My mother of Leipzig; but he, Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars, And a Wessex lad reared me. “And as I grew up, again and again She’d tell, after trilling that air, Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain And of all that was suffered there! . . . “—’Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms Combined them to crush One, And by numbers’ might, for in equal fight He stood the matched of none. “Carl Schwarzenberg was of the plot, And Blücher, prompt and prow, And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte: Buonaparte was the foe. “City and plain had felt his reign From the North to the Middle Sea, And he’d now sat down in the noble town Of the King of Saxony. “October’s deep dew its wet gossamer threw Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn, Where lately each fair avenue Wrought shade for summer noon. “To westward two dull rivers crept Through miles of marsh and slough, Whereover a streak of whiteness swept— The Bridge of Lindenau. “Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed, Gloomed over his shrunken power; And without the walls the hemming host Waxed denser every hour. “He had speech that night on the morrow’s designs With his chiefs by the bivouac fire, While the belt of flames from the enemy’s lines Flared nigher him yet and nigher. “Three sky-lights then from the girdling trine Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign For bleeding Europe’s woes. “’Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night Glowed still and steadily; And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight That the One disdained to flee . . .