C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Malbrouck
By Francis Sylvester Mahony (Father Prout) (1804–1866)
M
Is gone to the war in Flanders;
His fame is like Alexander’s:
But when will he come home?
Perhaps he may come at Easter.
Egad! he’d better make haste, or
We fear he may never come.
And has brought no news from Dover;
And Easter is past, moreover:
And Malbrouck still delays.
Spends many a pensive hour,
Not well knowing why or how her
Dear lord from England stays.
That tower, she spies returning
A page clad in deep mourning,
With fainting steps and slow.
What news do you bring of your master?
I fear there is some disaster,
Your looks are so full of woe.”
With sorrowful accent said he,
“Is one you are not ready
So soon, alas! to hear.
Added this page, quite flurried,
“Malbrouck is dead and buried!”
(And here he shed a tear.)
For I beheld his ‘berring,’
And four officers transferring
His corpse away from the field.
And he carried it not without labor,
Much envying his next neighbor,
Who only bore a shield.
That helmet which on its wearer
Filled all who saw it with terror,
And covered a hero’s brains.
Find that (by the Lord Harry!)
The fourth is left nothing to carry;
So there the thing remains.”