The beer makes his tongue run the quicker, And as long as his tap never fails, Thus over his favorite liquor Old Peter will tell his old tales. Says he, "In my life's ninety summers Strange changes and chances I've seen, So here's to all gentlemen drummers That ever have thump'd on a skin. "Brought up in the art military For four generations we are; My ancestors drumm'd for King Harry, The Huguenot lad of Navarre. And as each man in life has his station According as Fortune may fix, While Condé was waving the bâton, My grandsire was trolling the sticks. "Ah! those were the days for commanders! What glories my grandfather won, Ere bigots, and lackeys, and panders The fortunes of France had undone ! In Germany, Flanders, and Holland, renne. "He died: and our noble battalions The jade fickle Fortune forsook; And at Blenheim, in spite of our valiance, The victory lay with Malbrook. The news it was brought to King Louis; Corbleu! how his Majesty swore When he heard they had taken my grandsire: And twelve thousand gentlemen more. "God save the beloved King Louis! (For so he was nicknamed by some,) And now came my father to do his King's orders and beat on the drum. My grandsire was dead, but his bones Must have shaken I'm certain for joy, To hear daddy drumming the English From the meadows of famed Fontenoy. "So well did he drum in that battle That the enemy show'd us their backs; Corbleu! it was pleasant to rattle The sticks and to follow old Saxe! We next had Soubise as a leader, And as luck hath its changes and fits, At Rossbach, in spite of dad's drumming, "T is said we were beaten by Fritz. "And now daddy cross'd the Atlantic, To drum for Montcalm and his men; Morbleu ! but it makes a man frantic To think we were beaten again! My daddy he cross'd the wide ocean, My mother brought me on her neck, And we came in the year fifty-seven To guard the good town of Quebec. In the year fifty-nine came the Britons, Full well I remember the day, By Louis Sixteenth of the name. They knocked at our gates for admit- What drummer on earth could be tance, prouder Than I, while I drumm'd at Ver "Hurrah! what a storm was a-brewing: Through scenes of what carnage and ruin Did I beat on the patriot drum! Let's drink to the famed tenth of August; At midnight I beat the tattoo, And woke up the Pikemen of Paris To follow the bold Barbaroux. "With pikes, and with shouts, and with torches March'd onwards our dusty battal- And we girt the tall castle of Louis, The walls of his heritage splendid. Ah, shame on him, craven and coward, That had not the heart to defend it! "With the crown of his sires on his head, His nobles and knights by his side, At the foot of his ancestors' palace 'T were easy, methinks, to have died. But no when we burst through his barriers, Mid heaps of the dying and dead, In vain through the chambers we sought him He had turn'd like a craven and fled. "You all know the Place de la Concorde? 'Tis hard by the Tuilerie wall. Mid terraces, fountains, and statues, There rises an obelisk tall. There rises an obelisk tall, All garnish'd and gilded the base is : "T is surely the gayest of all Our beautiful city's gay places. "Around it are gardens and flowers, And the Cities of France on their thrones, Each crown'd with his circlet of flow ers Sits watching this biggest of stones! The day of our vengeance was I love to go sit in the sun there, come! The flowers and fountains to see, Young BONAPARTE led us that day; When he sought the Italian frontier, I follow'd my gallant young captain, I follow'd him many a long year. "We came to an army in rags, Our general was but a boy When we first saw the Austrian flags Flaunt proud in the fields of Savoy. In the glorious year ninety-six, We march'd to the banks of the Po; I carried my drum and my sticks, And we laid the proud Austrian low. "In triumph we enter'd Milan, We seized on the Mantuan keys; The troops of the Emperor ran, And the Pope he fell down on his knees." "It makes my old heart to beat higher, His audience follow'd with com- ments Rude comments of curses and tears. He told how the Prussians in vain Had died in defence of their land; His audience laugh'd at the story, And vow'd that their captain was grand! He had fought the red English, he said, In many a battle of Spain; They cursed the red English, and prayed To meet them and fight them again. He told them how Russia was lost, Had winter not driven them back; And his company cursed the quick frost, And doubly they cursed the Cossack. He told how the stranger arrived ; They wept at the tale of disgrace; And they long'd but for one battle more, The stain of their shame to efface! "Our country their hordes overrun, We fled to the fields of Champagne, And fought them, though twenty to one, And beat them again and again! |