Works of the Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert ... Excepting those on botany and natural history. With additions and corrections by the author |
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SONNET
ON THE DEATH OF THE BAVARIAN GENERAL TILLY,
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 | Works of the Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert |  |
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SONNET ON THE DEATH OF THE BAVARIAN GENERAL TILLY,
WHO WAS KILLED IN 1632, BY A WOUND RECEIVED IN CONTESTING THE PASSAGE OF THE LECH WITH OUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
1804.
Tilly, thine hopes are fallen! by the stream
Of rapid Lech victorious cannons roar
With Swedish vengeance; on the adverse shore
Fraught with thy death the vollied lightnings gleam!
Yet nor those hardy veterans, who seem
To mock all hinde
rance; nor those mouths, which pour
The thundering voice of war with fierce uproar;
Nor e'en Gustavus mars thy glorious dream.
But she, who met thee with her ghastly train
Of murder'd babes, (a pale and vengeful ghost)
Sad Magdeburg, in Leipsic's dubious fight;
And with her Heaven's red arm, which o'er the plain
Spread strange dismay: then terror seized thine host,
Then sank thy star in everlasting night.
The first great victory gained in Germany by Gustavus Adolphus was over the army commanded by Tilly, near Leipsic, where he had retired from the ruins of Magdeburg, after burning the town and massacring its inhabitants, to the number of 25 or 30,000 souls. Tilly's army, at first successful, was seized by a sudden panick. Schiller observes, in his history of the 30 years war, that after the horrible destruction of Magdeburg, the good fortune, which Tilly had before invariably enjoyed, forsook him altogether.
| Works of the Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert | |