University of Virginia Library

THE DRUMMER OF WATERLOO.

List and hear of the drummer boy,
Of the drummer of Waterloo,
Who beat the charge for Marshal Ney,
Ere he La Haye Sainte broke through.
Who beat the famous cuirassier charge,
Ere he the British lines broke through.
At twelve o'clock the battle was on,
And at eve they paused for breath,
While the black smoke hovered above the field
Like the wings of the angel Death.
The French had charged the British lines,
They'd charged them all in vain,
But the musketry drove their columns back
Through their dying, writhing and slain.
The drummer had pleaded to beat the charge,
He'd pleaded to them in vain,
For the officers waved the drummer boy back,
While the bullets fell like rain.
But he was a son of Normandy,
Broad bowed with a dark blue eye.
And his hair was black like the raven's wing,
That soared in the upper sky,
And his face showed through his sable locks,
Like the glow through saddened sky.
Five times had he sought an officer;
But they drove him from the spot;
And his heart which rose so high in hope
Sank down like a shrapnel shot.
The battle had raged in stubborn heat
Now Ney was to turn its tide.
But ere he lined up the cuirassier horse
This drummer boy sought his side
“Oh, I can beat a charge, sir,
That will raise the valiant dead,
To almost spring in the files, sir,
And die again if led.
Please let me beat the charge, sir,
Then charge with the old drum's roll,
And I know they'll break through their batteries, sir,
I can feel it in my soul.”
And Ney then smiled at the drummer boy,
At the drummer of Waterloo,
And said “You beat the charge, son.
And the British lines go through”—
And now they come—to the beat—of the drum,
To the beat—of the drum—they come—they come,
The great horses prance—in a warlike dance,
As forward they come—to the beat—of the drum.
Then louder we hear the roll of the drum,
The rattling roll of the rumbling drum.
Then the brazen bugles, the braying bugles,
Buoyantly blew a blast,
Trilling, and thrilling, then dying away—
Like an avalanche swept they past—
With a clang—and a clash—and a clatter of hoofs,
Like a serpent they say with a soul,
Brilliantly blazed their helmets of brass
As upward the cuirassiers roll.
Then the thundering boom of the mighty guns,
With the hissing scream of shell,
Announced the terrible conflict on,
And anon 'twas beginning to tell.
'Twas here that Wellington wavered,
And hoped that Blücher would come,
And never he knew that that fierce charge,
Had been caused by the beat of a drum.
Gallantly stood the British squares
As if they were rooted to earth;
But none can deny had Blücher not come
These squares must have died in their valor and worth.
'Twas here that the cheer rose up from the host,
The Prussians had come and were forming,
And Napoleon's Old Guard dashed bravely ahead;
But they died in their chivalrous storming.
Ye know how the musketry cut them down,
When fate had o'er shadowed them never,
Their eagles that soared in a score of campagnes
Swooped down from their glory forever.
Five chargers had fallen neath Marshal Ney
Still he brandished his broken sword,
And vainly he strove to rally his men
As volleys of death from the Prussian guns poured.
And now Ney called for the drummer boy;
Ere the cuirassiers broke and fled,
He called and searched for the drummer boy,
But the drummer boy was dead.
That's why Napoleon waited so long,
Why he stood in that falling square
While his followers fell on every side,
He eagerly waited him there.
That's why he lost the battle,
The Battle of Waterloo,
By the death of the drummer who beat the charge,
Ere the British lines broke through.