Across the seas, where once the farmsteads poured
Autumnal wealth—and Desolation rides
Rough shod along where tramped the Prussian horde.
No life remains: the fields are stark and sere;
The forests, leaf and branch and root, are fled;
The flowers lie trampled on the soldier's bier:
Destroyed are e'en the shelters of the dead.
The gardens that held plenty in their wombs
Are stripped and barren as the sands of Dearth,
And now, instead, keep vigil o'er the tombs