"God is the refuge of his saints,
When storms of dark distress invade;
Ere we can offer our complaints,
Behold him present with his aid.
"Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deep, and buried there,
Convulsions shake the solid world;
Our faith shall never yield to fear."
From twenty thousand voices the solemn hymn arose and floated over the field—celestial songs, to be succeeded by demoniac clangor. Both parties appealed to the God of battle; both parties seemed to feel that their cause was just. Alas for man!
Gustavus now ordered the attack. A solid column emerged from his ranks, crossed the road, in breathless silence approached the trenches, while both armies looked on. They were received with a volcanic sheet of flame which prostrated half of them bleeding upon the sod. Gustavus ordered column after column to follow on to support the assailants, and to pierce the enemy's center. In his zeal he threw himself from his horse, seized a pike, and rushed to head the attack. Wallenstein energetically ordered up cavalry and artillery to strengthen the point so fiercely assailed. And now the storm of war blazed along the whole lines. A sulphureous canopy settled down over the contending hosts, and thunderings, shrieks, clangor as of Pandemonium, filled the air. The king, as reckless of life as if he had been the meanest soldier, rushed to every spot where the battle raged the fiercest. Learning that his troops upon the left were yielding to the imperial fire, he mounted his horse and was galloping across the field swept by the storm of war, when a bullet struck his arm and shattered the bone. Almost at the same moment another bullet struck his breast, and he fell mortally wounded from his horse, exclaiming, "My God! my God!"