One day there was nothing but bread and some slices of smoked ham on the table. Dietrich, regarding the young officer, said to him, with sad serenity:
“Abundance fails at our boards; but what matters that, if enthusiasm fails not at our civic fêtes, nor courage in the hearts of our soldiers? I have still a last bottle of wine in my cellar. Bring it,” said he to one of his daughters, “and let us drink France and Liberty! Strasburg should have its patriotic solemnity. De Lisle must draw from these last drops one of those hymns which raise the soul of the people.”
The wine was brought and drank, after which the officer departed. The night was cold. De Lisle was thoughtful. His heart was moved, his head heated. He returned staggering to his solitary room and slowly sought inspiration—sometimes in the fervor of his citizen soul, and anon on the keys of his instrument, composing now the air before the words, and then the words before the air. He sung all, and wrote nothing, and at last, exhausted, fell asleep with his head resting on his instrument, and awoke not till daybreak.
The music of the night returned to his mind like the impression of a dream. He wrote it, and ran to Dietrich, whom he found in the garden digging winter lettuces. The wife and daughters of the old man were not up. Dietrich awoke them, and called in some friends, all as passionate as himself for music, and able to execute the composition of De Lisle. At the first stanza, cheeks grew pale; at the second, tears flowed; and at the last the delirium of enthusiasm burst forth. The wife of Dietrich, his daughters, himself, and the young officer, threw themselves, crying, into each other’s arms.
The hymn of the country was found. Executed some days afterward in Strasburg, the new song flew from city to city, and was played by all the popular orchestras. Marseilles adopted it to be sung at the commencement of the sittings of the clubs, and the Marseillaise spread it through France, singing it along the public roads. From this came the name of “Marseillaise.”
THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.
While Thomas Moore held a minor appointment in Bermuda, early in the last century, he visited the United States, and there found material for several well-known poems. His imagination was greatly struck by what he heard of the Dismal Swamp, which at that time was a vast morass more than forty miles in length and twenty-five miles in width, extending from Virginia into North Carolina, and having in the midst of it a stagnant lake to which few had ever penetrated. Many strange stories were told of this gloomy swamp, with its dark recesses in which savage animals and loathsome serpents lurked, and where, according to the legends of the country-people, unearthly sights had at times been seen.
Moore’s genius gave to one of these legends a poetical form in the lines which are here reprinted and which were long extremely popular. It may be mentioned as a matter of interest that the Dismal Swamp has in recent years been in part reclaimed by drainage, and that a canal now crosses it, thus destroying its old-time mystery and romance.
By THOMAS MOORE.