| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
STORIES OF
laid him in earth. I saw his spirit rise through the laurels. They planted his grave with rose-mary. The nightingale sang his dirge. The mourners fell to the earth, and when they rose up again they chanted his victories. Then re-tired they all to rest.' "
Everybody knows that the air to which " Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre'' is sung has been hummed or whistled, at one or another period of his life, by almost every Englishman, often without his being acquainted with a single word of the French lines, or even the name of the song itself. Father Prout explains the whole matter in the " Reliques:" " Confining myself for the present to wine and war, I pro-ceed to give a notable war-song, of which the tune is well-known throughout Europe, but the words and the poetry are on the point of being effaced from the superficial memory of this flimsy generation. It may not be uninteresting to learn that both the tune and the words were composed as a lullaby to set the infant Dauphin to sleep. Still, if the best antiquary were called on to supply the original poetic composition, such as it burst on the world in the decline of the classic era of Queen Anne and Louis XIV., I fear he would be unable to gratify the curiosity of an eager public in so interesting an inquiry.
42 |
||