Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.

Lech, the River

Sonnet on the Death of the Bavarian General Tilly

By William Herbert (1778–1847)

TILLY, thine hopes are fallen! by the stream

Of rapid Lech victorious cannons roar

With Swedish vengeance; on the adverse shore

Fraught with thy death the volleyed lightnings gleam!

Yet nor those hardy veterans, who seem

To mock all hinderance; nor those mouths, which pour

The thundering voice of war with fierce uproar;

Nor e’en Gustavus mars thy glorious dream.

But she, who met thee with her ghastly train

Of murdered babes (a pale and vengeful ghost),

Sad Magdeburg, in Leipsic’s dubious fight;

And with her heaven’s red arm, which o’er the plain

Spread strange dismay: then victory fled thine host,

And thy bright glories sunk in fatal night.