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"CELUI qui remplissait alors cette place, était un gentil"homme Polonais, nommé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Padolie; il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse "avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais, ayant été "découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de l'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta long-temps parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les “Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques: sa "réputation s'augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le "Czar à le faire Prince de l'Ukraine."-VOLTAIRE, Histoire de Charles XII. p. 196.

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"Le roi fuyant et poursuivi eut son cheval tué sous "lui; le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la fuite, ce conquérant qui n'avait pu y monter pendant la bataille.”

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VOLTAIRE, Histoire de Charles XII.

p. 216.

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"Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques "cavaliers. Le carosse où il était rompit dans la "marche; on le remit à cheval. Pour comble de dis66 grace, il s'égara pendant la nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer à ses forces épuisées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval étant "tombé de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures, au pied d'un arbre, en danger d'être surpris à tout moment par les vainqueurs qui le cherchaient de tous côtés."-VOLTAIRE, Histoire de Charles XII. p. 218.

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MAZEPPA.

"TWAS after dread Pultowa's day, When fortune left the royal Swede, Around a slaughter'd army lay,

No more to combat and to bleed. The power and glory of the war,

Faithless as their vain votaries, men,

Had pass'd to the triumphant Czar,
And Moscow's walls were safe again,
Until a day more dark and drear,
And a more memorable year,

Should give to slaughter and to shame
A mightier host and haughtier name;
A greater wreck, a deeper fall, ·
A shock to one-a thunderbolt to all.

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ΙΟ

II.

Such was the hazard of the die ;
The wounded Charles was taught to fly
By day and night through field and flood,
Stain'd with his own and subjects' blood;
For thousands fell that flight to aid :
And not a voice was heard to upbraid
Ambition in his humbled hour,

When truth had nought to dread from power.
His horse was slain, and Gieta gave

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His own—and died the Russians' slave.
This too sinks after many a league

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Of well sustain'd, but vain fatigue;
And in the depth of forests, darkling
The watch-fires in the distance sparkling—

The beacons of surrounding foes

A king must lay his limbs at length.

Are these the laurels and repose

For which the nations strain their strength?

They laid him by a savage tree,

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In out-worn nature's agony ;

His wounds were stiff-his limbs were stark

The heavy hour was chill and dark;

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The fever in his blood forbade

A transient slumber's fitful aid :

And thus it was; but yet through all,

King-like the monarch bore his fall,

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And made, in this extreme of ill,

His

pangs

the vassals of his will; All silent and subdued were they,

As once the nations round him lay.

III.

A band of chiefs!-alas! how few,
Since but the fleeting of a day

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Had thinn'd it; but this wreck was true

And chivalrous; upon the clay

Each sate him down, all sad and mute,

Beside his monarch and his steed,

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For danger levels man and brute,
And all are fellows in their need.

Among the rest, Mazeppa made
His pillow in an old oak's shade-
Himself as rough, and scarce less old,
The Ukraine's hetman, calm and bold;
But first, outspent with his long course,
The Cossack prince rubb'd down his horse,

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