Borisov, 1812

Warrants nailed into splintered posts,

Hungry peasants hunt down the Corsican.

Bonaparte has eluded them again

Mistaken identity, they have the wrong man!

Retreating from Moscow through the bitter cold

Plundering the villages, struggling to survive

Sleeping in barns, praying during the night

Their chattering teeth reveal their plight

Weary footprints stamp the Russian snow

Far away from family, their heads bowed low

Their buttons have crumbled in the biting chill

See their tattered cloaks and their soggy boots

Visions of grandeur have all but dissolved,

French ambition, now a dismembered fool,

A long ghastly trail, snaking through the dark

Cossacks pursue them like starving hounds

See them withdrawing, frost bitten and hungry

The army of Napoleon is shivering

Splintered wagons abandoned in the ice

A hungry wind fans the flames towards the bridge

A flickering mosaic burns against the sky,

Silhouettes of death piling up high

Their bulging eyes staring at defeat

Screaming thousands, into the river they sink!

The panicky horses all mowed down

Their nostrils flaring as they drown

Warm trickling blood

Fusing into crimson snow!