[Written in the night of the 17th and 18th of June, as I lay, severely
wounded and helpless in a wood, expecting to die.]
"My deep wound burns;--my pale lips quake in death,--
I feel my fainting heart resign its strife,
And reaching now the limit of my life,
Lord, to thy will I yield my parting breath!
Yet many a dream hath charm'd my youthful eye;
And must life's fairy visions all depart;
Oh surely no! for all that fired my heart
To rapture here, shall live with me on high.
And that fair form that won my earliest vow,
That my young spirit prized all else above,
And now adored as freedom, now as love,
Stands in seraphic guise, before me now.
And as my fading senses fade away,
It beckons me, on high, to realms of endless day!"
During the night he heard the enemy searching the wood near him, but
afterwards fell asleep, and was saved in the morning by two peasants. He
was conveyed secretly into Leipsic, which was then under the French yoke,
and where the concealment of any of the Lutzow free corps was prohibited,
under severe punishment. He subsequently travelled in safety to Berlin, and
having recovered from his wound, rejoined the corps of Lutzow on the right
bank of the Elbe. Hostilities recommenced on the 17th of August; and on the
28th an engagement took place near Rosenberg, in which Korner fell. He was
in pursuit of a body of the enemy, when the riflemen, who had found a
rallying-place in some under-wood, sent forth a shower of balls upon their
pursuers. By one of these Korner was wounded in the abdomen, the liver and
spine were injured, and he was immediately deprived of speech and
consciousness. He was carried to a neighbouring wood, but all medical aid
was vain. He was buried under an oak in the village of Wobbelin, about a
mile from Ludwigslust. A tomb has since been placed over his remains, and
enclosed by a wall. He died at the early age of twenty-two.
_From a Critical Notice of The Life of Korner, New Monthly Mag._
* * * * *
Cannot he that wisely declines walking upon the ice for fear of falling,
though possibly it might carry him sooner to his journey's end, as wisely
forbear drinking more wine than is necessary, for fear of being drunk and
the ill-consequences thereof?--_Lord Clarendon._
* * * * *