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O spring! Happy is he who beheld thee then in our country!

Memorable spring of war, spring of harvest! O spring, happy is he

who beheld how thou didst bloom with corn and grass, but

glittered with men; how thou wert rich in events and big with

hope! I see thee still, fair phantom of my dream! Born in slavery

and chained in my swaddling bands, I have had but one such spring

in my whole life.

Soplicowo lay close by the highway along which two generals were

pressing forward from the Niemen. Our own Prince Joseph and

Jerome, King of Westphalia,181 had already occupied Lithuania

from Grodno to Slonim, when the King issued orders to give the

army three days of repose. But the Polish soldiers, despite their

hardships, murmured because the King would not permit them to

march on; so eager were they to overtake the Muscovites at the

earliest possible moment.