Maddy Prior - With Napoleon in Russia: Loot lyrics

What is this brilliant company Dressed in silks and satins gay They are draped in bales of linen That they found along the way. They ride in gilded carriages And they eat off china plates Finest shawls across their shoulders Weird and wonderful freight. There are generals and officers And every rank of men They are straggled, and have struggled On the road back home again. They are all weighed down with silver, They have booty rich and fine They're a motley mix of rabble How they shimmer, how they shine. Mostly they have got no rifles Nor no guns of any sort But laden with their spoils By their greed they are caught. For the Cossacks they have chased them They have harried them to d**h And the frost has bit their fingers Taking ears and nose and breath. One hundred thousand are returning All the men that now remain They are broken and defeated By the weary Russian plain. Ambition drove Napoleon to Moscow He thought that he would rule the world But even snow couldn't smother The noise of such a mighty fall The sound of great misfortune Will ring and echo down the years And bring him immortality As sure as any great victory.