Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forebore to check. | |
XVII | |
145 | Stop! – for thy tread is on an Empire’s dust! |
An Earthquake’s spoil is sepulchred below! | |
Is the spot mark’d with no colossal bust? | |
Nor column trophied for triumphal show? | |
None; but the moral’s truth tells simpler so, | |
150 | As the ground was before, thus let it be; – |
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! | |
And is this all the world has gain’d by thee, | |
Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory? | |
XVIII | |
And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, | |
155 | The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo; |
How in an hour the power which gave annuls | |
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too! | |
In ’pride of place’ | |
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, | |
160 | Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through; |
Ambition’s life and labours all were vain; | |
He wears the shatter’d links of the world’s broken chain. | |
XIX | |
Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit | |
And foam in fetters; — but is Earth more free? | |
165 | Did nations combat to make |
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? | |
What! shall reviving Thraldom again be | |
The patch’d-up idol of enlighten’d days? | |
Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we | |
170 | Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze |
And servile knees to thrones? No; | |
XX | |
If not, o’er one fallen despot boast no more! | |
In vain fair cheeks were furrow’d with hot tears | |
For Europe’s flowers long rooted up before | |
175 | The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years |
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, | |
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord | |
Of roused-up millions: all that most endears | |
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword | |
180 | Such as Harmodius |
XXI | |
There was a sound of revelry by night, | |
And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then | |
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright | |
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men; | |
185 | A thousand hearts beat happily; and when |
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, | |
Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again, | |
And all went merry as a marriage-bell; | |
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! | |
XXII | |
190 | Did ye not hear it? – No; ’twas but the wind, |
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street; | |
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; | |
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet | |
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet – | |
195 | But, hark! – that heavy sound breaks in once more, |
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; | |
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! | |
Arm! Arm! it is – it is – the cannon’s opening roar! | |
XXIII | |
Within a window’d niche of that high hall | |
200 | Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear |
That sound the first amidst the festival, | |
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear; | |
And when they smiled because he deem’d it near, | |
His heart more truly knew that peal too well | |
205 | Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier, |
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: | |
He rush’d into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. | |
XXIV | |
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, | |
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, | |
210 | And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago |
Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness; | |
And there were sudden partings, such as press | |
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs | |
Which ne’er might be repeated; who could guess | |
215 | If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, |
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise! | |
XXV | |
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, | |
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, | |
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, | |
220 | And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; |
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; | |
And near, the beat of the alarming drum | |
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; | |
While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb, | |
225 | Or whispering, with white lips – ‘The foe! they come! they come!’ |
XXVI | |
And wild and high the ‘Cameron’s gathering’ rose! | |
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills | |
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: — | |
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, | |
230 | Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills |
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers | |
With the fierce native daring which instils | |
The stirring memory of a thousand years, | |
And Evan’s, Donald’s | |
XXVII | |
235 | And Ardennes |
Dewy with nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, | |
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, | |
Over the unreturning brave, – alas! | |
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass | |
240 | Which now beneath them, but above shall grow |
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass | |
Of living valour, rolling on the foe | |
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. | |
XXVIII | |
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, | |
245 | Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay, |
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, | |
The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day | |
Battle’s magnificently-stern array! | |
The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent | |
250 | The earth is cover’d thick with other clay, |
Which her own clay shall cover, heap’d and pent, | |
Rider and horse, – friend, foe, – in one red burial blent! | |
XXIX | |
Their praise is hymn’d by loftier harps than mine; | |
Yet one I would select from that proud throng, | |
255 | Partly because they blend me with his line, |
And partly that I did his sire some wrong, | |
And partly that bright names will hallow song; | |
And his was of the bravest, and when shower’d | |
The death-bolts deadliest the thinn’d files along, | |
260 | Even where the thickest of war’s tempest lower’d, |
They reach’d no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard! | |
XXX | |
There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, | |
And mine were nothing, had I such to give; | |
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, | |
265 | Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, |
And saw around me the wide field revive | |
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring | |
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, | |
With all her reckless birds upon the wing, | |
270 | I turn’d from all she brought to those she could not bring. |
XXXI | |
I turn’d to thee, to thousands, of whom each | |
And one as all a ghastly gap did make | |
In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach | |
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake; | |
275 | The Archangel’s trump, not Glory’s, must awake |
Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame | |
May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake | |
The fever of vain longing, and the name | |
So honour’d but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. | |
XXXII | |
280 | They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn: |
The tree will wither long before it fall; | |
The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn; | |
The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall | |
In massy hoariness; the ruin’d wall | |
285Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; |