XIII.
Then, Wellington! thy piercing eye
This crisis caught of destiny—
The British host had stood
That morn ’gainst charge of sword and lance
As their own ocean-rocks hold stance,
But when thy voice had said, “Advance!”
They were their ocean’s flood.—
O Thou, whose inauspicious aim
Hath wrought thy host this hour of shame,
Think’st thou thy broken bands will bide
The terrors of yon rushing tide?
Or will thy Chosen brook to feel
The British shock of levell’d steel?
Or dost thou turn thine eye
Where coming squadrons gleam afar,
And fresher thunders wake the war,
And other standards fly?—
Think not that in yon columns, file
Thy conquering troops from distant Dyle—
Is Blucher yet unknown?
Or dwells not in thy memory still,
(Heard frequent in thine hour of ill)
What notes of hate and vengeance thrill
In Prussia’s trumpet tone?—
What yet remains?—shall it be thine
To head the reliques of thy line
In one dread effort more?—
The Roman lore thy leisure loved,
And thou can’st tell what fortune proved
That Chieftain, who, of yore,
Ambition’s dizzy paths essay’d,
And with the gladiators’ aid
For empire enterprized—
He stood the cast his rashness play’d,
Left not the victims he had made,
Dug his red grave with his own blade,
And on the field he lost was laid,
Abhorr’d—but not despised.