XVI.
Yes, thou shalt learn—and, at the tale,
Thy pride shall shrink, thy hope shall fail,
Though falsehood’s hand have trac’d
The lying legend—thou shall know
Thy marshals foiled—thy thousands low—
Thy puppet King disgrac’d!
Far other thoughts their bosoms fill;
As now to Talavera’s hill
Proud in their numbers and their skill,
The Gallic columns haste:
The same they are, and led by those,
The scourges of the world’s repose,
Victors of Milan’s fair domain,
Of Austerlitz’s wintry plain,
And Friedland’s sandy waste:
Who Prussia’s shiver’d sceptre hurl’d
Down to the dust, and from the world
Her very name erased:
Who boast them, in presumptuous tone,
Each feat and fortune to have known
Of war, except defeat alone;
But now of that to taste!