XXI.
Belluno sees the coming storm,
And feels the instant need—
‘Break up the line, the column form,
And break and form with speed,
Or under Britain’s thundering arm
In rout and ruin bleed!’
Quick, as upon the sea-beat sands
Vanish the works of childish hands,
The lengthen’d lines are gone,
And broken into nimble bands
Across the plain they run:
‘Spur, Britain, spur thy foaming horse,
O’ertake them in their scatter’d course,
And sweep them from the land!’
She spurs, she flies; in vain, in vain—
Already they have pass’d the plain,
And now the broken ground they gain,
And now, a column, stand!
‘Rein up thy courser, Britain, rein!’—
But who the tempest can restrain?
The mountain flood command?
Down the ravine, with hideous crash,
Headlong the foremost squadrons dash,
And many a soldier, many a steed
Crush’d in the dire confusion bleed.
The rest, as ruin fills the trench,
Pass clear, and on the column’d French,
A broken and tumultuous throng,
With glorious rashness pour along,
Too prodigal of life;
And they had died, ay every one,
But Wellesley cries, ‘On, Anson, on,
Langworth, and Albuquerque and Payne,
Lead Britain, Hanover, and Spain,
And turn the unequal strife.’