Ha! the Household Brigade meet the French Cuirassiers;
Like an avalanche they charge with three ringing cheers;
Like eagles they swoop down on that steel-clad brigade—
Oh, the flash of their sabres, and the havoc they made!
Crushed and bleeding the cuirassiers turn and fly,
Leaving squadrons of slain, and their wounded to die.
Fresh masses now attack La Haye Sainte once more;
Hougomont still resounds to the murderous roar
Of attacking lines, sacrificing thousands in vain,
For the bloodstained chateau they never shall gain.
The Emperor now seeks to hurl a crushing blow,
And flings his cavalry en masse on the foe;
Hoping still the Duke’s grand centre to penetrate,
On the verge and vast ruin of impending fate.
The famous Kellermann directs this splendid array,
Trusting the result will decide the fate of the day.
But the Duke comprehends. See his flashing gray eyes!
From line and from columns the command swiftly flies,
“Into square! into square! across the valley again
Comes the cavalry en masse to charge us amain!
To the guns! to the guns! rend their columns asunder;
Shake the earth once again; let Napoleon wonder
What manner of men he hath met here to-day.
Keep your ranks, hold your squares in invincible array!”
Steady the clans of Scotia sound the slogan once more.
Let it stir ye as never it stirred ye before.
Let Erin’s hurrah through the storm fiercely break;
Gallant souls, whose courage even death cannot shake.
Art still calm, Britain’s sons, proudly waiting the shock?
Aye, calm and cool, though the earth doth tremble and rock;
Though rent your firm squares, and thinned your red lines,
Ye are dauntless still; on your grim faces shines
An unconquerable light, flashing everywhere,
Firm as the abiding hills, shaken not by despair.
Steady now, fearless hearts! See, the foe proudly comes,
Rolling on in huge masses where thunder the guns
That leap from the very earth in maddening roar.
And grape, shot and shell devastatingly tore
Through Kellermann’s vast squadrons of horse, coming on
Steadily and gallantly, though thousands had gone
Down in the awful struggle, mangled and torn,
Since the opening glory of the summer morn.
They come, they come, in magnificent array!
And the gunners from their guns are driven away.
Like a whirlwind they charge on the devoted squares
Which Kellermann hoped to have caught unawares.
But they are ready; and before their bristling steel
The imperial squadrons now stagger and reel!
Round and round those stern squares they sweep madly in vain,
Falling there thick and fast in the withering rain
Of incessant volleys, that on them ruthlessly pour
From the heroic squares that are bleeding and sore.
And those famous steel-clad warriors of France fall fast,
Smitten and riven by the hot devouring blast.
They fall back—charge forward—and repeat it again,
Till the reddened earth is pent with their gallant slain.
But at last they fly from their ruinous sore defeat,
All mangled and broken and ruined complete.
From the firm squares the gunners rush forward once more,
And again the hot guns madly thunder and roar.
Thus all Napoleon’s heavy horse at Waterloo
Was destroyed in attempts those squares to break through.
As the sea waves that rush on an iron-bound shore,
They rolled on the Duke, broke, and fled back once more.
CHAPTER IV.
But La Haye Sainte to Donzelot’s infantry fell—
The heroic Frenchman fought there nobly and well—
Thus securing the Emperor a lodgment sought,
A strategic point for a decisive onslaught
On Wellington’s centre, that he still seeks to gain,
Where his best troops were broken, and broken in vain.
Blucher is coming! hear his guns’ opening roar,
Pressing the right of the French, now in peril sore.
The Emperor detaches Lobau’s corps complete
And Dumont’s horse this fatal new danger to meet.
But Bulow turns Lobau’s left, and Planchenoit is won
Near to the going down of the red summer’s sun.
But the Emperor checks Bulow with his Young Guard,
And for a time they gallantly keep watch and ward
O’er the right of the French, fighting desperately there—
Still hopeful, though desperately assailed everywhere.
Will the Emperor’s star of destiny go down to-day,
And his vast fabric be swept forever away?
His sun of victory set now to rise no more,
And the splendor of his dreams die on War’s stern shore?
Avalanches of attack he still hurls on the foe;
Ceaselessly and recklessly they surge to and fro
All along the Duke’s firm lines, but surging in vain.
The bright valor of Britain those stern lines maintain
Unbroken by the desperate destroying strife,
Though to maintain them thousands are bereft of life.
The stratagems of a lifetime could not prevail;
His hitherto decisive moves were of no avail.
He might hurl his raging storms of grapeshot and shell,
He might thunder as the ravening maw of hell,
Hurl his cavalry en masse on the devoted squares,
Rush his infantry forward, and lay his deep snares,
Which must have ruined any other army complete,
Slaughtered, dismembered, and put to retreat;
But the Britons stood steadfast in undaunted pride,
And the legions of France they dared and defied.
And they cumbered death’s valley with the enemy slain,
Like sheaves in the ripe harvest of winnow and wain.
And thus sorely assailed near the set of the sun,
The Iron Duke exclaims, “Would that night or Blucher might come!”
The hour of seven o’clock had now been told,
Still the rage of the battle uncertain rolled.
Like gladiators of old they tugged and tore,
And gory thousands have fallen to rise no more.
The burning issues of the day are deep and wide—
Shall Europe have liberty from the despotic pride
Of Imperial France, waged by a single mind,
A genius of war, to human sufferings blind?
But his fate is approaching in the lurid gleam
Of the loud raging cannon, and the living stream
Of Britain’s deathless valor, that will never yield,
And they’ll win it or perish, this desperate field.