Dicam insigne, recens, adhuc
Indictum ore alio.
I.
’Twas dark; from every mountain head
The sunny smile of heaven had fled,
And evening, over hill and dale
Dropt, with the dew, her shadowy veil;
In fabled Teio’s darkening tide
Was quenched the golden ray;
Silent, the silent stream beside,
Three gallant people’s hope and pride,
Three gallant armies lay.
France, every nation’s foe, is there,
And Albion’s sons her red cross bear,
With Spain’s young Liberty to share
The patriot array,
Which, spurning the oppressor’s chain,
Springs arm’d, from every hill and plain
From ocean to the eastern main—
From Seville to Biscaye.
All, from the dawn till even-tide,
The fortune of the field had tried
In loose but bloody fray;
And now with thoughts of dubious fate
Feverish and weary, they await
A fiercer, bloodier day.
II.
Fraternal France’s chosen bands
He of the stolen crown commands,
And on Alberche’s hither sands
Pitches his tents to-night:
While, Talavera’s wall between
And olive groves and gardens green,
Spain quarters on the right;
All scatter’d in the open air
In deep repose; save here and there,
Pondering to-morrow’s fight,
A spearman, in his midnight prayer,
Invokes our Blessed Lady’s care
And good Saint James’s might.
Thence to the left, across the plain
And on the neighbouring height,
The British bands, a watchful train,
Their wide and warded line maintain,
Fronting the east, as if to gain
The earliest glimpse of light.
III.
While there, with toil and watching worn,
The Island warriors wait the morn,
And think the hours too slow;
Hark!—on the midnight breezes borne
Sounds from the vale below!
What sounds? No gleam of arms they see,
Yet still they hear—What may it be?
It is, it is the foe!
From every hand and heart and head—
As quick was never lightning sped—
Weakness and weariness are fled;
And down the mountain steeps,
Along the vale, and through the shade,
With ball and bayonet and blade,
They seek the foe who dares invade
The watch that England keeps.
Nor do the dauntless sons of France
Idly await the hot advance:—
As active and as brave
Thrice rush they on, and thrice their shock
Rebounding breaks, as from the rock
Is dash’d the wintry wave.
IV.
But soon the darkling armies blend,
Promiscuous death around they send,
Foe falls by foe and friend by friend
In mingled heaps o’erthrown:
And many a gallant feat is done,
And many a laurel lost and won,
Unwitness’d and unknown;—
Feats, that achieved in face of day,
Had fired the bard’s enthusiast lay,
And, in some holy aisle, for aye
Had lived in sculptured stone.
Oh, for a blaze from heaven, to light
The wonders of that gloomy fight,
The guerdon to bestow,
Of which the sullen envious night
Bereaves the warrior’s brow!
Furious they strike without a mark,
Save where the sudden sulphurous spark
Illumes some visage grim and dark,
That with the flash is gone!
And, ’midst the conflict, only know,
If chance has sped the fatal blow,
Or by the trodden corse below,
Or by the dying groan.