The Battle of Talavera

by John Wilson Croker

XXV.

But short the truce that they can keep—
For now the signals shrill
Sounding along, from plain and steep,
Longer forbid the fight to sleep;
Light from the ground the warriors leap,
And seize the rein and steel:
All arm’d, all ardent, all array’d,
Again their weapons wield;
And echoing thro’ the livid shade,
The clash of bayonet and blade
Revives along the field.
The hurried fight from post to post,
Kindles, but on the center most,
Whence, hoping on a happier stage,
The renovated war to wage,
France now assails the hill,
And pours with aggregated rage
The storm of fire and steel;
Soon from the eye the hostile crowd
The gathering shade conceals,
While from its bosom, long and loud,
Like thunder from a vernal cloud,
The din of battle peals.

XXVI.

But when the freshening breezes broke
A chasm in the volumed smoke,
Busy and black was seen to wave
The iron harvest of the field,—
That harvest, which, in slaughter till’d,
Is gathered in the grave:—
And now before their mutual fires
They yield, and now advance;
And now ’tis Britain that retires,
And now the line of France:
They struggle long with changeful fate;
And all the battle’s various cries,
Now depress’d and now elate,
In mingled clamours rise;
Till France at length before the weight
Of British onset flies:
‘Forward,’ the fiery victors shout,
‘Forward, the enemy’s in rout,
Pursue him and he dies!’

XXVII.

Hot and impetuous they pursued,
And wild with carnage, drunk with blood,
Rush’d on the plain below;
The wily Frenchman saw and stood—
Screen’d by the verges of the wood
He turn’d him on the foe.
The gallant bands that guard the crown
Of England, led the battle down,
And, in their furious mood,
Thrice they essay’d with onset fierce,
Thrice fail’d, collected France to pierce—
Still France collected, stood!
While full on each uncover’d flank
Cannon and mortar swept their rank,
And many a generous Briton sank
Before the dreadful blaze;
Yet ’midst that dreadful blaze and din
The fearless shout they raise,
And ever, as their numbers thin,
Fresh spirits rush unbidden in,
Thoughtless, but how the meed to win
Of peril and of praise.
And still, as with a blacker shade
Fortune obscures the day,
Commingled thro’ the fight they wade,
And hand to hand and blade to blade,
Their blind and furious efforts braid,
As if, still dark and disarray’d,
They fought the midnight fray.

XXVIII.

In vain.—New hopes and fresher force
Inspirit France, and urge her course,
A torrent, rapid, wild, and hoarse,
On Britain’s wavering train.
As when, before the wintery skies,
The struggling forests sink and rise,
And rise and sink again,
While the gale scatters as it flies
Their ruins o’er the plain;
Before the tempest of her foes,
So England sank, and England rose,
And, though still rooted in the vale,
Strew’d her rent branches on the gale.
Then, Wellesley! on thy tortured thought
With ripening hopes of glory fraught,
What honest anguish crost!
Oh, how thy generous bosom burn’d,
To see the tide of victory turn’d,
And Spain and England lost!—
Lost—but that, as the peril great
And rising with the storms of fate,
His rapid genius soars,
Sees, at a glance, his whole resource,
Drains from each stronger point its force,
And on the weaker pours:
Present where’er his soldiers bleed,
He rushes thro’ the fray,
And, (so the doubtful chances need,)
In high emprize and desperate deed,
Squanders himself away!

XXIX.

Now from the summit, at his call,
A gallant legion firm and slow
Advances on victorious Gaul;
Undaunted, though their comrades fall!
Unshaken, though their leader’s low!
Fix’d—as the high and buttress’d mound
Which guards some leaguer’d city round,
They stand unmoved—Behind them form
The scatter’d fragments of the storm;
While on their sheltering front, amain
France drives, with all her thundering train,
Her full career of death:
But drives not long her full career,
For now, that living bulwark near,
Fault’ring between fatigue and fear
She stops and pants for breath:
That dubious pause, that wavering rest,
The Britons seize, and breast to breast
Opposing, havoc’s arm arrest,
And from the foe’s exulting crest,
Tear down the laurel wreath.