SEMICHORUS II
They gain the ground there, yard by yard,
Their brows and hair and lashes charred,
Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.
SEMICHORUS I
Their mad assailants rave and reel,
And face, as men who scorn to feel,
The close-lined, three-edged prongs of steel.
SEMICHORUS II
Till faintness follows closing-in,
When, faltering headlong down, they spin
Like leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.
SEMICHORUS I
Out of six thousand souls that sware
To hold the mount, or pass elsewhere,
But eighteen hundred muster there.
SEMICHORUS II
Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,
Facing the earth or facing sky;—
They strove to live, they stretch to die.
SEMICHORUS I
Friends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.—
Hide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,
Where harmless worms caress and creep.
CHORUS
Hide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,
Where harmless worms caress and creep.—
What man can grieve? what woman weep?
Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!
The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.
SCENE V
WINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING’S APARTMENT
[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles of
furniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, on
which are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windows
are guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. The
time is shortly after the last scene.
The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS’S attendants
are in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight is
very defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lost
in melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurried
manner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that he
betrays.]