SECOND CITIZEN [gazing]
He is already at the garden-end;
Now he has passed out to the river-brim,
And plods along it toward the Ranstadt Gate....
He finds no horses for him!... And the crowd
Thrusts him about, none recognizing him.
Ah—now the horses do arrive. He mounts,
And hurries through the arch.... Again I see him—
Now he’s upon the causeway in the marsh;
Now rides across the bridge of Lindenau...
And now, among the troops that choke the road
I lose all sight of him.
[A third citizen enters from the direction NAPOLÉON has taken.]
THIRD CITIZEN [breathlessly]
I have seen him go!
And while he passed the gate I stood i’ the crowd
So close I could have touched him! Few discerned
In one so soiled the erst Arch-Emperor!—
In the lax mood of him who has lost all
He stood inert there, idly singing thin:
“Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre!”—until his suite
Came up with horses.
SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing afar]
Poniatowski’s Poles
Wearily walk the level causeway now;
Also, meseems, Macdonald’s corps and Reynier’s.
The frail-framed, new-built bridge has broken down:
They’ve but the old to cross by.
FIRST CITIZEN
Feeble foresight!
They should have had a dozen.
SECOND CITIZEN
All the corps—
Macdonald’s, Poniatowski’s, Reynier’s—all—
Confusedly block the entrance to the bridge.
And—verily Blücher’s troops are through the town,
And are debouching from the Ranstadt Gate
Upon the Frenchmen’s rear!
[A thunderous report stops his words, echoing through the city from
the direction in which he is gazing, and rattling all the windows.
A hoarse chorus of cries becomes audible immediately after.]
FIRST, THIRD, ETC., CITIZENS
Ach, Heaven!—what’s that?
SECOND CITIZEN
The bridge of Lindenau has been upblown!
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
There leaps to the sky and earthen wave,
And stones, and men, as though
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave
Their sepulchres from below.
SEMICHORUS II
To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;
Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;
And rank and file in masses plough
The sullen Elster-Strom.
SEMICHORUS I
A gulf is Lindenau; and dead
Are fifties, hundreds, tens;
And every current ripples red
With marshals’ blood and men’s.