SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
He was my old fiend Death, in rarest trim,
The occasion favouring his husbandry!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Are those who marched behind him, then, to fall?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Ay, all well-nigh, ere Time have houred three-score.
PARTNER
Surely this cruel call to instant war
Spares space for one dance more, that memory
May store when you are gone, while I—sad me!—
Wait, wait and weep.... Yes—one there is to be!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Methinks flirtation grows too tender here!
[Country Dance, “The Prime of Life,” a favourite figure at this
period. The sense of looming tragedy carries emotion to its
climax. All the younger officers stand up with their partners,
forming several figures of fifteen or twenty couples each. The
air is ecstasizing, and both sexes abandon themselves to the
movement.
Nearly half an hour passes before the figure is danced down.
Smothered kisses follow the conclusion. The silence is broken
from without by more long hollow rolling notes, so near that
they thrill the window-panes.]
SEVERAL
’Tis the Assemble. Now, then, we must go!
[The officers bid farewell to their partners and begin leaving
in twos and threes. When they are gone the women mope and murmur
to each other by the wall, and listen to the tramp of men and
slamming of doors in the streets without.]
LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE
The Duke has borne him gaily here to-night.
The youngest spirits scarcely capped his own.
DALRYMPLE
Maybe that, finding himself blade to blade
With Bonaparte at last, his blood gets quick.
French lancers of the Guard were seen at Frasnes
Last midnight; so the clash is not far off.
[They leave.]
DE LANCEY [to his wife]
I take you to our door, and say good-bye,
And go thence to the Duke’s and wait for him.
In a few hours we shall be all in motion
Towards the scene of—what we cannot tell!
You, dear, will haste to Antwerp till it’s past,
As we have arranged.
[They leave.]
WELLINGTON [to Richmond]
Now I must also go,
And snatch a little snooze ere harnessing.
The Prince and Brunswick have been gone some while.
[RICHMOND walks to the door with him. Exit WELLINGTON, RICHMOND
returns.]