HOHENLOHE
Thitherward go I,
And patch the mischief wrought upon us here!
Enter a second and then a third straggler.
Well, wet-faced men, whence come ye? What d’ye bring?
STRAGGLER II
Your Highness, I rode straight from Hassenhausen,
Across the stream of battle as it boiled
Betwixt that village and the banks of Saale,
And such the turmoil that no man could speak
On what the issue was!
HOHENLOHE [To Straggler III]
Can you add aught?
STRAGGLER III
Nothing that’s clear, your Highness.
HOHENLOHE
Man, your mien
Is that of one who knows, but will not say.
Detain him here.
STRAGGLER III
The blackness of my news,
Your Highness, darks my sense!... I saw this much:
His charging grenadiers, received in the face
A grape-shot stroke that gouged out half of it,
Proclaiming then and there his life fordone.
HOHENLOHE
Fallen? Brunswick! Reed in council, rock in fire...
Ah, this he looked for. Many a time of late
Has he, by some strange gift of foreknowing,
Declared his fate was hovering in such wise!
STRAGGLER III
His aged form being borne beyond the strife,
The gallant Moellendorf, in flushed despair,
Swore he would not survive; and, pressing on,
He, too, was slaughtered. Patriotic rage
Brimmed marshals’ breasts and men’s. The King himself
Fought like the commonest. But nothing served.
His horse is slain; his own doom yet unknown.
Prince William, too, is wounded. Brave Schmettau
Is broke; himself disabled. All give way,
And regiments crash like trees at felling-time!
HOHENLOHE
No more. We match it here. The yielding lines
Still sweep us backward. Backward we must go!
[Exeunt HOHENLOHE, Staff, stragglers, etc.]