Some Poems

by Walter Scott

But on the British heart were lost
The terrors of the charging host;
For not an eye the storm that viewed
Changed its proud glance of fortitude,
Nor was one forward footstep stayed,
As dropped the dying and the dead.
Fast as their ranks the thunders tear,
Fast they renewed each serried square;
And on the wounded and the slain
Closed their diminished files again,
Till from their line scarce spears’-lengths three,
Emerging from the smoke they see
Helmet, and plume, and panoply,—
Then waked their fire at once!
Each musketeer’s revolving knell,
As fast, as regularly fell,
As when they practise to display
Their discipline on festal day.
Then down went helm and lance,
Down were the eagle banners sent,
Down reeling steeds and riders went,
Corslets were pierced, and pennons rent;
And, to augment the fray,
Wheeled full against their staggering flanks,
The English horsemen’s foaming ranks
Forced their resistless way.
Then to the musket-knell succeeds
The clash of swords—the neigh of steeds—
As plies the smith his clanging trade,
Against the cuirass rang the blade;
And while amid their close array
The well-served cannon rent their way,
And while amid their scattered band
Raged the fierce rider’s bloody brand,
Recoiled in common rout and fear,
Lancer and guard and cuirassier,
Horsemen and foot,—a mingled host
Their leaders fall’n, their standards lost.

XIII.

Then, Wellington! thy piercing eye
This crisis caught of destiny—
The British host had stood
That morn ’gainst charge of sword and lance
As their own ocean-rocks hold stance,
But when thy voice had said, “Advance!”
They were their ocean’s flood.—
O Thou, whose inauspicious aim
Hath wrought thy host this hour of shame,
Think’st thou thy broken bands will bide
The terrors of yon rushing tide?
Or will thy chosen brook to feel
The British shock of levelled steel,
Or dost thou turn thine eye
Where coming squadrons gleam afar,
And fresher thunders wake the war,
And other standards fly?—
Think not that in yon columns, file
Thy conquering troops from distant Dyle—
Is Blucher yet unknown?
Or dwells not in thy memory still
(Heard frequent in thine hour of ill),
What notes of hate and vengeance thrill
In Prussia’s trumpet-tone?—
What yet remains?—shall it be thine
To head the relics of thy line
In one dread effort more?—
The Roman lore thy leisure loved,
And than canst tell what fortune proved
That Chieftain, who, of yore,
Ambition’s dizzy paths essayed
And with the gladiators’ aid
For empire enterprised—
He stood the cast his rashness played,
Left not the victims he had made,
Dug his red grave with his own blade,
And on the field he lost was laid,
Abhorred—but not despised.

XIV.

But if revolves thy fainter thought
On safety—howsoever bought,—
Then turn thy fearful rein and ride,
Though twice ten thousand men have died
On this eventful day
To gild the military fame
Which thou, for life, in traffic tame
Wilt barter thus away.
Shall future ages tell this tale
Of inconsistence faint and frail?
And art thou He of Lodi’s bridge,
Marengo’s field, and Wagram’s ridge!
Or is thy soul like mountain-tide,
That, swelled by winter storm and shower,
Rolls down in turbulence of power,
A torrent fierce and wide;
Reft of these aids, a rill obscure,
Shrinking unnoticed, mean and poor,
Whose channel shows displayed
The wrecks of its impetuous course,
But not one symptom of the force
By which these wrecks were made!

XV.

Spur on thy way!—since now thine ear
Has brooked thy veterans’ wish to hear,
Who, as thy flight they eyed
Exclaimed,—while tears of anguish came,
Wrung forth by pride, and rage, and shame,
“O that he had but died!”
But yet, to sum this hour of ill,
Look, ere thou leav’st the fatal hill,
Back on yon broken ranks—
Upon whose wild confusion gleams
The moon, as on the troubled streams
When rivers break their banks,
And, to the ruined peasant’s eye,
Objects half seen roll swiftly by,
Down the dread current hurled—
So mingle banner, wain, and gun,
Where the tumultuous flight rolls on
Of warriors, who, when morn begun,
Defied a banded world.

XVI.

List—frequent to the hurrying rout,
The stern pursuers’ vengeful shout
Tells, that upon their broken rear
Rages the Prussian’s bloody spear.
So fell a shriek was none,
When Beresina’s icy flood
Reddened and thawed with flame and blood,
And, pressing on thy desperate way,
Raised oft and long their wild hurra,
The children of the Don.
Thine ear no yell of horror cleft
So ominous, when, all bereft
Of aid, the valiant Polack left—
Ay, left by thee—found soldiers grave
In Leipsic’s corpse-encumbered wave.
Fate, in those various perils past,
Reserved thee still some future cast;
On the dread die thou now hast thrown
Hangs not a single field alone,
Nor one campaign—thy martial fame,
Thy empire, dynasty, and name
Have felt the final stroke;
And now, o’er thy devoted head
The last stern vial’s wrath is shed,
The last dread seal is broke.

XVII.