In dreary billows, wood, and meagre cot,
And monuments that soon must disappear:
Yet a dread local recompense we found;
While glory seemed betrayed, while patriot-zeal
Sank in our hearts, we felt as men should feel[481]
With such vast hoards of hidden carnage near,
And horror breathing from the silent ground!
"Namur, Tuesday 18th.—Our ride yesterday, except for the intervention of Waterloo, and its interests, which were so melancholy that I do not like to touch upon them, was a dull one, though the road was pleasant through the forest of Soignies. Waterloo, its pretty chapel, the walls within covered with monuments, recording the fall of many of our brave countrymen, and some few others as brave, La Haye Sainte, La Belle Alliance, Quatre Bras. Dined at Genappe; two bullet shots in the wainscot of the room, which, during the battle, had been heaped with dead and dying." (From Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal.)
"Monday, 17th July, Brussels.—I could understand little till we got to the field of battle, where we stood upon an elevation; and thence, looking round upon every memorable spot, by help of gesture and action, and the sounds 'les Anglois, les Francois,' etc. etc., I gathered up a small portion of the story, helped out by a few monuments erected to the memory of the slain; but all round, there was no other visible record of slaughter: the wide fields were covered with luxuriant crops, just as they had been before the battles, except that now the corn was nearly ripe, and then it was green. We stood upon grass, and corn fields where heaps of our countrymen lay buried beneath our feet. There was little to be seen, but much to be felt; sorrow and sadness, and even something like horror breathed out of the ground as we stood upon it!" (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.) Compare the two sonnets Occasioned by the Battle of Waterloo, February, 1816, also the Thanksgiving Ode.—Ed.