Classic Poem

I

Fair Brussels, thou art far behind,
Though, lingering on the morning wind,
 We yet may hear the hour
Pealed over orchard and canal,
With voice prolonged and measured fall,
 From proud Saint Michael's tower;
Thy wood, dark Soignies, holds us now,
Where the tall beeches' glossy bough
 For many a league around,
With birch and darksome oak between,
Spreads deep and far a pathless screen
 Of tangled forest ground.
Stems planted close by stems defy
The adventurous foot—the curious eye
 For access seeks in vain;
And the brown tapestry of leaves,
Strewed on the blighted ground, receives
 Nor sun nor air nor rain.
No opening glade dawns on our way,
No streamlet glancing to the ray
 Our woodland path has crossed;
And the straight causeway which we tread
Prolongs a line of dull arcade,
Unvarying through the unvaried shade
 Until in distance lost.

II

A brighter, livelier scene succeeds;
In groups the scattering wood recedes,
Hedge-rows, and huts, and sunny meads,
 And corn-fields glance between;
The peasant at his labor blithe
Plies the hooked staff and shortened scythe:—
 But when these ears were green,
Placed close within destruction's scope,
Full little was that rustic's hope
 Their ripening to have seen!
And, lo! a hamlet and its fane:—
Let not the gazer with disdain
 Their architecture view;
For yonder rude ungraceful shrine
And disproportioned spire are thine,
 Immortal W ATERLOO !

III

Fear not the heat, though full and high
The sun has scorched the autumn sky,
And scarce a forest straggler now
To shade us spreads a greenwood bough;
These fields have seen a hotter day
Than e'er was fired by sunny ray.
Yet one mile on—you shattered hedge
Crests the soft hill whose long smooth ridge
 Looks on the field below,
And sinks so gently on the dale
That not the folds of Beauty's veil
 In easier curves can flow.
Brief space from thence the ground again
Ascending slowly from the plain
 Forms an opposing screen,
Which with its crest of upland ground
Shuts the horizon all around.
 The softened vale between
Slopes smooth and fair for courser's tread;
Not the most timid maid need dread
To give her snow-white palfrey head
 On that wide stubble-ground;
Nor wood nor tree nor bush are there,
Her course to intercept or scare,
 Nor fosse nor fence are found,
Save where from out her shattered bowers
Rise Hougomont's dismantled towers.

IV

Now, see'st thou aught in this lone scene
Can tell of that which late hath been?—
 A stranger might reply,
‘The bare extent of stubble-plain
Seems lately lightened of its grain;
And yonder sable tracks remain
Marks of the peasant's ponderous wain
 When harvest-home was nigh.
On these broad spots of trampled ground
Perchance the rustics danced such round
 As Teniers loved to draw;
And where the earth seems scorched by flame,
To dress the homely feast they came,
And toiled the kerchiefed village dame
 Around her fire of straw.’

V

So deem'st thou—so each mortal deems
Of that which is from that which seems:—
 But other harvest here
Than that which peasant's scythe demands
Was gathered in by sterner hands,
 With bayonet, blade, and spear.
No vulgar crop was theirs to reap,
No stinted harvest thin and cheap!
Heroes before each fatal sweep
 Fell thick as ripened grain;
And ere the darkening of the day,
Piled high as autumn shocks there lay
The ghastly harvest of the fray,
 The corpses of the slain.

VI

Ay, look again—that line so black
And trampled marks the bivonac,
You deep-graved ruts the artillery's track,
 So often lost and won;
And close beside the hardened mud
Still shows where, fetlock-deep in blood,
The fierce dragoon through battle's flood
 Dashed the hot war-horse on.
These spots of excavation tell
The ravage of the bursting shell—
And feel'st thou not the tainted steam
That reeks against the sultry beam
 From yonder trenched mound?
The pestilential fumes declare
That Carnage has replenished there
 Her garner-house profound.

VII

Far other harvest-home and feast
Than claims the boor from scythe released
 On these scorched fields were known!
Death hovered o'er the maddening rout,
And in the thrilling battle-shout
Sent for the bloody banquet out
 A summons of his own.
Through rolling smoke the Demon's eye
Could well each destined guest espy.
Well could his ear in ecstasy
 Distinguish every tone
That filled the chorus of the fray—
From cannon-roar and trumpet-bray,
From charging squadrons' wild hurra,
From the wild clang that marked their way,—
 Down to the dying groan
And the last sob of life's decay
 When breath was all but flown.

VIII

Feast on, stern foe of mortal life,
Feast on!—but think not that a strife
With such promiscuous carnage rife
 Protracted space may last;
The deadly tug of war at length
Must limits find in human strength,
 And cease when these are past.
Vain hope!—that morn's o'erclouded sun
Heard the wild shout of fight begun
 Ere he attained his height,
And through the war-smoke volumed high
Still peals that unremitted cry,
 Though now he stoops to night.
For ten long hours of doubt and dread,
Fresh succors from the extended head
Of either hill the contest fed;
 Still down the slope they drew,
The charge of columns paused not,
Nor ceased the storm of shell and shot;
 For all that war could do
Of skill and force was proved that day,
And turned not yet the doubtful fray
 On bloody Waterloo.

IX

Pale Brussels! then what thoughts were thine,
When ceaseless from the distant line
 Continued thunders came!
Each burgher held his breath to hear
These forerunners of havoc near,
 Of rapine and of flame.
What ghastly sights were thine to meet,
When, rolling through thy stately street,
The wounded showed their mangled plight
In token of the unfinished fight,
And from each anguish-laden wain
The blood-drops laid thy dust like rain!
How often in the distant drum
Heard'st thou the fell invader come,
While Ruin, shouting to his band,
Shook high her torch and gory brand!—
Cheer thee, fair city! From yon stand
Impatient still his outstretched hand
 Points to his prey in vain,
While maddening in his eager mood
And all unwont to be withstood,
 He fires the fight again.

X

‘On! On!’ was still his stern exclaim;
‘Confront the battery's jaws of flame!
 Rush on the levelled gun!
My steel-clad cuirassiers, advance!
Each Hulan forward with his lance,
My Guard—my chosen—charge for France,
 France and Napoleon!’
Loud answered their acclaiming shout,
Greeting the mandate which sent out
Their bravest and their best to dare
The fate their leader shunned to share.
But H E , his country's sword and shield,
Still in the battle-front revealed
Where danger fiercest swept the field,
 Came like a beam of light,
In action prompt, in sentence brief—
‘Soldiers, stand firm!’ exclaimed the chief,
 ‘England shall tell the fight!’

XI

On came the whirlwind—like the last
But fiercest sweep of tempest-blast—
On came the whirlwind—steel-gleams broke
Like lightning through the rolling smoke;
 The war was waked anew,
Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud,
And from their throats with flash and cloud
 Their showers of iron threw.
Beneath their fire in full career
Rushed on the ponderous cairassier,
The lancer couched his ruthless spear,
And hurrying as to havoc near
 The cohorts' eagles flew.
In one dark torrent broad and strong
The advancing onset rolled along,
Forth barbingered by fierce acclaim,
That from the shroud of smoke and flame
Pealed wildly the imperial name.

XII

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 staid,
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 lines 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,
Corselets 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 fallen, their standards lost.

XIII

Then, W ELLINGTON ! 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 thou 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 leavest 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 soldier's grave
In Leipsie's corpse-encumbered wave.
Fate, in these 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

Since live thou wilt—refuse not now
Before these demagogues to bow,
Late objects of thy scorn and hate,
Who shall thy once imperial fate
Make wordy theme of vain debate.—
Or shall we say thou stoop'st less low
In seeking refuge from the foe,
Against whose heart in prosperous life
Thine band hath ever held the knife?
 Such homage hath been paid
By Roman and by Grecian voice,
And there were honor in the choice,
 If it were freely made.
Then safely come—in one so low,—
So lost,—we cannot own a foe;
Though dear experience bid us end,
In thee we ne'er can hail a friend.—
Come, howsoe'er—but do not hide
Close in thy heart that germ of pride
Erewhile by gifted bard espied,
 That ‘yet imperial hope;’
Think not that for a fresh rebound,
To raise ambition from the ground,
 We yield thee means or scope.
In safety come—but ne'er again
Hold type of independent reign;
 No islet calls thee lord,
We leave thee no confederate band,
No symbol of thy lost command,
To be a dagger in the hand
 From which we wrenched the sword.

XVIII

Yet, even in yon sequestered spot,
May worthier conquest be thy lot
 Than yet thy life has known;
Conquest unbought by blood or harm,
That needs nor foreign aid nor arm,
 A triumph all thine own.
Such waits thee when thou shalt control
Those passions wild, that stubborn soul,
 That marred thy prosperous scene:—
Hear this—from no unmoved heart,
Which sighs, comparing what THOU ART
 With what thou MIGHTST HAVE BEEN !

XIX

Thou too, whose deeds of fame renewed
Bankrupt a nation's gratitude,
To thine own noble heart must owe
More than the meed she can bestow.
For not a people's just acclaim,
Not the full hail of Europe's fame,
Thy prince's smiles, thy state's decree,
The ducal rank, the gartered knee,
Not these such pure delight afford
As that, when hanging up thy sword,
Well mayst thou think, ‘This honest steel
Was ever drawn for public weal;
And, such was rightful Heaven's decree,
Ne'er sheathed unless with victory!’

XX

Look forth once more with softened heart
Ere from the field of fame we part;
Triumph and sorrow border near,
And joy oft melts into a tear.
Alas! what links of love that morn
Has War's rude hand asunder torn!
For ne'er was field so sternly fought,
And ne'er was conquest dearer bought.
Here piled in common slaughter sleep
Those whom affection long shall weep:
Here rests the sire that ne'er shall strain
His orphans to his heart again;
The son whom on his native shore
The parent's voice shall bless no more;
The bridegroom who has hardly pressed
His blushing consort to his breast;
The husband whom through many a year
Long love and mutual faith endear.
Thou canst not name one tender tie
But here dissolved its relies lie!
O, when thou see'st some mourner's veil
Shroud her thin form and visage pale,
Or mark'st the matron's bursting tears
Stream when the stricken drum she hears,
Or see'st how manlier grief suppressed
Is laboring in a father's breast,—
With no inquiry vain pursue
The cause, but think on Waterloo!

XXI

Period of honor as of woes,
What bright careers 't was thine to close!—
Marked on thy roll of blood what names
To Briton's memory and to Fame's
Laid there their last immortal claims!
Thou saw'st in seas of gore expire
Redoubted P ICTON'S soul of fire—
Saw'st in the mingled carnage lie
All that of P ONSONBY could die—
D E L ANCEY change Love's bridal-wreath
For laurels from the hand of Death—
Saw'st gallant M ILLER'S failing eye
Still bent where Albion's banners fly,
And C AMERON in the shock of steel
Die like the offspring of Lochiel;
And generous G ORDON mid the strife
Fall while he watched his leader's life.—
Ah! though her guardian angel's shield
Fenced Britain's hero through the field,
Fate not the less her power made known
Through his friends' hearts to pierce his own!

XXII

Forgive, brave dead, the imperfect lay!
Who may your names, your numbers, say?
What high-strung harp, what lofty line,
To each the dear-earned praise assign,
From high-born chiefs of martial fame
To the poor soldier's lowlier name?
Lightly ye rose that dawning day
From your cold couch of swamp and clay,
To fill before the sun was low
The bed that morning cannot know.—
Oft may the tear the green sod steep,
And sacred be the heroes' sleep
 Till time shall cease to run;
And ne'er beside their noble grave
May Briton pass and fail to crave
A blessing on the fallen brave
 Who fought with Wellington!

XXIII

Farewell, sad field! whose blighted face
Wears desolation's withering trace;
Long shall my memory retain
Thy shattered huts and trampled grain,
With every mark of martial wrong
That scathe thy towers, fair Hougomont!
Yet though thy garden's green arcade
The marksman's fatal post was made,
Though on thy shattered beeches fell
The blended rage of shot and shell,
Though from thy blackened portals torn
Their fall thy blighted fruit-trees mourn,
Has not such havoc bought a name
Immortal in the rolls of fame?
Yes—Agincourt may be forgot,
And Cressy be an unknown spot,
 And Blenheim's name be new;
But still in story and in song,
For many an age remembered long,
Shall live the towers of Hougomont
 And Field of Waterloo.

CONCLUSION

 Stern tide of human time! that know'st not rest,
 But, sweeping from the cradle to the tomb,
 Bear'st ever downward on thy dusky breast
 Successive generations to their doom;
 While thy capacious stream has equal room
 For the gay bark where Pleasure's streamers sport
 And for the prison-ship of guilt and gloom,
 The fisher-skiff and barge that bears a court,
Still wafting onward all to one dark silent port;—

 Stern tide of time! through what mysterious change
 Of hope and fear have our frail barks been driven!
 For ne'er before vicissitude so strange
 Was to one race of Adam's offspring given.
 And sure such varied change of sea and heaven,
 Such unexpected bursts of joy and woe,
 Such fearful strife as that where we have striven,
 Succeeding ages ne'er again shall know
Until the awful term when thou shalt cease to flow.

 Well hast thou stood, my Country!—the brave fight
 Hast well maintained through good report and ill;
 In thy just cause and in thy native might,
 And in Heaven's grace and justice constant still;
 Whether the banded prowess, strength, and skill
 Of half the world against thee stood arrayed,
 Or when with better views and freer will
 Beside thee Europe's noblest drew the blade,
Each emulous in arms the Ocean Queen to aid.

 Well art thou now repaid—though slowly rose,
 And struggled long with mists thy blaze of fame,
 While like the dawn that in the orient glows
 On the broad wave its earlier lustre came!
 Then eastern Egypt saw the growing flame,
 And Maida's myrtles gleamed beneath its ray,
 Where first the soldier, stung with generous shame,
 Rivalled the heroes of the watery way,
And washed in foemen's gore unjust reproach away.

 Now, Island Empress, wave thy crest on high,
 And bid the banner of thy Patron flow,
 Gallant Saint George, the flower of chivalry,
 For thou hast faced like him a dragon foe,
 And rescued innocence from overthrow,
 And trampled down like him tyrannic might,
 And to the gazing world mayst proudly show
 The chosen emblem of thy sainted knight,
Who quelled devouring pride and vindicated right.

 Yet mid the confidence of just renown,
 Renown dear-bought, but dearest thus required,
 Write, Britain, write the moral lesson down:
 'T is not alone the heart with valor fired,
 The discipline so dreaded and admired,
 In many a field of bloody conquest known;—
 Such may by fame be lured, by gold be hired—
 'T is constancy in the good cause alone
Best justifies the meed thy valiant sons have won.