Selected Poems (79 page)

Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forebore to check.

XVII

145

Stop! – for thy tread is on an Empire’s dust!

An Earthquake’s spoil is sepulchred below!

Is the spot mark’d with no colossal bust?

Nor column trophied for triumphal show?

None; but the moral’s truth tells simpler so,

150

As the ground was before, thus let it be; –

How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!

And is this all the world has gain’d by thee,

Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory?

XVIII

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,

155

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo;

How in an hour the power which gave annuls

Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!

In ’pride of place’
¹
here last the eagle flew,

Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,

160

Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through;

Ambition’s life and labours all were vain;

He wears the shatter’d links of the world’s broken chain.

XIX

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit

And foam in fetters; — but is Earth more free?

165

Did nations combat to make
One
submit;

Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?

What! shall reviving Thraldom again be

The patch’d-up idol of enlighten’d days?

Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we

170

Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze

And servile knees to thrones? No;
prove
before ye praise!

XX

If not, o’er one fallen despot boast no more!

In vain fair cheeks were furrow’d with hot tears

For Europe’s flowers long rooted up before

175

The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years

Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears,

Have all been borne, and broken by the accord

Of roused-up millions: all that most endears

Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword

180

Such as Harmodius
¹
drew on Athens’ tyrant lord.

XXI

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then

Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;

185

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
²

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

XXII

190

Did ye not hear it? – No; ’twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet –

195

But, hark! – that heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! it is – it is – the cannon’s opening roar!

XXIII

Within a window’d niche of that high hall

200

Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear

That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear;

And when they smiled because he deem’d it near,

His heart more truly knew that peal too well

205

Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier,

And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:

He rush’d into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

XXIV

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,

210

And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago

Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness;

And there were sudden partings, such as press

The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs

Which ne’er might be repeated; who could guess

215

If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,

Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

XXV

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,

220

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb,

225

Or whispering, with white lips – ‘The foe! they come! they come!’

XXVI

And wild and high the ‘Cameron’s gathering’ rose!

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills

Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: —

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,

230

Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills

Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers

With the fierce native daring which instils

The stirring memory of a thousand years,

And Evan’s, Donald’s
¹
fame rings in each clansman’s ears!

XXVII

235

And Ardennes
²
waves above them her green leaves,

Dewy with nature’s tear-drops, as they pass,

Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,

Over the unreturning brave, – alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass

240

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass

Of living valour, rolling on the foe

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

XXVIII

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,

245

Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay,

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,

The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day

Battle’s magnificently-stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent

250

The earth is cover’d thick with other clay,

Which her own clay shall cover, heap’d and pent,

Rider and horse, – friend, foe, – in one red burial blent!

XXIX

Their praise is hymn’d by loftier harps than mine;

Yet one I would select from that proud throng,

255

Partly because they blend me with his line,

And partly that I did his sire some wrong,

And partly that bright names will hallow song;

And his was of the bravest, and when shower’d

The death-bolts deadliest the thinn’d files along,

260

Even where the thickest of war’s tempest lower’d,

They reach’d no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard!

XXX

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,

And mine were nothing, had I such to give;

But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,

265

Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,

And saw around me the wide field revive

With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring

Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,

With all her reckless birds upon the wing,

270

I turn’d from all she brought to those she could not bring.
¹

XXXI

I turn’d to thee, to thousands, of whom each

And one as all a ghastly gap did make

In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach

Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake;

275

The Archangel’s trump, not Glory’s, must awake

Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame

May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake

The fever of vain longing, and the name

So honour’d but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

XXXII

280

They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:

The tree will wither long before it fall;

The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;

The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall

In massy hoariness; the ruin’d wall

285Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;