University of Virginia Library

CANNÆ.

Woe to the martial race, but not despair:
What folly loses, wisdom can repair:
The stern dictator lifts his awful rods,
With novel rites propitiates the gods,
Fabius, the shield of Rome, whose sheltering power
Sustains his country in her trying hour,
And gains a breathing time, till strength revive
And they that gasp for life for conquest strive.
On for another field! no more delays!
Apulian plains and Samnian uplands blaze,
And locust swarms are eating up the tilth
Of fertile glebes, and riot in the spilth
Of luscious vineyards. But a power's on foot,
Shall find them other welcome, and make boot
Of them and of their gatherings: Latium's realm
Sends forth her myriads, force enough to whelm
All Carthage under sea, (beneath their tread
Shake the Campanian hills), and at their head
The consuls, girded with their country's pride,
Her chosen champions, worthy to decide
The world's great empire. To the field they come,
To see and conquer: the prætorium
Hangs out its bloody challenge to the lists,
Where the opposed camps thro' rising mists
Each by the other dimly are descried,
And men like airy sprites are pouring wide
Over the dusky plain, and trumpets chide
The tardy morn-god clamouring while he parts
The envious clouds, and over Adria darts
His horizontal beams upon the face
Of battle; that soon grows in lessening space
More dreadful, and the field is all aglow
With noise and dust, and speeding to and fro
Of message and command, and marshalling
Of rank and file, and horsemen on the wing,
And trooping of light-armed with dart and sling,
And hawk-eyed archers notching to the string
Their flight of feathered arrows, to prelude
The sterner shock of arms; whose skirmish rude
Affrights the welkin; thick as winter hail
Rattles the stormy shot on plate and mail;
Until the sun-bright standards in advance
Display the ordered squadrons, steed and lance
Panting for onslaught, and the heavy bands
Of infantry, with yet unpurpled hands
Wielding their various implements of death;
The Roman slow of pace, and holding breath,
The savage foe's demeanour to peruse,
The Celt, half-naked in his plaid and trews,
And snowy-frocked Iberian at his side,
With hideous yells approaching, their long stride
Quickening to a run, in moony curve
Pushing their medley war. Now every nerve
And sinew must be strained; front threatens front
No more at distance; in the deadly brunt
Of conflict men with men and steeds with steeds
Are mingling, each and all on valorous deeds
Intent, as it were sport to hack and hew
The limbs of adversaries, and undo
The fairest work of nature. Swings from high
The Gallic broadsword, like the battery
Of some Cyclopian hammer, on the row
Of serried opposites, blow after blow
Redoubling oft and oft, with lightning flash
And terror and intolerable crash
Of helm and shield and cuirass: nor with zeal
Less fiery brandishes his trenchant steel
The shorter-sworded Spaniard, nor less haste
Impels the barbed pilum hot to taste
Barbarian blood: but deeper is the bite
Of the keen gladius plunging in the fight;
And hugest strength and stature are at fault,
Ill-trained and ill-equipt, against th' assault
Of Rome's embattled legions, skilled alike
To cut, to thrust, to parry, and to strike,
For dextrous movement or for bold exploit,
Calm or impetuous, daring or adroit,
In soldier-craft and panoply secure,
That make the battle safe, the victory sure:
Now all too rash, as to an easy prey,
They press into the yielding disarray,
Yielding, yet step by step, against the throng
And weight of numbers labouring to prolong
Unequal fight. Ill fares it with the best
By multitudes and mighty danger prest,
But for a faith that peril can outdare,
Faith in their comrades and their leader's care,
His omnipresent eye and prescient soul
To guide their valour and the field control.
On press those legions; but their wild turmoil
Shall soon be quelled, their headlong rush recoil;
Another foe is nigh; on either wing
The cheers of Carthaginian onset ring;
Pours on their naked flanks the steely rain,
The fire-eyed sons of Libya rush amain
To reap their gory harvest, and, like grass
Under the sweating scythe, the crowded mass
Are dropping fast by weapons once their own;
Not with impunity; an angry groan
Hath burst from Latium's heart, her shifting files
Confront the peril, and amid the piles
Of carnage Punic veins with Roman stream:
Nor burn not Spain and Gallia to redeem
Their battle-ground, encouraged and refresht
At sight of rallying fortune: Rome enmesht
In evil strait—as when a yelling pack
Are gathering with fangs and fierce attack
Around a herd of deer, nor room nor play
Leave for their noble rage—so stands at bay
The baffled strength of Rome, and sees no cure
For sad confusion and discomfiture;
For lo, upon her rear—'twas this made blank
The boldest countenance—from yonder bank,
Where Latium's mounted chivalry have bled
And Aufidus is choked with floating dead,
Victorious Asdrubal, whose hest to-day,
To smite and spare not, none will disobey,
Breaks with his thundering horsemen. As when roll
The chafing waves against a rocky mole,
Built up with strong foundations to defend
Some famous harbour; and awhile they spend
Their shivered strength in vain; yet never cease
Returning and returning with increase
Of noise and anger, till the deep immense
Seems to rise up in her omnipotence
To hurl th' obstruction down, and like a heap
Of loosening sand it falls; the billows leap
Over the crumbling ruin, and with roar
Of exultation burst upon the shore.
Intrepid chiefs and warriors, who contemned
All but your own high thoughts, ye have not stemmed
Misfortune's tide; your rampart of firm breasts
Is pierced and broken, vailed the crimson crests
That towering o'er the field defiance waved;
Your pomp of battle trodden down, outbraved
Your haughty menaces. Too poor, too faint
Are words, the frightful images to paint
Of the lost battle, when the strong and swift
Are swept with weak and wounded in the drift
Of universal ruin, and the base
Linked to the brave in slaughter's foul embrace;
The blood-drunk victor and his reeking blade
Over the dying throw their ghastly shade,
And the last sounds that reach the swooning brain
Are the demoniac shouts that mock his pain.
'Tis done: that host—it seems but yester morn,
Since youth of Latium, high and lowly born,
Patrician and plebeian, one and all
Answering gaily to their country's call,
Flocked to the muster; it was honour's road
And duty's; every maniple o'erflowed
With numbers and with strength; the veriest boor,
That left his goats or swine on cliff or moor,
Had with his helmet donned a soldier's grace,
And strutted to the town with buoyant pace;
Their sacraments of liegeance thro' the crowd
In quick succession were intoned aloud,
And the brave standards soaring to the sky
Became as gods of their idolatry;
Grave fathers sent them forth with prayer and vows,
And ardent maids twined garlands for their brows.
Hope dawned upon their march, and glory shone;
A single blast of war, and they are gone,
Like the brief pageant of a shifting scene,
Passed quite away, as they had never been:
And Hannibal may traverse Cannæ's plain,
And gaze upon the wreck and count the slain,
And note their riven arms and bosoms trenched
With gashes, many clenching, as they clenched
In the last moment of approaching doom,
Their trusty swords, and cheeks where valour's bloom
Is lingering, as death were but a trance,
To animate the marble countenance;
Mark the gay plumes and tunics richly dight,
The stripes and rings of senator and knight,
And where the consul fell, his gallant heart
Playing the soldier's not the leader's part,
Quitting him like a Roman and the heir
Of a time-honoured name: Æmilius there
Rests in his iron sleep; nor consulate
Nor lictors, venomed slander, factious hate,
Nor wrangling tribunes nor comitium's brawl,
Nor sound of Punic trump or shouting Gaul
Shall ever rouse him more. “The hour is come”—
Cries iron-souled Maharbal—“on for Rome!
While she is cowering naked of defence,
Strike, hurl her to perdition! I will hence
This moment with the horse, and follow thou
With thy battalions; in four days from now
We'll sup i'th' Capitol.” Such counsel bold,
Persuading not the chief, hath story scrolled
For sciolist and schoolman to perplex
Their little brains withal; and sure 'twould vex
The shade of the great captain, could he hear
From those grave oracles the truth severe,
How from his side dame fortune he estranged,
Spurning her proffered favour, which had changed
The destiny of nations! Vain and slight
Babblers; who know not, that to mortal sight
Of the dark future is revealed no more,
Than serves a doubtful pathway to explore
From day to day thro' life's entangled maze;
That this is wisdom's office, this her praise,
Promptly and well permitted means to use,
Of chances, possibilities, to choose
What likeliest seems and best; and if she err,
Thereof a higher will is arbiter:
Hers be the counsel, the device, the plan,
The end is God's, unchangeable by man:
Then say we, bold endeavour, strenuous thought,
In honour's catalogue shall pass for nought?
No; still in their desert let faith be strong;
Success or failure makes not right or wrong.
A prophet of no mighty foresight he,
Who teaches of a past futurity,
When ages o'er the issue have revolved
And time itself the mystery hath solved;
And his a crazy lore, that would pretend
The work of ruling providence to mend,
Imaginary destinies to build,
And abrogate the book of fate fulfilled.