Xeniola :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Woe to the Guilty Land! The palmer-worm
Shall waste her harvests! Like an evening cloud
The locust-swarms shall rise, and where they leave
The desolated vale, the canker-worm
Shall creep. A few thin ears shall still remain
Of all that Summer promised: there the slug
Shall batten, there the caterpiller crawl,
And on the blighted grain shall insect tribes
Leave their cold egg, and perish:—Wake and weep,
Wake, Drunkards, from your dream! Is this an hour
To pledge the wine-cup?—in your land the vine
Hath withered!—on your hills the cedar dies,
And foreign arms are gleaming to the sun—
Wake, Drunkards, wake!”—'Twas thus the Prophet spoke,
And they obeyed not. When hath Man obeyed
The voice of warning?—Though no prophet called
Unhappy France, though on her palace-wall
No hand, dim-seen, inscribed the words of doom,
As in old Babylon, she might have known
What fate would follow, when she stretched her arms
Impatient for the tyrant,—might have heard,

In true anticipation, every shriek,
That soon must ring throughout her ravaged realms;—
She might have heard the rush of soldiery,
Numberless as the atoms, that the wind
Drifts in the stormy desart, when some ribbed
And rifted hill of sand is whirled along—
She might have heard the warriors of the Don
And Dwina, shouting forth their strange hurra,
Screaming in sunny vales the dissonance
The northern peasant hears, when midnight storms
Shake his rude hut, and from the crashing roof
The whirlwind tears the rushy covering!—
Woe to the land where Prussia's plunderers come!
Behind their path the blaze of cottages
Shall shine, a beacon to the thousand hordes
Afar on Danube's banks! Woe to the land,
Where England comes in anger! Weep, ye wives,
The cross of blood is streaming in the sky!
Weep, daughters, weep, for brand and bayonet
Are sparkling in the sunbeam!—

Oh! what joy
Is thine, green daughter of the western star,
Ireland, my country, oh! what joy is thine!
What language shall not sing thy Wellington,
While the fond poet deems the deathless name
Shall give his numbers immortality?—
[OMITTED]
Eternal Spirit, thou who promisest

That, when some few are gathered in thy name,
Thou art amidst them! that the humble prayer
Is not unheard by thee,—didst thou not gaze
With favour, when the climes of half the world,
Moved with one impulse, sent their children forth
To dash the tyrant from his tainted throne?—
—Strange were the offerings on that Sabbath-day,
And stern the priests, who watched the sacrifice
On Waterloo's red field!—for choral hymn
Was heard the cannon's shock,—black incense steamed
Against the cloudy heaven! proud warriors there,
For whom the trumpet pealed a matin-note,
Lie cold, and cannot hear the screams and shrieks,
That shock the ear of night—and cannot hear
The shout of England's pride, of Prussia's joy!
—Never from Indian island, lately taught
The Christian's happy creed, where, underneath
The grove's cool boughs, meet many a family
On Sabbath eve, arose a hymn more sweet
To claim the ear of Heaven, than from that field
Of blood, when, gazing on the piles of dead,
The fainting soldier sighed his gratitude!—

On what a scene that morning Sun arose!—
Struggling through heavy mists, his watery beams
Shone coldly on that fated plain, and gleamed
On groves, whose boughs, rent by the midnight storm,
All bare of beauty lay;—from weary bed

The warrior started, on whose fretting ear
All night the voices of the changing winds,
The shivering of branches, and the calls
Of sentinel from foreign bivouac,
Came ceaseless, often with that lulling sound,
Which brings the hope of sleep, in mockery,
To him who fain in sleep would lose the thoughts,
The anxious thoughts, that crowd upon his soul;—
Morn dawns—the trance of sleep is gone,—what joy
Welcomes the rising morn! what eloquence
Of lip, and eye, and gesture! There were those,
Who in the battle lived a thousand lives,
If life were measured by the warrior's joy;—
Now, now the tide tumultuous rolls along,
Swift as the clouds in winter's chilling night,
That, hurrying onward, with their dusky folds
Darken the moon,—swift as their shadows sweep
Along a plain of snow or level lake!—
Look, look how rapidly yon coursers press
Up thro' those shrouds of smoke:—at times you hear
The shouting riders, when the glancing hoof
Bounds light on softer earth—at times you see,
When the breeze wafts aside the battle-cloud,
The dark brow guarded by the shadowy helm,
The cuirass sparkling on the warrior's breast,
The long lance levelled in the steady hand;
And oft, before the lancers' charging lines,
The blue sword's momentary gleams are seen

In horizontal whirl of rapid light,
Or downward ray direct;—with thundering tramp
The courser presses on;—“Revenge—Revenge!”
Heard you that wild scream—Brunswick's battle-shout?
Stern Mourners! oh, how fearfully avenged!

See, where they meet—the pride of England meets
The veteran strength of France—and who shall tell
The tidings of such meeting? who shall live
To say, “My brethren perished by my side?”—
Proudly the Eagle, with exulting wing,
Hath revelled in the tempest;—will he shrink
From this day's storm? untrembling we have viewed
His proudest flights, and shall we tremble now?—
Loud o'er the dinning field, like battle-whoop
Heard in some Indian vale, the hordes of France
Shout in mad revelry their leader's name.
They charge—they shrink—they fly!—With bolder sweep
Another charge is made;—again they shrink—
And yet another dash—Ha! there they stand,
An overpowering force—with frantic shout
The groves of Hougomont ring wildly!—Hark,
Again the cry of Britain!—From that wood
How few shall fly!—But yonder see La-Haye,
Where, black with blood, the heavy tri-color
Flaps o'er the shattered homestead sullenly.
Still, still, wave after tempest-driven wave,

The gloomy hosts of France pour ceaselessly;
Wave, after broken wave, they burst upon
Our serried squares impenetrable still!

On what a scene the westering sun sinks down!—
The doubtful battle still unfixed—the rage
Of France—the force of England.—Still they strive,
Till now the angel of the evening star
Sheds vainly upon earth his smile of peace,
And from her throne in heaven the summer moon
Shines in her silent beauty. She beholds
A strange and troubled scene. I will not tell
The fatal flight of France—I will not pause
To gaze on Blucher:—Who hath not received,
With joy, that mocks the poet's utterance,
The happy tale?—Yet, in the days to come,
When joy is calm, and triumph, like a dream,
In mellowed brightness, soothes the fantasy,
Some future Surrey to the harp shall tell
The moonlight meeting, when the Prussian chief,
Who veiled the furrowed brow and hoary hair
With the accustomed helm, in joy of heart
Greeted victorious Wellesley.—'Twas an hour
Of proudest triumph. Centuries have waned,
And, through their fading shadows, none may mark
Like glory o'er the mournful record gleam!

Fair orb of night, in what calm majesty
Thou sailest onward in thy quiet course!

Like waves, that ripple o'er a summer sea,
The soft clouds glide before thee; many an eye
In joy beholds thy course; thy silent beams
Fall on the virgin's cheek, who, blushingly,
Leans o'er the lofty casement, in whose eye
The warm tear glistens, as the lover's song
Dies gradually upon her doating ear—
Oh, with what pleasure she beholds thy beams!
—But there are those, who with a wilder joy
Hail thee!—but there are those who curse thy light!—
Fly, D'Erlon, fly!—Last eve the sable flag
Shadowed thy host—fly! fly! revenge is near,
And Blucher's bloody brand!

Fallen Emperor!
Home from the battle-field who welcomes thee?
And where be they, who from thine iron rock
Hailed thee?—oh where thy destined triumphs now?
“Joy in Grenoble's streets, in Lyons Joy,
Joy—in the purple halls of Paris, Joy!
Again the Eagle gazes on the sun!”
Such were the songs that shook thy capital;—
Joy that no good heart echoed!—frantic joy—
A momentary madness, that the soul
Shrinks in the lonely hour to recognize!
Triumphant shouts of ruffian revelry,
Heard, like the cannon's roll, at evening hour,
By some devoted town, more deep, more dread,
Amid the silence of surrounding woe!