THE ISLAND OF LOBAU, WITH WAGRAM BEYOND

    [The northern horizon at the back of the bird’s-eye prospect is
    the high ground stretching from the Bisamberg on the left to the
    plateau of Wagram on the right.  In front of these elevations
    spreads the wide plain of the Marchfeld, open, treeless, and with
    scarcely a house upon it.16
    In the foreground the Danube crosses the scene with a graceful
    slowness, looping itself round the numerous wooded islands therein.
    The largest of these, immediately under the eye, is the Lobau,
    which stands like a knot in the gnarled grain represented by the
    running river.

    On this island can be discerned, closely packed, an enormous dark
    multitude of foot, horse, and artillery in French uniforms, the
    numbers reaching to a hundred and seventy thousand.

    Lifting our eyes to discover what may be opposed to them we
    perceive on the Wagram plateau aforesaid, and right and left in
    front of it, extended lines of Austrians, whitish and glittering,
    to the number of a hundred and forty thousand.

    The July afternoon turns to evening, the evening to twilight.
    A species of simmer which pervades the living spectacle raises
    expectation till the very air itself seems strained with suspense.
    A huge event of some kind is awaiting birth.]

  DUMB SHOW

  The first change under the cloak of night is that the tightly packed
  regiments on the island are got under arms.  The soldiery are like
  a thicket of reeds in which every reed should be a man.

  A large bridge connects the island with the further shore, as well
  as some smaller bridges.  Opposite are high redoubts and ravelins
  that the Austrians have constructed for opposing the passage across,
  which the French ostentatiously set themselves to attempt by the
  large bridge, amid heavy cannonading.

  But the movement is a feint, though this is not perceived by the
  Austrians as yet.  The real movement is on the right hand of the
  foreground, behind a spur of the isle, and out of sight of the
  enemy; where several large rafts and flat boats, each capable of
  carrying three hundred men, are floated out from a screened creek.

  Chosen battalions enter upon these, which immediately begin to cross
  with their burden.  Simultaneously from other screened nooks
  secretly prepared floating bridges, in sections, are moved forth,
  joined together, and defended by those who crossed on the rafts.

  At two o’clock in the morning the thousands of cooped soldiers begin
  to cross the bridges, producing a scene which, on such a scale, was
  never before witnessed in the history of war.  A great discharge
  from the batteries accompanies this manoeuvre, arousing the Austrians
  to a like cannonade.

  The night has been obscure for summer-time, and there is no moon.
  The storm now breaks in a tempestuous downpour, with lightning and
  thunder.  The tumult of nature mingles so fantastically with the
  tumult of projectiles that flaming bombs and forked flashes cut the
  air in company, and the noise from the mortars alternates with the
  noise from the clouds.

  From bridge to bridge and back again a gloomy-eyed figure stalks, as
  it has stalked the whole night long, with the restlessness of a wild
  animal.  Plastered with mud, and dribbling with rain-water, it bears
  no resemblance to anything dignified or official.  The figure is that
  of NAPOLÉON, urging his multitudes over.

  By daylight the great mass of the men is across the water.  At
  six the rain ceases, the mist uncovers the face of the sun, which
  bristles on the helmets and bayonets of the French.  A hum of
  amazement rises from the Austrian hosts, who turn staring faces
  southward and perceive what has happened, and the columns of
  their enemies standing to arms on the same side of the stream
  with themselves, and preparing to turn their left wing.

  NAPOLÉON rides along the front of his forces, which now spread out
  upon the plain, and are ranged in order of battle.

  Dumb Show ends, and the point of view changes.

  THE FIELD OF WAGRAM

    [The battlefield is now viewed reversely, from the windows of a
    mansion at Wolkersdorf, to the rear of the Austrian position.
    The aspect of the windows is nearly south, and the prospect includes
    the plain of the Marchfeld, with the isled Danube and Lobau in the
    extreme distance.  Ten miles to the south-west, rightwards, the
    faint summit of the tower of St. Stephen’s, Vienna, appears.  On
    the middle-left stands the compact plateau of Wagram, so regularly
    shaped as to seem as if constructed by art.  On the extreme left
    the July sun has lately risen.

    Inside the room are discovered the EMPEROR FRANCIS and some house-
    hold officers in attendance; with the War-Minister and Secretaries
    at a table at the back.  Through open doors can be seen in an outer
    apartment adjutants, equerries, aides, and other military men.  An
    officer in waiting enters.]

  OFFICER

  During the night the French have shifted, sire,
  And much revised their stations of the eve
  By thwart and wheeling moves upon our left,
  And on our centre—projects unforeseen
  Till near accomplished.

  FRANCIS

            But I am advised
  By oral message that the Archduke Charles,
  Since the sharp strife last night, has mended, too,
  His earlier dispositions, and has sped
  Strong orders to the Archduke John, to bring
  In swiftest marches all the force he holds,
  And fall with heavy impact on the French
  From nigh their rear?

  OFFICER

            ’Tis good, sire; such a swoop
  Will raise an obstacle to their retreat
  And refuge in the fastness of the isle;
  And show this victory-gorged adventurer
  That striking with a river in his rear
  Is not the safest tactic to be played
  Against an Austrian front equipt like ours!

    [The EMPEROR FRANCIS and others scrutinize through their glasses
    the positions and movements of the Austrian divisions, which appear
    on the plain as pale masses, emitting flashes from arms and helmets
    under the July rays, and reaching from the Tower of Neusiedel on
    the left, past Wagram, into the village of Stammersdorf on the
    right.  Beyond their lines are spread out the darker-hued French,
    almost parallel to the Austrians.]

  FRANCIS

  Those moving masses toward the right I deem
  The forces of Klenau and Kollowrath,
  Sent to support Prince John of Lichtenstein
  I his attack that way?

    [An interval.]

            Now that they’ve gained
  The right there, why is not the attack begun?

  OFFICER

  They are beginning on the left wing, sire.

    [The EMPEROR resumes his glass and beholds bodies of men descending
    from the hills by Neusiedel, and crossing the Russbach river towards
    the French—a movement which has been going on for some time.]

  FRANCIS [turning thither]

  Where we are weakest!  It surpasses me
  To understand why was our centre thinned
  To pillar up our right already strong,
  Where nought is doing, while our left assault
  Stands ill-supported?

     [Time passes in silence.]

            Yes, it is so.  See,
  The enemy strikes Rossenberg in flank,
  Compelling him to fall behind the Russbach!

    [The EMPEROR gets excited, and his face perspires.  At length he
    cannot watch through his glass, and walks up and down.]

  Penned useless here my nerves annoy my sight!
  Inform me what you note.—I should opine
  The Wagram height behind impregnable?

    [Another silence, broken by the distant roar of the guns.]

  OFFICER

  Klenau and Kollowrath are pounding on!
  To turn the enemy’s left with our strong right
  Is, after all, a plan that works out well.
  Hiller and Lichtenstein conjoin therein.

  FRANCIS

  I hear from thence appalling cannonades.

  OFFICER

  ’Tis their, your Majesty.  Now we shall see
  If the French read that there the danger lies.

  FRANCIS

  I only pray that Bonaparte refrain
  From spying danger there till all too late!

  OFFICER [involuntarily, after a pause]

  Ah, Heaven!

  FRANCIS [turning sharply]

  Well, well?  What changes figure now?

  OFFICER

  They pierce our centre, sire!  We are, despite,
  Not centrally so weak as I supposed.
  Well done, Bellegarde!

  FRANCIS [glancing to the centre]

       And what has he well done?

  OFFICER

  The French in fierce fume broke through Aderklaa;
  But Bellegarde, pricking along the plain behind,
  Has charged and driven them back disorderly.
  The Archduke Charles bounds thither, as I shape,
  In person to support him!

    [The EMPEROR returns to his spyglass; and they and others watch in
    silence, sometimes the right of their front, sometimes the centre.]

  FRANCIS

            It is so!
  That the right attack of ours spells victory,
  And Austria’s grand salvation!... [Times passes.]  Turn your glass,
  And closely scan Napoléon and his aides
  Hand-galloping towards his centre-left
  To strengthen it against the brave Bellegarde.
  Does your eye reach him?—That white horse, alone
  In front of those that move so rapidly.

  OFFICER

  It does, sire; though my glass can conjure not
  So cunningly as yours.... that horse must be
  The famed Euphrates—him the Persian king
  Sent Bonaparte as gift.

    [A silence.  NAPOLÉON reaches a carriage that is moving across.
    It bears MASSÉNA, who, having received a recent wound, in unable
    to ride.]

  FRANCIS

  See, the white horse and horseman pause beside
  A coach for some strange reason rolling there....
  That white-horsed rider—yes!—is Bonaparte,
  By the aides hovering round....
  New war-wiles have been worded; we shall spell
  Their purport soon enough!  [An interval.]
            The French take heart
  To stand to our battalions steadfastly,
  And hold their ground, having the Emperor near!

    [Time passes.  An aide-de-camp enters.]

  AIDE

  The Archduke Charles is pierced in the shoulder, sire;
  He strove too far in beating back the French
  At Aderklaa, and was nearly ta’en.
  The wound’s not serious.—On our right we win,
  And deem the battle ours.

    [Enter another aide-de-camp.]

  SECOND AIDE

            Your Majesty,
  We have borne them back through Aspern village-street
  And Essling is recovered.  What counts more,
  Their bridges to the rear we have nearly grasped,
  And panic-struck they crowd the few left free,
  Choking the track, with cries of “All is lost!”

  FRANCIS

  Then is the land delivered.  God be praised!

    [Exeunt aides.  An interval, during which the EMPEROR and his
    companions again remain anxiously at their glasses.]

  There is a curious feature I discern
  To have come upon the battle.  On our right
  We gain ground rapidly; towards the left
  We lose it; and the unjudged consequence
  Is that the armies; whole commingling mass
  Moves like a monstrous wheel.  I like it not!

    [Enter another aide-de-camp.]

  THIRD AIDE

  Our left wing, sire, recedes before Davout,
  Whom nothing can withstand!  Two corps he threw
  Across the Russbach up to Neusiedel,
  While he himself assailed the place in front.
  Of the divisions one pressed on and on,
  Till lodged atop.  They would have been hurled back—-

  FRANCIS

  But how goes it with us in sum? pray say!

  THIRD AIDE

  We have been battered off the eastern side
  Of Wagram plateau.

  FRANCIS

            Where’s the Archduke John?
  Why comes he not?  One man of his here now
  Were worth a host anon.  And yet he tarries!

    [Exit third aide.  Time passes, while they reconnoitre the field
    with strained eyes.]

  Our centre-right, it seems, round Neusiedel,
  Is being repulsed!  May the kind Heaven forbid
  That Hesse Homberg should be yielding there!

    [The Minister in attendance comes forward, and the EMPEROR consults
    him; then walking up and down in silence.  Another aide-de-camp
    enters.]

  FOURTH AIDE

  Sire, Neusiedel has just been wrenched from us,
  And the French right is on the Wagram crest;
  Nordmann has fallen, and Veczay: Hesse Homberg,
  Warteachben, Muger—almost all our best—
  Bleed more or less profusely!

    [A gloomy silence.  Exit fourth side.  Ten minutes pass.  Enter an
    officer in waiting.]

  FRANCIS

  What guns are those that groan from Wagram height?

  OFFICER

  Alas, Davout’s!  I have climbed the roof-top, sire,
  And there discerned the truth.

    [Cannonade continues.  A long interval of suspense.  The EMPEROR
    returns to his glass.]

  FRANCIS

            A part of it!
  There seems to be a grim, concerted lunge
  By the whole strength of France upon our right,
  Centre, and left wing simultaneously!

  OFFICER

  Most viciously upon the centre, sire,
  If I mistook not, hard by Sussenbrunn;
  The assault is led by Bonaparte in person,
  Who shows himself with marvellous recklessness,
  Yet like a phantom-fiend receives no hurt.

  FRANCIS [still gazing]

  Ha! Now the Archduke Charles has seen the intent,
  And taken steps against it.  Sussenbrunn
  Must be the threatened thing.  [Silence.]  What an advance!—
  Straight hitherward.  Our centre girdles them.—
  Surely they’ll not persist?  Who heads that charge?

  OFFICER

  They say Macdonald, sire.

  FRANCIS

            Meagrest remains
  Will there be soon of those in that advance!
  We are burning them to bones by our hot fire.
  They are almost circumscribed: if fully so
  The battle’s ours!  What’s that behind them, eh?

  OFFICER

  Their last reserves, that they may feed the front,
  And sterilize our hope!

  FRANCIS

            Yes, their reserve—
  Dragoons and cuirassiers—charge in support.
  You see their metal gleaming as they come.
  Well, it is neck or nothing for them now!

  OFFICER

  It’s nothing, sire.  Their charge of cavalry
  Has desperately failed.

  FRANCIS

            Their foot press on,
  However, with a battery in front
  Which deals the foulest damage done us yet.  [Time passes.]
  They ARE effecting lodgment, after all.
  Who would have reckoned on’t—our men so firm!

    [Re-enter first aide-de-camp.]

  FIRST AIDE

  The Archduke Charles retreats, your majesty;
  And the issue wears a dirty look just now.

  FRANCIS [gloomily]

  Yes: I have seen the signs for some good while.
  But he retreats with blows, and orderly.

    [Time passes, till the sun has rounded far towards the west.  The
    features of the battle now materially change.  The French have
    regained Aspern and Essling; the Austrian army is doubled back
    from the Danube and from the heights of Wagram, which, as
    viewed from Wolkersdorf, face the afternoon shine, the French
    established thereon glittering in the rays.

  FRANCIS [choking a sigh]

  The turn has passed.  We are worsted, but not overwhelmed!...
  The French advance is laboured, and but slow.
  —This might have been another-coloured day
  If but the Archduke John had joined up promptly;
  Yet still he lags!

  ANOTHER OFFICER [lately entered]

            He’s just now coming, sire.
  His columns glimmer in the Frenchmen’s rear.
  Past Siebenbrunn’s and Loebensdorf’s smoked hills.

  FRANCIS [impatiently]

  Ay—coming NOW!  Why could he not be COME!

    [They watch intently.]

  We can see nothing of that side from here.

    [Enter a general officer, who speaks to the Minister at the back
    of the room.]

  MINISTER [coming forward]

  Your Majesty, I now have to suggest,
  Pursuant to conclusions reached this morn,
  That since the front and flower of all our force
  Is seen receding to the Bisamberg,
  These walls no longer yield safe shade for you,
  Or facile outlook.  Scouts returning say
  Either Davout, or Bonaparte himself,
  With the mid-columns of his forward corps,
  Will bear up hitherward in fierce pursuit,
  And may intrude beneath this very roof.
  Not yet, I think; it may not be to-night;
  But we should stand prepared.

  FRANCIS

            If we must go
  We’ll go with a good grace, unfeignedly!
  Who knows to-morrow may not see regained
  What we have lost to-day?

    [Re-enter fourth aide-de-camp.]

  FOURTH AIDE [breathlessly]

            The Archduke John,
  Discerning our main musters in retreat,
  Abandons an advance that throws on him
  The enemy’s whole brunt if he bear on.

  FRANCIS

  Alas for his devotion!  Let us go.
  Such weight of sadness as we shoulder now
  Will wring us down to sleep in stall or stye,
  If even that be found!... Think! Bonaparte,
  By reckless riskings of his life and limb,
  Has turned the steelyard of our strength to-day
  Whilst I have idled here!... May brighter times
  Attend the cause of Europe far in Spain,
  And British blood flow not, as ours, in vain!

    [Exeunt the EMPEROR FRANCIS, minister, officers, and attendants.
    The night comes, and the scene is obscured.]

  THE FIELD OF TALAVERA

    [It is the same month and weather as in the preceding scene.

    Talavera town, on the river Tagus, is at the extreme right of the
    foreground; a mountain range on the extreme left.

    The allied army under SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY stretches between—the
    English on the left, the Spanish on the right—part holding a hill
    to the left-centre of the scene, divided from the mountains by a
    valley, and part holding a redoubt to the right-centre.  This army
    of more than fifty thousand all told, of which twenty-two thousand
    only are English, has its back to the spectator.

    Beyond, in a wood of olive, oak, and cork, are the fifty to sixty
    thousand French, facing the spectator and the allies.  Their right
    includes a strong battery upon a hill which fronts the one on the
    English left.

    Behind all, the heights of Salinas close the prospect, the small
    river Alberche flowing at their foot from left to right into the
    Tagus, which advances in foreshortened perspective to the town at
    the right front corner of the scene as aforesaid.]

  DUMB SHOW

  The hot and dusty July afternoon having turned to twilight, shady
  masses of men start into motion from the French position, come towards
  the foreground, silently ascend the hill on the left of the English,
  and assail the latter in a violent outburst of fire and lead.  They
  nearly gain possession of the hill ascended.

  CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]

       Talavera tongues it as ten o’ the night-time:
       Now come Ruffin’s slaughterers surging upward,
       Backed by bold Vilatte’s!  From the vale Lapisse, too,
            Darkly outswells there!

       Down the vague veiled incline the English fling them,
       Bended bayonets prodding opponents backward:
       So the first fierce charge of the ardent Frenchmen
            England repels there!

  Having fallen back into the darkness the French presently reascend
  in yet larger masses.  The high square knapsack which every English
  foot-soldier carries, and his shako, and its tuft, outline themselves
  against the dim light as the ranks stand awaiting the shock.

  CHORUS OF RUMOURS

       Pushing spread they!—shout as they reach the summit!—
       Strength and stir new-primed in their plump battalions:
       Puffs of barbed flame blown on the lines opposing
            Higher and higher.

       There those hold them mute, though at speaking distance—
       Mute, while clicking flints, and the crash of volleys
       Whelm the weighted gloom with immense distraction
            Pending their fire.

       Fronting heads, helms, brows can each ranksman read there,
       Epaulettes, hot cheeks, and the shining eyeball,
       [Called a trice from gloom by the fleeting pan-flash]
            Pressing them nigher!

  The French again fall back in disorder into the hollow, and LAPISSE
  draws off on the right.  As the sinking sound of the muskets tells
  what has happened the English raise a shout.

  CHORUS OF PITIES

       Thus the dim nocturnal embroil of conflict
       Closes with the roar of receding gun-fire.
       Harness loosened then, and their day-long strenuous
            Temper unbending,

       Worn-out lines lie down where they late stood staunchly—
       Cloaks around them rolled—by the bivouac embers:
       There at dawn to stake in the dynasts’ death-game
            All, till the ending!

  THE SAME

  DUMB SHOW [continued]

  The morning breaks.  There is another murderous attempt to dislodge the
  English from the hill, the assault being pressed with a determination
  that excites the admiration of the English themselves.

  The French are seen descending into the valley, crossing it, and
  climbing it on the English side under the fire of HILL’S whole
  division, all to no purpose.  In their retreat they leave behind
  them on the slopes nearly two thousand lying.

  The day advances to noon, and the air trembles in the intense heat.
  The combat flags, and is suspended.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       What do I see but thirsty, throbbing bands
       From these inimic hosts defiling down
       In homely need towards the little stream
       That parts their enmities, and drinking there!
       They get to grasping hands across the rill,
       Sealing their sameness as earth’s sojourners.—
       What more could plead the wryness of the time
       Than such unstudied piteous pantomimes!

  SPIRIT IRONIC

  It is only that Life’s queer mechanics chance to work out in this
  grotesque shape just now.  The groping tentativeness of an Immanent
  Will [as grey old Years describes it] cannot be asked to learn logic
  at this time of day!  The spectacle of Its instruments, set to riddle
  one another through, and then to drink together in peace and concord,
  is where the humour comes in, and makes the play worth seeing!

  SPIRIT SINISTER

  Come, Sprite, don’t carry your ironies too far, or you may wake up
  the Unconscious Itself, and tempt It to let all the gory clock-work
  of the show run down to spite me!

  DUMB SHOW [continuing]

  The drums roll, and the men of the two nations part from their
  comradeship at the Alberche brook, the dark masses of the French
  army assembling anew.  SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY has seated himself on
  a mound that commands a full view of the contested hill, and
  remains there motionless a long time.  When the French form for
  battle he is seen to have come to a conclusion.  He mounts, gives
  his orders, and the aides ride off.

  The French advance steadily through the sultry atmosphere, the
  skirmishers in front, and the columns after, moving, yet seemingly
  motionless.  Their eighty cannon peal out and their shots mow every
  space in the line of them.  Up the great valley and the terraces of
  the hill whose fame is at that moment being woven, comes VILLATE,
  boring his way with foot and horse, and RUFFIN’S men following
  behind.

  According to the order given, the Twenty-third Light Dragoons and
  the German Hussars advance at a chosen moment against the head of
  these columns.  On the way they disappear.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Why this bedevilment?  What can have chanced?

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       It so befalls that as their chargers near
       The inimical wall of flesh with its iron frise,
       A treacherous chasm uptrips them: zealous men
       And docile horses roll to dismal death
       And horrid mutilation.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

            Those who live
       Even now advance!  I’ll see no more.  Relate.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       Yes, those pant on.  Then further Frenchmen cross,
       And Polish Lancers, and Westphalian Horse,
       Who ring around these luckless Islanders,
       And sweep them down like reeds by the river-bank
       In scouring floods; till scarce a man remains.

  Meanwhile on the British right SEBASTIANI’S corps has precipitated
  itself in column against GENERAL CAMPBELL’S division, the division
  of LAPISSE against the centre, and at the same time the hill on the
  English left is again assaulted.  The English and their allies are
  pressed sorely here, the bellowing battery tearing lanes through
  their masses.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR [continuing]

       The French reserves of foot and horse now on,
       Smiting the Islanders in breast and brain
       Till their mid-lines are shattered.... Now there ticks
       The moment of the crisis; now the next,
       Which brings the turning stroke.

  SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY sends down the Forty-eighth regiment under
  COLONEL DONELLAN to support the wasting troops.  It advances amid
  those retreating, opening to let them pass.

  SPIRIT OF THE RUMOUR [continuing]

            The pales, enerved,
       The hitherto unflinching enemy!
       Lapisse is pierced to death; the flagging French
       Decline into the hollows whence they came.
       The too exhausted English and reduced
       Lack strength to follow.—Now the western sun,
       Conning with unmoved visage quick and dead,
       Gilds horsemen slackening, and footmen stilled,
       Till all around breathes drowsed hostility.

       Last, the swealed herbage lifts a leering light,
       And flames traverse the field; and hurt and slain
       Opposed, opposers, in a common plight
       Are scorched together on the dusk champaign.

  The fire dies down, and darkness enwraps the scene.

  BRIGHTON.  THE ROYAL PAVILION

    [It is the birthday dinner-party of the PRINCE OF WALES.  In the
    floridly decorated banqueting-room stretch tables spread with gold
    and silver plate, and having artificial fountains in their midst.

    Seated at the tables are the PRINCE himself as host—rosy, well
    curled, and affable—the DUKES OF YORK, CLARENCE, KENT, SUSSEX,
    CUMBERLAND, and CAMBRIDGE, with many noblemen, including LORDS
    HEADFORT, BERKELEY, EGREMONT, CHICHESTER, DUDLEY, SAY AND SELE,
    SOUTHAMPTON, HEATHFIELD, ERSKINE, KEITH, C. SOMERSET, G. CAVENDISH,
    R. SEYMOUR, and others; SIR C. POLE, SIR E.G. DE CRESPIGNY, MR.
    SHERIDAN; Generals, Colonels, and Admirals, and the REV. MR. SCOTT.

    The PRINCE’S band plays in the adjoining room.  The banquet is
    drawing to its close, and a boisterous conversation is in progress.

    Enter COLONEL BLOOMFIELD with a dispatch for the PRINCE, who looks
    it over amid great excitement in the company.  In a few moments
    silence is called.]

  PRINCE OF WALES

  I have the joy, my lords and gentlemen,
  To rouse you with the just imported tidings
  From General Wellesley through Lord Castlereagh
  Of a vast victory [noisy cheers] over the French in Spain.
  The place—called Talavera de la Reyna
  [If I pronounce it rightly]—long unknown,
  Wears not the crest and blazonry of fame!  [Cheers.]
  The heads and chief contents of the dispatch
  I read you as succinctly as I can.  [Cheers.]

  SHERIDAN [singing sotto voce]

  “Now foreign foemen die and fly,
  Dammy, we’ll drink little England dry!”

    [The PRINCE reads the parts of the dispatch that describe the
    battle, amid intermittent cheers.]

  PRINCE OF WALES [continuing]

  Such is the substance of the news received,
  Which, after Wagram, strikes us genially
  As sudden sunrise through befogged night shades!

  SHERIDAN [privately]

  By God, that’s good, sir!  You are a poet born, while the rest of us
  are but made, and bad at that.

    [The health of the army in Spain is drunk with acclamations.]

  PRINCE OF WALES [continuing]

  In this achievement we, alas! have lost
  Too many!  Yet suck blanks must ever be.—
  Mackenzie, Langworth, Beckett of the Guards,
  Have fallen of ours; while of the enemy
  Generals Lapisse and Morlot are laid low.—
  Drink to their memories!

    [They drink in silence.]

            Other news, my friends,
  Received to-day is of like hopeful kind.
  The Great War-Expedition to the Scheldt  [Cheers.]
  Which lately sailed, has found a favouring wind,
  And by this hour has touched its destined shores.
  The enterprise will soon be hot aglow,
  The invaders making first the Cadsand coast,
  And then descending on Walcheren Isle.
  But items of the next step are withheld
  Till later days, from obvious policy.  [Cheers.]

    [Faint throbbing sounds, like the notes of violincellos and
    contrabassos, reach the ear from some building without as the
    speaker pauses.

  In worthy emulation of us here
  The county holds to-night a birthday ball,
  Which flames with all the fashion of the town.
  I have been asked to patronize their revel,
  And sup with them, and likewise you, my guests.
  We have good reason, with such news to bear!
  Thither we haste and join our loyal friends,
  And stir them with this live intelligence
  Of our staunch regiments on the Spanish plains.  [Applause.]
  With them we’ll now knit hands and beat the ground,
  And bring in dawn as we whirl round and round!
  There are some fair ones in their set to-night,
  And such we need here in our bachelor-plight.  [Applause.]

    [The PRINCE, his brothers, and a large proportion of the other
    Pavilion guests, swagger out in the direction of the Castle
    assembly-rooms adjoining, and the deserted banqueting-hall grows
    dark.  In a few moments the back of the scene opens, revealing
    the assembly-rooms behind.]

  THE SAME.  THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS

    [The rooms are lighted with candles in brass chandeliers, and a
    dance is in full movement to the strains of a string-band.  A
    signal is given, shortly after the clock has struck eleven, by
    MR. FORTH, Master of Ceremonies.]

  FORTH

  His Royal Highness comes, though somewhat late,
  But never too late for welcome!  [Applause.]  Dancers, stand,
  That we may do fit homage to the Prince
  Who soon may shine our country’s gracious king.

    [After a brief stillness a commotion is heard at the door, the band
    strikes up the National air, and the PRINCE enters, accompanied by
    the rest of the visitors from the Pavilion.  The guests who have
    been temporarily absent now crowd in, till there is hardly space
    to stand.]

  PRINCE OF WALES [wiping his face and whispering to Sheridan]

  What shall I say to fit their feeling here?
  Damn me, that other speech has stumped me quite!

  SHERIDAN [whispering]

  If heat be evidence of loy—-

  PRINCE OF WALES

       If what?

  SHERIDAN

  If heat be evidence of loyalty,
  Et caetera—something quaint like that might please ’em.

  PRINCE OF WALES [to the company]

  If heat be evidence of loyalty,
  This room affords it truly without question;
  If heat be not, then its accompaniment
  Most surely ’tis to-night.  The news I bring,
  Good ladies, friends, and gentlemen, perchance
  You have divined already?  That our arms—
  Engaged to thwart Napoléon’s tyranny
  Over the jaunty, jocund land of Spain
  Even to the highest apex of our strength—
  Are rayed with victory!  [Cheers.]  Lengthy was the strife
  And fierce, and hot; and sore the suffering;
  But proudly we endured it; and shall hear,
  No doubt, of its far consequence
  Ere many days.  I’ll read the details sent.  [Cheers.]

    [He reads again from the dispatch amid more cheering, the ball-
    room guests crowding round.  When he has done he answers questions;
    then continuing:

  Meanwhile our interest is, if possible,
  As keenly waked elsewhere.  Into the Scheldt
  Some forty thousand bayonets and swords,
  And twoscore ships o’ the line, with frigates, sloops,
  And gunboats sixty more, make headway now,
  Bleaching the waters with their bellying sails;
  Or maybe they already anchor there,
  And that level ooze of Walcheren shore
  Ring with the voices of that landing host
  In every twang of British dialect,
  Clamorous to loosen fettered Europe’s chain!  [Cheers.]

  A NOBLE LORD [aside to Sheridan]

  Prinny’s outpouring tastes suspiciously like your brew, Sheridan.
  I’ll be damned if it is his own concoction.  How d’ye sell it a
  gallon?

  SHERIDAN

  I don’t deal that way nowadays.  I give the recipe, and charge a
  duty on the gauging.  It is more artistic, and saves trouble.

    [The company proceed to the supper-rooms, and the ball-room sinks
    into solitude.]

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       So they pass on.  Let be!—But what is this—
       A moan?—all frailly floating from the east
       To usward, even from the forenamed isle?...
       Would I had not broke nescience, to inspect
       A world so ill-contrived!

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

            But since thou hast
       We’ll hasten to the isle; and thou’lt behold—
       Such as it is—the scene its coasts enfold.

  WALCHEREN

    [A marshy island at the mouth of the Scheldt, lit by the low
    sunshine of an evening in late summer.  The horizontal rays from
    the west lie in yellow sheaves across the vapours that the day’s
    heat has drawn from the sweating soil.  Sour grasses grow in
    places, and strange fishy smells, now warm, now cold, pass along.
    Brass-hued and opalescent bubbles, compounded of many gases, rise
    where passing feet have trodden the damper spots.  At night the
    place is the haunt of the Jack-lantern.]

  DUMB SHOW

  A vast army is encamped here, and in the open spaces are infantry on
  parade—skeletoned men, some flushed, some shivering, who are kept
  moving because it is dangerous to stay still.  Every now and then
  one falls down, and is carried away to a hospital with no roof, where
  he is laid, bedless, on the ground.

  In the distance soldiers are digging graves for the funerals which
  are to take place after dark, delayed till then that the sight of
  so many may not drive the living melancholy-mad.  Faint noises are
  heard in the air.

  SHADE OF THE EARTH

       What storm is this of souls dissolved in sighs,
       And what the dingy doom it signifies?

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       We catch a lamentation shaped thuswise:

  CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

       “We who withstood the blasting blaze of war
       When marshalled by the gallant Moore awhile,
       Beheld the grazing death-bolt with a smile,
       Closed combat edge to edge and bore to bore,
                 Now rot upon this Isle!

       “The ever wan morass, the dune, the blear
       Sandweed, and tepid pool, and putrid smell,
       Emaciate purpose to a fractious fear,
       Beckon the body to its last low cell—
                 A chink no chart will tell.

       “O ancient Delta, where the fen-lights flit!
       Ignoble sediment of loftier lands,
       Thy humour clings about our hearts and hands
       And solves us to its softness, till we sit
                 As we were part of it.

       “Such force as fever leaves maddened now,
       With tidings trickling in from day to day
       Of others’ differing fortunes, wording how
       They yield their lives to baulk a tyrant’s sway—
                 Yield them not vainly, they!

       “In champaigns green and purple, far and near,
       In town and thorpe where quiet spire-cocks turn,
       Through vales, by rocks, beside the brooding burn
       Echoes the aggressor’s arrogant career;
                 And we pent pithless here!

       “Here, where each creeping day the creeping file
       Draws past with shouldered comrades score on score,
       Bearing them to their lightless last asile,
       Where weary wave-wails from the clammy shore
                 Will reach their ears no more.

       “We might have fought, and had we died, died well,
       Even if in dynasts’ discords not our own;
       Our death-spot some sad haunter might have shown,
       Some tongue have asked our sires or sons to tell
                 The tale of how we fell;

       “But such be chanced not.  Like the mist we fade,
       No lustrous lines engrave in story we,
       Our country’s chiefs, for their own fames afraid,
       Will leave our names and fates by this pale sea,
                 To perish silently!”

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Why must ye echo as mechanic mimes
       These mortal minion’s bootless cadences,
       Played on the stops of their anatomy
       As is the mewling music on the strings
       Of yonder ship-masts by the unweeting wind,
       Or the frail tune upon this withering sedge
       That holds its papery blades against the gale?
       —Men pass to dark corruption, at the best,
       Ere I can count five score: these why not now?—
       The Immanent Shaper builds Its beings so
       Whether ye sigh their sighs with them or no!

  The night fog enwraps the isle and the dying English army.