A BALLROOM IN BRUSSELS22
    [It is a June midnight at the DUKE AND DUCHESS OF RICHMOND’S.  A
    band of stringed instruments shows in the background.  The room
    is crowded with a brilliant assemblage of more than two hundred
    of the distinguished people sojourning in the city on account of
    the war and other reasons, and of local personages of State and
    fashion.  The ball has opened with “The White Cockade.”

    Among those discovered present either dancing or looking on are
    the DUKE and DUCHESS as host and hostess, their son and eldest
    daughter, the Duchess’s brother, the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, the
    PRINCE OF ORANGE, the DUKE OF BRUNSWICK, BARON VAN CAPELLEN the
    Belgian Secretary of State, the DUKE OF ARENBERG, the MAYOR OF
    BRUSSELS, the DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT, GENERAL ALAVA, GENERAL
    OUDENARDE, LORD HILL, LORD AND LADY CONYNGHAM, SIR HENRY AND LADY
    SUSAN CLINTON, SIR H. AND LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE, SIR WILLIAM AND
    LADY DE LANCEY, LORD UXBRIDGE, SIR JOHN BYNG, LORD PORTARLINGTON,
    LORD EDWARD SOMERSET, LORD HAY, COLONEL ABERCROMBY, SIR HUSSEY
    VIVIAN, SIR A. GORDON, SIR W. PONSONBY, SIR DENIS PACK, SIR JAMES
    KEMPT, SIR THOMAS PICTON, GENERAL MAITLAND, COLONEL CAMERON, many
    other officers, English, Hanoverian, Dutch and Belgian ladies
    English and foreign, and Scotch reel-dancers from Highland
    regiments.

    The “Hungarian Waltz” having also been danced, the hostess calls
    up the Highland soldiers to show the foreign guests what a Scotch
    reel is like.  The men put their hands on their hips and tread it
    out briskly.  While they stand aside and rest “The Hanoverian
    Dance” is called.

    Enter LIEUTENANT WEBSTER, A.D.C. to the PRINCE OF ORANGE.  The
    Prince goes apart with him and receives a dispatch.  After reading
    it he speaks to WELLINGTON, and the two, accompanied by the DUKE
    OF RICHMOND, retire into an alcove with serious faces.  WEBSTER,
    in passing back across the ballroom, exchanges a hasty word with
    two of three of the guests known to him, a young officer among
    them, and goes out.

  YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]

  The French have passed the Sambre at Charleroi!

  PARTNER

  What—does it mean the Bonaparte indeed
  Is bearing down upon us?

  YOUNG OFFICER

            That is so.
  The one who spoke to me in passing out
  Is Aide to the Prince of Orange, bringing him
  Dispatches from Rebecque, his chief of Staff,
  Now at the front, not far from Braine le Comte;
  He says that Ney, leading the French van-guard,
  Has burst on Quatre-Bras.

  PARTNER

            O horrid time!
  Will you, then, have to go and face him there?

  YOUNG OFFICER

  I shall, of  course, sweet.  Promptly too, no doubt.
                                           [He gazes about the room.]
  See—the news spreads; the dance is paralyzed.
  They are all whispering round.  [The band stops.]  Here comes
      one more,
  He’s the attache from the Prussian force
  At our headquarters.

    [Enter GENERAL MÜFFLING.  He looks prepossessed, and goes straight
    to WELLINGTON and RICHMOND in the alcove, who by this time have
    been joined by the DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.]

  SEVERAL GUESTS [at back of room]

            Yes, you see, it’s true!
  The army will prepare to march at once.

  PICTON [to another general]

  I am damn glad we are to be off.  Pottering about her pinned to
  petticoat tails—it does one no good, but blasted harm!

  ANOTHER GUEST

  The ball cannot go on, can it?  Didn’t the Duke know the French
  were so near?  If he did, how could he let us run risks so coolly?

  LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE [to partner]

  A deep concern weights those responsible
  Who gather in the alcove.  Wellington
  Affects a cheerfulness in outward port,
  But cannot rout his real anxiety!

    [The DUCHESS OF RICHMOND goes to her husband.]

  DUCHESS

  Ought I to stop the ball?  It hardly seems right to let it continue
  if all be true.

  RICHMOND

  I have put that very question to Wellington, my dear.  He says that
  we need not hurry off the guests.  The men have to assemble some
  time before the officers, who can stay on here a little longer
  without inconvenience; and he would prefer that they should, not to
  create a panic in the city, where the friends and spies of Napoléon
  are all agog for some such thing, which they would instantly
  communicate to him to take advantage of.

  DUCHESS

  Is it safe to stay on?  Should we not be thinking about getting the
  children away?

  RICHMOND

  There’s no hurry at all, even if Bonaparte were really sure to
  enter.  But he’s never going to set foot in Brussels—don’t you
  imagine it for a moment.

  DUCHESS [anxiously]

  I hope not.  But I wish we had never brought them here!

  RICHMOND

  It is too late, my dear, to wish that now.  Don’t be flurried; make
  the people go on dancing.

    [The DUCHESS returns to her guests. The DUKE rejoins WELLINGTON,
    BRUNSWICK, MÜFFLING, and the PRINCE OF ORANGE in the alcove.]

  WELLINGTON

  We need not be astride till five o’clock
  If all the men are marshalled well ahead.
  The Brussels citizens must not suppose
  They stand in serious peril... He, I think,
  Directs his main attack mistakenly;
  It should gave been through Mons, not Charleroi.

  MÜFFLING

  The Austrian armies, and the Russian too,
  Will show nowhere in this.  The thing that’s done,
  Be it a historied feat or nine days’ fizz,
  Will be done long before they join us here.

  WELLINGTON

  Yes, faith; and ’tis pity.  But, by God,
  Blücher, I think, and I can make a shift
  To do the business without troubling ’em!
  Though I’ve an infamous army, that’s the truth,—
  Weak, and but ill-equipped,—and what’s as bad,
  A damned unpractised staff!

  MÜFFLING

            We’ll hope for luck.
  Blücher concentrates certainly by now
  Near Ligny, as he says in his dispatch.
  Your Grace, I glean, will mass at Quatre-Bras?

  WELLINGTON

  Ay, now we are sure this move on Charleroi
  Is no mere feint.  Though I had meant Nivelles.
  Have ye a good map, Richmond, near at hand?

  RICHMOND

  In the next room there’s one.  [Exit RICHMOND.]

    [WELLINGTON calls up various general officers and aides from
    other parts of the room.  PICTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, CLINTON, VIVIAN,
    MAITLAND, PONSONBY, SOMERSET, and others join him in succession,
    receive orders, and go out severally.]

  PRINCE OF ORANGE

  As my divisions seem to lie around
  The probable point of impact, it behoves me
  To start at once, Duke, for Genappe, I deem?
  Being in Brussels, all for this damned ball,
  The dispositions out there have, so far,
  Been made by young Saxe Weimar and Perponcher,
  On their own judgment quite.  I go, your Grace?

  WELLINGTON

  Yes, certainly.  ’Tis now desirable.
  Farewell!  Good luck, until we meet again,
  The battle won!

    [Exit PRINCE OF ORANGE, and shortly after, MÜFFLING.  RICHMOND
    returns with a map, which he spreads out on the table.  WELLINGTON
    scans it closely.]

            Napoléon has befooled me,
  By God he has,—gained four-and-twenty hours’
  Good march upon me!

  RICHMOND

       What do you mean to do?

  WELLINGTON

  I have bidden the army concentrate in strength
  At Quatre-Bras.  But we shan’t stop him there;
  So I must fight him HERE.  [He marks Waterloo with his thumbnail.]
            Well, now I have sped,
  All necessary orders I may sup,
  And then must say good-bye.  [To Brunswick.]  This very day
  There will be fighting, Duke.  You are fit to start?

  BRUNSWICK [coming forward]

  I leave almost this moment.—Yes, your Grace—
  And I sheath not my sword till I have avenged
  My father’s death.  I have sworn it!

  WELLINGTON

            My good friend,
  Something too solemn knells beneath your words.
  Take cheerful views of the affair in hand,
  And fall to’t with sang froid!

  BRUNSWICK

            But I have sworn!
  Adieu.  The rendezvous is Quatre-Bras?

  WELLINGTON

  Just so.  The order is unchanged.  Adieu;
  But only till a later hour to-day;
  I see it is one o’clock.

    [WELLINGTON and RICHMOND go out of the alcove and join the
    hostess, BRUNSWICK’S black figure being left there alone.  He
    bends over the map for a few seconds.]

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       O Brunswick, Duke of Deathwounds!  Even as he
       For whom thou wear’st that filial weedery
       Was waylaid by my tipstaff nine years since,
       So thou this day shalt feel his fendless tap,
       And join thy sire!

  BRUNSWICK [starting up]

            I am stirred by inner words,
  As ’twere my father’s angel calling me,—
  That prelude to our death my lineage know!

    [He stands in a reverie for a moment; then, bidding adieu to the
    DUCHESS OF RICHMOND and her daughter, goes slowly out of the
    ballroom by a side-door.]

  DUCHESS

  The Duke of Brunswick bore him gravely here.
  His sable shape has stuck me all the eve
  As one of those romantic presences
  We hear of—seldom see.

  WELLINGTON [phlegmatically]

            Romantic,—well,
  It may be so.  Times often, ever since
  The Late Duke’s death, his mood has tinged him thus.
  He is of those brave men who danger see,
  And seeing front it,—not of those, less brave
  But counted more, who face it sightlessly.

  YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]

  The Generals slip away!  I, Love, must take
  The cobbled highway soon.  Some hours ago
  The French seized Charleroi; so they loom nigh.

  PARTNER [uneasily]

  Which tells me that the hour you draw your sword
  Looms nigh us likewise!

  YOUNG OFFICER

            Some are saying here
  We fight this very day.  Rumours all-shaped
  Fly round like cockchafers!

    [Suddenly there echoes in the ballroom a long-drawn metallic purl
    of sound, making all the company start.]

  Transcriber’s Note: There follows in musical notation five measures
       for side-drum.

            Ah—there it is,
  Just as I thought!  They are beating the Generale.

    [The loud roll of side-drums is taken up by other drums further
    and further away, till the hollow noise spreads all over the city.
    Dismay is written on the faces of the women.  The Highland non-
    commissioned officers and privates march smartly down the ballroom
    and disappear.]

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Discerned you stepping out in front of them
       That figure—of a pale drum-major kind,
       Or fugleman—who wore a cold grimace?

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       He was my old fiend Death, in rarest trim,
       The occasion favouring his husbandry!

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Are those who marched behind him, then, to fall?

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Ay, all well-nigh, ere Time have houred three-score.

  PARTNER

  Surely this cruel call to instant war
  Spares space for one dance more, that memory
  May store when you are gone, while I—sad me!—
  Wait, wait and weep.... Yes—one there is to be!

  SPIRIT IRONIC

       Methinks flirtation grows too tender here!

    [Country Dance, “The Prime of Life,” a favourite figure at this
    period.  The sense of looming tragedy carries emotion to its
    climax.  All the younger officers stand up with their partners,
    forming several figures of fifteen or twenty couples each.  The
    air is ecstasizing, and both sexes abandon themselves to the
    movement.

    Nearly half an hour passes before the figure is danced down.
    Smothered kisses follow the conclusion.  The silence is broken
    from without by more long hollow rolling notes, so near that
    they thrill the window-panes.]

  SEVERAL

  ’Tis the Assemble.  Now, then, we must go!

    [The officers bid farewell to their partners and begin leaving
    in twos and threes.  When they are gone the women mope and murmur
    to each other by the wall, and listen to the tramp of men and
    slamming of doors in the streets without.]

  LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE

  The Duke has borne him gaily here to-night.
  The youngest spirits scarcely capped his own.

  DALRYMPLE

  Maybe that, finding himself blade to blade
  With Bonaparte at last, his blood gets quick.
  French lancers of the Guard were seen at Frasnes
  Last midnight; so the clash is not far off.

    [They leave.]

  DE LANCEY [to his wife]

  I take you to our door, and say good-bye,
  And go thence to the Duke’s and wait for him.
  In a few hours we shall be all in motion
  Towards the scene of—what we cannot tell!
  You, dear, will haste to Antwerp till it’s past,
  As we have arranged.

    [They leave.]

  WELLINGTON [to Richmond]

            Now I must also go,
  And snatch a little snooze ere harnessing.
  The Prince and Brunswick have been gone some while.

    [RICHMOND  walks to the door with him.  Exit WELLINGTON, RICHMOND
    returns.]

  DUCHESS [to Richmond]

  Some of these left renew the dance, you see.
  I cannot stop them; but with memory hot
  Of those late gone, of where they are gone, and why,
  It smacks of heartlessness!

  RICHMOND

            Let be; let be;
  Youth comes not twice to fleet mortality!

    [The dancing, however, is fitful and spiritless, few but civilian
    partners being left for the ladies.  Many of the latter prefer to
    sit in reverie while waiting for their carriages.]

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       When those stout men-at-arms drew forward there,
       I saw a like grimacing shadow march
       And pirouette before no few of them.
       Some of themselves beheld it; some did not.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Which were so ushered?

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

            Brunswick, who saw and knew;
       One also moved before Sir Thomas Picton,
       Who coolly conned and drily spoke to it;
       Another danced in front of Ponsonby,
       Who failed of heeding his.—De Lancey, Hay,
       Gordon, and Cameron, and many more
       Were footmanned by like phantoms from the ball.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Multiplied shimmerings of my Protean friend,
       Who means to couch them shortly.  Thou wilt eye
       Many fantastic moulds of him ere long,
       Such as, bethink thee, oft hast eyed before.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       I have—too often!

    [The attenuated dance dies out, the remaining guests depart, the
    musicians leave the gallery and depart also.  RICHMOND goes to
    a window and pulls back one of the curtains.  Dawn is barely
    visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long
    lines of British infantry have assembled in the street.  In the
    irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders,
    they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly
    sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and their arms by their
    side.]

  DUCHESS

  Poor men.  Sleep waylays them.  How tired they seem!

  RICHMOND

  They’ll be more tired before the day is done.
  A march of eighteen miles beneath the heat,
  And then to fight a battle ere they rest,
  Is what foreshades.—Well, it is more than bed-time;
  But little sleep for us or any one
  To-night in Brussels!

    [He draws the window-curtain and goes out with the DUCHESS.
    Servants enter and extinguish candles.  The scene closes in
    darkness.]

  CHARLEROI.  NAPOLÉON’S QUARTERS

    [The same midnight.  NAPOLÉON is lying on a bed in his clothes.
    In consultation with SOULT, his Chief of Staff, who is sitting
    near, he dictates to his Secretary orders for the morrow.  They
    are addressed to KELLERMANN, DROUOT, LOBAU, GERARD, and other
    of his marshals.  SOULT goes out to dispatch them.

    The Secretary resumes the reading of reports.  Presently MARSHAL
    NEY is announced  He is heard stumbling up the stairs, and enters.]

  NAPOLÉON

  Ah, Ney; why come you back?  Have you secured
  The all-important Crossways?—safely sconced
  Yourself at Quatre-Bras?

  NEY

            Not, sire, as yet.
  For, marching forwards, I heard gunnery boom,
  And, fearing that the Prussians had engaged you,
  I stood at pause.  Just then—-

  NAPOLÉON

            My charge was this:
  Make it impossible at any cost
  That Wellington and Blücher should unite.
  As it’s from Brussels that the English come,
  And from Namur the Prussians, Quatre-Bras
  Lends it alone for their forgathering:
  So, why exists it not in your hands/

  NEY

  My reason, sire, was rolling from my tongue.—
  Hard on the boom of guns, dim files of foot
  Which read to me like massing Englishry—
  The vanguard of all Wellington’s array—
  I half-discerned.  So, in pure wariness,
  I left the Bachelu columns there at Frasnes,
  And hastened back to tell you.

  NAPOLÉON

            Ney; O Ney!
  I fear you are not the man that once you were;
  Of your so daring, such a faint-heart now!
  I have ground to know the foot that flustered you
  Were but a few stray groups of Netherlanders;
  For my good spies in Brussels send me cue
  That up to now the English have not stirred,
  But cloy themselves with nightly revel there.

  NEY [bitterly]

  Give me another opportunity
  Before you speak like that!

  NAPOLÉON

            You soon will have one!...
  But now—no more of this.  I have other glooms
  Upon my soul—the much-disquieting news
  That Bourmont has deserted to our foes
  With his whole staff.

  NEY

       We can afford to let him.

  NAPOLÉON

  It is what such betokens, not their worth,
  That whets it!... Love, respect for me, have waned;
  But I will right that.  We’ve good chances still.
  You must return foot-hot to Quatre-Bras;
  There Kellermann’s cuirassiers will promptly join you
  To bear the English backward Brussels way.
  I go on towards Fleurus and Ligny now.—
  If Blücher’s force retreat, and Wellington’s
  Lie somnolent in Brussels one day more,
  I gain that city sans a single shot!...

  Now, friend, downstairs you’ll find some supper ready,
  Which you must tuck in sharply, and then off.
  The past day has not ill-advantaged us;
  We have stolen upon the two chiefs unawares,
  And in such sites that they must fight apart.
  Now for a two hours’ rest.—Comrade, adieu
  Until to-morrow!

  NEY

       Till to-morrow, sire!

    [Exit NEY.  NAPOLÉON falls asleep, and the Secretary waits till
    dictation shall be resumed.  BUSSY, the orderly officer, comes
    to the door.

  BUSSY

  Letters—arrived from Paris.  [Hands letters.]

  SECRETARY

            He shall have them
  The moment he awakes.  These eighteen hours
  He’s been astride; and is not what he was.—
  Much news from Paris?

  BUSSY

            I can only say
  What’s not the news.  The courier has just told me
  He’d nothing from the Empress at Vienna
  To bring his Majesty.  She writes no more.

  SECRETARY

  And never will again!  In my regard
  That bird’s forsook the nest for good and all.

  BUSSY

  All that they hear in Paris from her court
  Is through our spies there.  One of them reports
  This rumour of her: that the Archduke John,
  In taking leave to join our enemies here,
  Said, “Oh, my poor Louise; I am grieved for you
  And what I hope is, that he’ll be run through,
  Or shot, or break his neck, for your own good
  No less than ours.

  NAPOLÉON [waking]

       By “he” denoting me?

  BUSSY [starting]

  Just so, your Majesty.

  NAPOLÉON [peremptorily]

       What said the Empress?

  BUSSY

  She gave no answer, sire, that rumour bears.

  NAPOLÉON

  Count Neipperg, whom they have made her chamberlain,
  Interred his wife last spring—is it not so?

  BUSSY

  He did, your Majesty.

  NAPOLÉON

       H’m....You may go.

    [Exit BUSSY.  The Secretary reads letters aloud in succession.
    He comes to the last; begins it; reaches a phrase, and stops
    abruptly.]

  Mind not!  Read on. No doubt the usual threat,
  Or prophecy, from some mad scribe?  Who signs it?

  SECRETARY

  The subscript is “The Duke of Enghien!”

  NAPOLÉON [starting up]

  Bah, man!  A treacherous trick!  A hoax—no more!
  Is that the last?

  SECRETARY

       The last, your Majesty.

  NAPOLÉON

  Then now I’ll sleep.  In two hours have me called.

  SECRETARY

  I’ll give the order, sire.

    [The Secretary goes.  The candles are removed, except one, and
    NAPOLÉON endeavours to compose himself.]

  SPIRIT IRONIC

  A little moral panorama would do him no harm, after that reminder of
  the Duke of Enghien.  Shall it be, young Compassion?

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       What good—if that old Years tells us be true?
       But I say naught.  To ordain is not for me!

    [Thereupon a vision passes before NAPOLÉON as he lies, comprising
    hundreds of thousands of skeletons and corpses in various stages
    of decay.  They rise from his various battlefields, the flesh
    dropping from them, and gaze reproachfully at him.  His intimate
    officers who have been slain he recognizes among the crowd.  In
    front is the DUKE OF ENGHIEN as showman.]

  NAPOLÉON [in his sleep]

  Why, why should this reproach be dealt me now?
  Why hold me my own master, if I be
  Ruled by the pitiless Planet of Destiny?

    [He jumps up in a sweat and puts out the last candle; and the
    scene is curtained by darkness.]

  A CHAMBER OVERLOOKING A MAIN STREET IN BRUSSELS

    [A June sunrise; the beams struggling through the window-curtains.
    A canopied bed in a recess on the left.  The quick notes of
    “Brighton Camp, or the “Girl I’ve left behind me,” strike sharply
    into the room from fifes and drums without.  A young lady in a
    dressing-gown, who has evidently been awaiting the sound, springs
    from the bed like a hare from its form, undraws window-curtains
    and opens the window.

    Columns of British soldiery are marching past from the Parc
    southward out of the city by the Namur Gate.  The windows of
    other houses in the street rattle open, and become full of
    gazers.

    A tap at the door.  An older lady enters, and comes up to the
    first.]

  YOUNGER LADY [turning]

  O mamma—I didn’t hear you!

  ELDER LADY

  I was sound asleep till the thumping of the drums set me fantastically
  dreaming, and when I awoke I found they were real.  Did they wake you
  too, my dear?

  Younger Lady [reluctantly]

  I didn’t require waking.  I hadn’t slept since we came home.

  ELDER LADY

  That was from the excitement of the ball.  There are dark rings round
  your eye.  [The fifes and drums are now opposite, and thrill the air
  in the room.]  Ah—that “Girl I’ve left behind me!”—which so many
  thousands of women have throbbed an accompaniment to, and will again
  to-day if ever they did!

  YOUNGER LADY [her voice faltering]

  It is rather cruel to say that just now, mamma.  There, I can’t look
  at them after it!  [She turns and wipes her eyes.]

  ELDER LADY

  I wasn’t thinking of ourselves—certainly not of you.—How they
  press on—with those great knapsacks and firelocks and, I am told,
  fifty-six rounds of ball-cartridge, and four days’ provisions in
  those haversacks.  How can they carry it all near twenty miles and
  fight with it on their shoulders!... Don’t cry, dear.  I thought
  you would get sentimental last night over somebody.  I ought to
  have brought you home sooner.  How many dances did you have?  It
  was impossible for me to look after you in the excitement of the
  war-tidings.

  YOUNGER LADY

  Only three—four.

  ELDER LADY

  Which were they?

  YOUNGER LADY

  “Enrico,” the “Copenhagen Waltz” and the “Hanoverian,” and the
  “Prime of Life.”

  ELDER LADY

  It was very foolish to fall in love on the strength of four dances.

  YOUNGER LADY [evasively]

  Fall in love?  Who said I had fallen in love?  What a funny idea!

  ELDER LADY

  Is it?... Now here come the Highland Brigade with their pipes
  and their “Hieland Laddie.”  How the sweethearts cling to the men’s
  arms.  [Reaching forward.]  There are more regiments following.
  But look, that gentleman opposite knows us.  I cannot remember his
  name.  [She bows and calls across.]  Sir, which are these?

  GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE

  The Ninety-second.  Next come the Forty-ninth, and next the Forty-
  second—Sir Denis Pack’s brigade.

  ELDER LADY

  Thank you.—I think it is that gentleman we talked to at the
  Duchess’s, but I am not sure.  [A pause: another band.]

  GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE

  That’s the Twenty-eighth.  [They pass, with their band and colours.]
  Now the Thirty-second are coming up—part of Kempt’s brigade. Endless,
  are they not?

  ELDER LADY

  Yes, Sir.  Has the Duke passed out yet?

  GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE

  Not yet.  Some cavalry will go by first, I think.  The foot coming
  up now are the Seventy-ninth.  [They pass.]... These next are
  the Ninety-fifth.  [They pass.]... These are the First Foot-
  guards now.  [They pass, playing “British Grenadiers.”]... The
  Fusileer-guards now.  [They pass.]  Now the Coldstreamers.  [They
  pass.  He looks up towards the Parc.]  Several Hanoverian regiments
  under Colonel Best are coming next.  [They pass, with their bands
  and colours.  An interval.]

  ELDER LADY [to daughter]

  Here are the hussars.  How much more they carry to battle than at
  reviews.  The hay in those great nets must encumber them.  [She
  turns and sees that her daughter has become pale.]  Ah, now I know!
  HE has just gone by.  You exchanged signals with him, you wicked
  girl!  How do you know what his character is, or if he’ll ever come
  back?

    [The younger lady goes and flings herself on her face upon the
    bed, sobbing silently.  Her mother glances at her, but leaves
    her alone.  An interval.  The prancing of a group of horsemen
    is heard on the cobble-stones without.]

  GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE [calling]

  Here comes the Duke!

  ELDER LADY [to younger]

  You have left the window at the most important time!  The Duke of
  Wellington and his staff-officers are passing out.

  YOUNGER LADY

  I don’t want to see him.  I don’t want to see anything any more!

    [Riding down the street comes WELLINGTON in a grey frock-coat and
    small cocked hat, frigid and undemonstrative; accompanied by four
    or five Generals of his suite, the Deputy Quartermaster-general
    De LANCEY, LORD FITZROY SOMERSET, Aide-de-camp, and GENERAL
    MÜFFLING.]

  GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE

  He is the Prussian officer attached to our headquarters, through whom
  Wellington communicates with Blücher, who, they say, is threatened by
  the French at Ligny at this moment.

    [The elder lady turns to her daughter, and going to the bed bends
    over her, while the horses’ tramp of WELLINGTON and his staff
    clatters more faintly in the street, and the music of the last
    retreating band dies away towards the Forest of Soignes.

    Finding her daughter is hysterical with grief she quickly draws
    the window-curtains to screen the room from the houses opposite.
    Scene ends.]

  THE FIELD OF LIGNY

    [The same day later.  A prospect of the battlefield of Ligny
    southward from the roof of the windmill of Bussy, which stands at
    the centre and highest point of the Prussian position, about six
    miles south-east of Quatre-Bras.

    The ground slopes downward along the whole front of the scene to
    a valley through which wanders the Ligne, a muddy stream bordered
    by sallows.  On both sides of the stream, in the middle plane of
    the picture, stands the village of Ligny, composed of thatched
    cottages, gardens, and farm-houses with stone walls; the main
    features, such as the church, church-yard, and village-green
    being on the further side of the Ligne.

    On that side the land reascends in green wheatfields to an
    elevation somewhat greater than that of the foreground, reaching
    away to Fleurus in the right-hand distance.

    In front, on the slopes between the spectator and the village,
    is the First Corps of the Prussian army commanded by Zieten, its
    First Brigade under STEINMETZ occupying the most salient point.
    The Corps under THIELMANN is ranged to the left, and that of
    PIRCH to the rear, in reserve to ZIETEN.  In the centre-front,
    just under the mill, BLÜCHER on a fine grey charger is intently
    watching, with his staff.

    Something dark is seen to be advancing over the horizon by
    Fleurus, about three miles off.  It is the van of NAPOLÉON’S
    army, approaching to give battle.

    At this moment hoofs are heard clattering along a road that
    passes behind the mill; and there come round to the front the
    DUKE OF WELLINGTON, his staff-officers, and a small escort of
    cavalry.

    WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER greet each other at the foot of the
    windmill.  They disappear inside, and can be heard ascending
    the ladders.

    Enter on the roof WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER, followed by FITZROY
    SOMERSET, GNEISENAU, MÜFFLING, and others.  Before renewing
    their conversation they peer through their glasses at the dark
    movements on the horizon.  WELLINGTON’S manner is deliberate,
    judicial, almost indifferent; BLÜCHER’S eager and impetuous.

  WELLINGTON

  They muster not as yet in near such strength
  At Quatre-Bras as here.

  BLÜCHER

            ’Tis from Fleurus
  They come debouching.  I, perforce, withdrew
  My forward posts of cavalry at dawn
  In face of their light cannon.... They’ll be here
  I reckon, soon!

  WELLINGTON [still with glass]

            I clearly see his staff,
  And if my eyes don’t lie, the Arch-one too....
  It is the whole Imperial army, Prince,
  That we’ve before us.  [A silence.]  Well, we’ll cope with them!
  What would you have me do?

    [BLÜCHER is so absorbed in what he sees that he does not heed.]

  GNEISENAU

            Duke, this I’d say:
  Events suggest to us that you come up
  With all your force, behind the village here,
  And act as our reserve.

  MÜFFLING

            But Bonaparte,
  Pray note, has redistributed his strength
  In fashion that you fail to recognize.
  I am against your scheme.

  BLÜCHER [lowering his glass]

            Signs notify
  Napoléon’s plans as changed!  He purports now
  To strike our left—between Sombreffe and Brye....
  If so, I have to readjust my ward.

  WELLINGTON

  One of his two divisions that we scan
  Outspreading from Fleurus, seems bent on Ligny,
  The other on Saint-Amand.

  BLÜCHER

            Well, I shall see
  In half an hour, your Grace.  If what I deem
  Be what he means, Von Zieten’s corps forthwith
  Must stand to their positions: Pirch out here,
  Henckel at Ligny, Steinmetz at La Haye.

  WELLINGTON

  So that, your Excellency, as I opine,
  I go and sling my strength on their left wing—
  Manoeuvring to outflank ’em on that side.

  BLÜCHER

  True, true.  Our plan uncovers of itself;
  You bear down everything from Quatre-Bras
  Along the road to Frasnes.

  WELLINGTON

            I will, by God.
  I’ll bear straight on to Gosselies, if needs!

  GNEISENAU

  Your Excellencies, if I may be a judge,
  Such movement will not tend to unity;
  It leans too largely on a peradventure
  Most speculative in its contingencies!

    [A silence; till the officers of the staff remark to each other
    that concentration is best in any circumstances.  A general
    discussion ensues.]

  BLÜCHER [concludingly]

  We will expect you, Duke, to our support.

  WELLINGTON

  I must agree that, in the sum, it’s best.
  So be it then.  If not attacked myself
  I’ll come to you.—Now I return with speed
  To Quatre-Bras.

  BLÜCHER

            And I descend from here
  To give close eye and thought to things below;
  No more can well be studied where we stand.

    [Exeunt from roof WELLINGTON, BLÜCHER and the rest.  They reappear
    below, and WELLINGTON and his suite gallop furiously away in the
    direction of Quatre-Bras.  An interval.]

  DUMB SHOW [below]

  Three reports of a cannon give the signal for the French attack.
  NAPOLÉON’S army advances down the slopes of green corn opposite,
  bands and voices joining in songs of victory.  The French come
  in three grand columns; VANDAMME’S on the left [the spectator’s
  right] against Saint-Amand, the most forward angle of the Prussian
  position.  GERARD’S in the centre bear down upon Ligny.  GROUCHY’S
  on the French right is further back.  Far to the rear can be
  discerned NAPOLÉON, the Imperial Guard, and MILHAUD’S cuirassiers
  halted in reserve.

  This formidable advance is preceded by swarms of tirailleurs, who
  tread down the high wheat, exposing their own men in the rear.

  Amid cannonading from both sides they draw nearer to the Prussians,
  though lanes are cut through them by the latter’s guns.  They drive
  the Prussians out of Ligny; who, however, rally in the houses,
  churchyard, and village green.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       I see unnatural an Monster, loosely jointed,
       With an Apocalyptic Being’s shape,
       And limbs and eyes a hundred thousand strong,
       And fifty thousand heads; which coils itself
       About the buildings there.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

                 Thou dost indeed.
       It is the Monster Devastation.  Watch.

  Round the church they fight without quarter, shooting face to face,
  stabbing with unfixed bayonets, and braining with the butts of
  muskets.  The village catches fire, and soon becomes a furnace.
  The crash of splitting timbers as doors are broken through, the
  curses of the fighters, rise into the air, with shouts of “En
  avant!” from the further side of the stream, and “Vorwarts!” from
  the nearer.

  The battle extends to the west by Le Hameau and Saint-Amand la Haye;
  and Ligny becomes invisible under a shroud of smoke.

  VOICES [at the base of the mill]

  This sun will go down bloodily for us!
  The English, sharply sighed for by Prince Blücher,
  Cannot appear.  Wellington words across
  That hosts have set on him at Quatre-Bras,
  And leave him not one bayonet to spare!

  The truth of this intelligence is apparent.  A low dull sound heard
  lately from the direction of Quatre-Bras has increased to a roaring
  cannonade.  The scene abruptly closes.

  THE FIELD AT QUATRE-BRAS

    [The same day.  The view is southward, and the straight gaunt
    highway from Brussels [behind the spectator] to Charleroi over
    the hills in front, bisects the picture from foreground to
    distance.  Near at hand, where it is elevated and open, there
    crosses it obliquely, at a point called Les Quatre-Bras, another
    road which comes from Nivelle, five miles to the gazer’s right
    rear, and goes to Namur, twenty miles ahead to the left.  At a
    distance of five or six miles in this latter direction it passes
    near the previous scene, Ligny, whence the booming of guns can
    be continuously heard.

    Between the cross-roads in the centre of the scene and the far
    horizon the ground dips into a hollow, on the other side of which
    the same straight road to Charleroi is seen climbing the crest,
    and over it till out of sight.  From a hill on the right hand of
    the mid-distance a large wood, the wood of Bossu, reaches up
    nearly to the crossways, which give their name to the buildings
    thereat, consisting of a few farm-houses and an inn.

    About three-quarters of a mile off, nearly hidden by the horizon
    towards Charleroi, there is also a farmstead, Gemioncourt; another,
    Piraumont, stands on an eminence a mile to the left of it, and
    somewhat in front of the Namur road.]

  DUMB SHOW

  As this scene uncovers the battle is beheld to be raging at its
  height, and to have reached a keenly tragic phase.  WELLINGTON has
  returned from Ligny, and the main British and Hanoverian position,
  held by the men who marched out of Brussels in the morning, under
  officers who danced the previous night at the Duchess’s, is along
  the Namur road to the left of the perspective, and round the cross-
  road itself.  That of the French, under Ney, is on the crests further
  back, from which they are descending in imposing numbers.  Some
  advanced columns are assailing the English left, while through the
  smoke-hazes of the middle of the field two lines of skirmishers
  are seen firing at each other—the southernmost dark blue, the
  northernmost dull red.  Time lapses till it is past four o’clock.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       The cannonade of the French ordnance-lines
       Has now redoubled.  Columns new and dense
       Of foot, supported by fleet cavalry,
       Straightly impinge upon the Brunswick bands
       That border the plantation of Bossu.
       Above some regiments of the assaulting French
       A flag like midnight swims upon the air,
       To say no quarter may be looked for there!

  The Brunswick soldiery, much notched and torn by the French grape-
  shot, now lie in heaps.  The DUKE OF BRUNSWICK himself, desperate
  to keep them steady, lights his pipe, and rides slowly up and down
  in front of his lines previous to the charge which follows.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       The French have heaved them on the Brunswickers,
       And borne them back.  Now comes the Duke’s told time.
       He gallops at the head of his hussars—
       Those men of solemn and appalling guise,
       Full-clothed in black, with nodding hearsy plumes,
       A shining silver skull and cross of bones
       Set upon each, to byspeak his slain sire....
       Concordantly, the expected bullet starts
       And finds the living son.

  BRUNSWICK reels to the ground.  His troops, disheartened, lose their
  courage and give way.

  The French front columns, and the cavalry supporting them, shout
  as they advance.  The Allies are forced back upon the English main
  position.  WELLINGTON is in personal peril for a time, but he escapes
  it by a leap of his horse.

  A curtain of smoke drops.  An interval.  The curtain reascends.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Behold again the Dynasts’ gory gear!
       Since we regarded, what has progressed here?

  RECORDING ANGEL [in recitative]

       Musters of English foot and their allies
       Came palely panting by the Brussels way,
       And, swiftly stationed, checked their counter-braves.
       Ney, vexed by lack of like auxiliaries,
       Bade then the columned cuirassiers to charge
       In all their edged array of weaponcraft.
       Yea; thrust replied to thrust, and fire to fire;
       The English broke, till Picton prompt to prop them
       Sprang with fresh foot-folk from the covering rye.

       Next, Pire’s cavalry took up the charge....
       And so the action sways.  The English left
       Is turned at Piraumont; whilst on their right
       Perils infest the greenwood of Bossu;
       Wellington gazes round with dubious view;
       England’s long fame in fight seems sepulchered,
       And ominous roars swell loudlier Ligny-ward.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       New rage has wrenched the battle since thou’st writ;
       Hot-hasting succours of light cannonry
       Lately come up, relieve the English stress;
       Kellermann’s cuirassiers, both man and horse
       All plated over with the brass of war,
       Are rolling on the highway.  More brigades
       Of British, soiled and sweltering, now are nigh,
       Who plunge within the boscage of Bossu;
       Where in the hidden shades and sinuous creeps
       Life-struggles can be heard, seen but in peeps.
       Therewith the foe’s accessions harass Ney,
       Racked that no needful d’Erlon darks the way!

  Inch by inch NEY has to draw off: WELLINGTON promptly advances.  At
  dusk NEY’S army finds itself back at Frasnes, where he meets D’ERLON
  coming up to his assistance, too late.

  The weary English and their allies, who have been on foot ever since
  one o’clock the previous morning, prepare to bivouac in front of the
  cross-roads.   Their fires flash up for a while; and by and by the
  dead silence of heavy sleep hangs over them.  WELLINGTON goes into
  his tent, and the night darkens.

  A Prussian courier from Ligny enters, who is conducted into the tent
  to WELLINGTON.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       What tidings can a courier bring that count
       Here, where such mighty things are native born?

  RECORDING ANGEL [in recitative]

       The fury of the tumult there begun
       Scourged quivering Ligny through the afternoon:
       Napoléon’s great intent grew substantive,
       And on the Prussian pith and pulse he bent
       His foretimed blow.  Blücher, to butt the shock,
       Called up his last reserves, and heading on,
       With blade high brandished by his aged arm,
       Spurred forward his white steed.  But they, outspent,
       Failed far to follow.  Darkness coped the sky,
       And storm, and rain with thunder.  Yet once more
       He cheered them on to charge.  His horse, the while,
       Pierced by a bullet, fell on him it bore.
       He, trampled, bruised, faint, and in disarray
       Dragged to another mount, was led away.
       His ragged lines withdraw from sight and sound,
       And their assailants camp upon the ground.

  The scene shuts with midnight.

  BRUSSELS.  THE PLACE ROYALE

    [The same night, dark and sultry.  A crowd of citizens throng the
    broad Place.  They gaze continually down the Rue de Namur, along
    which arrive minute by minute carts and waggons laden with wounded
    men.  Other wounded limp into the city on foot.  At much greater
    speed enter fugitive soldiers from the miscellaneous contingents
    of WELLINGTON’S army at Quatre-Bras, who gesticulate and explain
    to the crowd that all is lost and that the French will soon be in
    Brussels.

    Baggage-carts and carriages, with and without horses, stand before
    an hotel, surrounded by a medley of English and other foreign
    nobility and gentry with their valets and maids.  Bulletins from
    the battlefield are affixed on the corner of the Place, and people
    peer at them by the dim oil lights.

    A rattle of hoofs reaches the ears, entering the town by the same
    Namur gate.  The riders disclose themselves to be Belgian hussars,
    also from the field.]

  SEVERAL HUSSARS

  The French approach!  Wellington is beaten.  Bonaparte is at our heels.

    [Consternation reaches a climax.  Horses are hastily put-to at the
    hotel: people crowd into the carriages and try to drive off.  They
    get jammed together and hemmed in by the throng.  Unable to move
    they quarrel and curse despairingly in sundry tongues.]

  BARON CAPELLEN

  Affix the new bulletin.  It is a more assuring one, and may quiet
  them a little.

    [A new bulletin is nailed over the old one.]

  MAYOR

  Good people, calm yourselves.  No victory has been won by Bonaparte.
  The noise of guns heard all the afternoon became fainter towards the
  end, showing beyond doubt that the retreat was away from the city.

  A CITIZEN

  The French are said to be forty thousand strong at Les Quatre-Bras,
  and no forty thousand British marched out against them this morning!

  ANOTHER CITIZEN

  And it is whispered that the city archives and the treasure-chest
  have been sent to Antwerp!

  MAYOR

  Only as a precaution.  No good can be gained by panic.  Sixty or
  seventy thousand of the Allies, all told, face Napoléon at this
  hour.  Meanwhile who is to attend to the wounded that are being
  brought in faster and faster?  Fellow-citizens, do your duty by
  these unfortunates, and believe me that when engaged in such an
  act of mercy no enemy will hurt you.

  CITIZENS

  What can we do?

  MAYOR

  I invite all those who have such, to bring mattresses, sheets, and
  coverlets to the Hotel de Ville, also old linen and lint from the
  houses of the cures.

    [Many set out on this errand.  An interval.  Enter a courier, who
    speaks to the MAYOR and the BARON CAPELLEN.]

  BARON CAPELLEN [to Mayor]

  Better inform them immediately, to prevent a panic.

  MAYOR [to Citizens]

  I grieve to tell you that the Duke of Brunswick, whom you saw ride
  out this morning, was killed this afternoon at Les Quatre-Bras.  A
  musket-ball passed through his bridle-hand and entered his belly.
  His body is now arriving.  Carry yourselves gravely.

    [A lane is formed in the crowd in the direction of the Rue de
    Namur; they wait.  Presently an extemporized funeral procession,
    with the body of the DUKE on a gun-carriage, and a small escort
    of Brunswickers with carbines reversed, comes slowly up the
    street, their silver death’s-heads shining in the lamplight.
    The agitation of the citizens settles into a silent gloom as
    the mournful train passes.]

  MAYOR [to Baron Capellen]

  I noticed the strange look of prepossession on his face at the ball
  last night, as if he knew what was going to be.

  BARON CAPELLEN

  The Duchess mentioned it to me.... He hated the French, if any
  man ever did, and so did his father before him!  Here comes the
  English Colonel Hamilton, straight from the field.  He will give
  us trustworthy particulars.

    [Enter COLONEL HAMILTON by the Rue de Namur.  He converses with
    the MAYOR and the BARON on the issue of the struggle.]

  MAYOR

  Now I will go the Hotel de Ville, and get it ready for those wounded
  who can find no room in private houses.

    [Exeunt MAYOR, CAPELLEN, D’URSEL, HAMILTON, etc. severally.  Many
    citizens descend in the direction of the Hotel de Ville to assist.
    Those who remain silently watch the carts bringing in the wounded
    till a late hour.  The doors of houses in the Place and elsewhere
    are kept open, and the rooms within lighted, in expectation of
    more arrivals from the field.  A courier gallops up, who is accosted
    by idlers.]

  COURIER [hastily]

  The Prussians are defeated at Ligny by Napoléon in person.  He will
  be here to-morrow.

    [Exit courier.]

  FIRST IDLER

  The devil!  Then I am for welcoming him.  No Antwerp for me!

  OTHER IDLERS [sotto voce]

  Vive l’Empereur!

    [A warm summer fog from the Lower Town covers the Parc and the
    Place Royale.]

  THE ROAD TO WATERLOO

    [The view is now from Quatre-Bras backward along the road by
    which the English arrived.  Diminishing in a straight line from
    the foreground to the centre of the distance it passes over Mont
    Saint-Jean and through Waterloo to Brussels.

    It is now tinged by a moving mass of English and Allied infantry,
    in retreat to a new position at Mont Saint-Jean.  The sun shines
    brilliantly upon the foreground as yet, but towards Waterloo and
    the Forest of Soignes on the north horizon it is overcast with
    black clouds which are steadily advancing up the sky.

    To mask the retreat the English outposts retain their position
    on the battlefield in the face of NEY’S troops, and keep up a
    desultory firing: the cavalry for the same reason remain, being
    drawn up in lines beside the intersecting Namur road.

    Enter WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE [who is in charge of the cavalry],
    MÜFFLING, VIVIAN, and others.  They look through their field-
    glasses towards Frasnes, NEY’S position since his retreat
    yesternight, and also towards NAPOLÉON’S at Ligny.]

  WELLINGTON

  The noonday sun, striking so strongly there,
  Makes mirrors of their arms.  That they advance
  Their glowing radiance shows.  Those gleams by Marbais
  Suggest fixed bayonets.

  UXBRIDGE

            Vivian’s glass reveals
  That they are cuirassiers.  Ney’s troops, too, near
  At last, methinks, along this other road.

  WELLINGTON

  One thing is sure: that here the whole French force
  Schemes to unite and sharply follow us.
  It formulates our fence.  The cavalry
  Must linger here no longer; but recede
  To Mont Saint-Jean, as rearguard of the foot.
  From the intelligence that Gordon brings
  ’Tis pretty clear old Blücher had to take
  A damned good drubbing yesterday at Ligny,
  And has been bent hard back!  So that, for us,
  Bound to the plighted plan, there is no choice
  But do like.... No doubt they’ll say at home
  That we’ve been well thrashed too.  It can’t be helped,
  They must!... [He looks round at the sky.]  A heavy rainfall
       threatens us,
  To make it all the worse!

    [The speaker and his staff ride off along the Brussels road in
    the rear of the infantry, and UXBRIDGE begins the retreat of the
    cavalry.  CAPTAIN MERCER enters with a light battery.]

  MERCER [excitedly]

            Look back, my lord;
  Is it not Bonaparte himself we see
  Upon the road I have come by?

  UXBRIDGE [looking through glass]

            Yes, by God;
  His face as clear-cut as the edge of a cloud
  The sun behind shows up!  His suite and all!
  Fire—fire!  And aim you well.

    [The battery makes ready and fires.]

            No!  It won’t do.
  He brings on mounted ordnance of his Guard,
  So we’re in danger here.  Then limber up,
  And off as soon as may be.

    [The English artillery and cavalry retreat at full speed, just as
    the weather bursts, with flashes of lightning and drops of rain.
    They all clatter off along the Brussels road, UXBRIDGE and his
    aides galloping beside the column; till no British are left at
    Quatre-Bras except the slain.

    The focus of the scene follows the retreating English army, the
    highway and its and margins panoramically gliding past the vision
    of the spectator.  The phantoms chant monotonously while the retreat
    goes on.]

  CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]

       Day’s nether hours advance; storm supervenes
       In heaviness unparalleled, that screens
       With water-woven gauzes, vapour-bred,
       The creeping clumps of half-obliterate red—
       Severely harassed past each round and ridge
       By the inimical lance.  They gain the bridge
       And village of Genappe, in equal fence
       With weather and the enemy’s violence.
       —Cannon upon the foul and flooded road,
       Cavalry in the cornfields mire-bestrowed,
       With frothy horses floundering to their knees,
       Make wayfaring a moil of miseries!
       Till Britishry and Bonapartists lose
       Their clashing colours for the tawny hues
     That twilight sets on all its stealing tinct imbues.

    [The rising ground of Mont Saint-Jean, in front of Waterloo,
    is gained by the English vanguard and main masses of foot, and
    by degrees they are joined by the cavalry and artillery.  The
    French are but little later in taking up their position amid
    the cornfields around La Belle Alliance.

    Fires begin to shine up from the English bivouacs.  Camp kettles
    are slung, and the men pile arms and stand round the blaze to dry
    themselves.  The French opposite lie down like dead men in the
    dripping green wheat and rye, without supper and without fire.

    By and by the English army also lies down, the men huddling
    together on the ploughed mud in their wet blankets, while some
    sleep sitting round the dying fires.]

  CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

       The eyelids of eve fall together at last,
       And the forms so foreign to field and tree
       Lie down as though native, and slumber fast!

  CHORUS OF THE PITIES

       Sore are the thrills of misgiving we see
       In the artless champaign at this harlequinade,
       Distracting a vigil where calm should be!

       The green seems opprest, and the Plain afraid
       Of a Something to come, whereof these are the proofs,—
       Neither earthquake, nor storm, nor eclipses’s shade!

  CHORUS OF THE YEARS

       Yea, the coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs,
       And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels,
       And swallows abandon the hamlet-roofs.

       The mole’s tunnelled chambers are crushed by wheels,
       The lark’s eggs scattered, their owners fled;
       And the hedgehog’s household the sapper unseals.

       The snail draws in at the terrible tread,
       But in vain; he is crushed by the felloe-rim
       The worm asks what can be overhead,

       And wriggles deep from a scene so grim,
       And guesses him safe; for he does not know
       What a foul red flood will be soaking him!

       Beaten about by the heel and toe
       Are butterflies, sick of the day’s long rheum,
       To die of a worse than the weather-foe.

       Trodden and bruised to a miry tomb
       Are ears that have greened but will never be gold,
       And flowers in the bud that will never bloom.

  CHORUS OF THE PITIES

       So the season’s intent, ere its fruit unfold,
       Is frustrate, and mangled, and made succumb,
       Like a youth of promise struck stark and cold!...

       And what of these who to-night have come?

  CHORUS OF THE YEARS

       The young sleep sound; but the weather awakes
       In the veterans, pains from the past that numb;

       Old stabs of Ind, old Peninsular aches,
       Old Friedland chills, haunt their moist mud bed,
       Cramps from Austerlitz; till their slumber breaks.

  CHORUS OF SINISTER SPIRITS

       And each soul shivers as sinks his head
       On the loam he’s to lease with the other dead
       From to-morrow’s mist-fall till Time be sped!

    [The fires of the English go out, and silence prevails, save
    for the soft hiss of the rain that falls impartially on both
    the sleeping armies.]