The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 109

BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sends orders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is not obeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, the Spanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, and the hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre of their front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it.

SPIRIT SINISTER

Now he among us who may wish to be A skilled pract.i.tioner in slaughtery, Should watch this hour's fruition yonder there, And he will know, if knowing ever were, How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells, And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells, By methods swift and slow and foul and fair!

The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavy mist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancers and hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth, and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos of smoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting down like wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their forms lie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by the hoofs of the enemy's horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

It works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist!...

Whose is that towering form That tears across the mist To where the shocks are sorest?--his with arm Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye, Like one who, having done his deeds, will die?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

He is one Beresford, who heads the fight For England here to-day.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

He calls the sight Despite itself!--parries yon lancer's thrust, And with his own sword renders dust to dust!

The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants are seen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, and discharging musketry in each other's faces when so close that their complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouths blackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-away knapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priming horns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters, epaulettes, limbs and viscera acc.u.mulate on the slopes, increasing from twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps, which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gently upon them.

The critical instant has come, and the English break. But a comparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into the turmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain to save the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount the incline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy by their arrival on a spot deemed won.

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

They come, beset by riddling hail; They sway like sedges is a gale; The fail, and win, and win, and fail. Albuera!

SEMICHORUS II

They gain the ground there, yard by yard, Their brows and hair and lashes charred, Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.

SEMICHORUS I

Their mad a.s.sailants rave and reel, And face, as men who scorn to feel, The close-lined, three-edged p.r.o.ngs of steel.

SEMICHORUS II

Till faintness follows closing-in, When, faltering headlong down, they spin Like leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.

SEMICHORUS I

Out of six thousand souls that sware To hold the mount, or pa.s.s elsewhere, But eighteen hundred muster there.

SEMICHORUS II

Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie, Facing the earth or facing sky;-- They strove to live, they stretch to die.

SEMICHORUS I

Friends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.-- Hide their hacked bones, Earth!--deep, deep, deep, Where harmless worms caress and creep.

CHORUS

Hide their hacked bones, Earth!--deep, deep, deep, Where harmless worms caress and creep.-- What man can grieve? what woman weep?

Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!

The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.

SCENE V

WINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING'S APARTMENT

[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles of furniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, on which are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windows are guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. The time is shortly after the last scene.

The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS'S attendants are in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight is very defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lost in melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurried manner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that he betrays.]

KING

In my lifetime I did not look after her enough--enough--enough!

And now she is lost to me, and I shall never see her more. Had I but known, had I but thought of it! Gentlemen, when did I lose the Princess Amelia?

FIRST ATTENDANT

The second of last November, your Majesty.

KING