Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

  And hats which bore the mark of mortal wound;

  Gun-flints and balls for those who closelier peer;

  And sometimes did the breeze upon its breath

  Bear from ill-covered graves a taint of death.

  More vestige of destructive man was seen

  Where man in works of peace had laboured more;

  At Hougoumont the hottest strife had been,

  Where trees and walls the mournful record bore

  Of war’s wild rage, trunks pierced with many a wound,

  And roofs and half-burnt rafters on the ground.

  A goodly mansion this, with gardens fair,

  And ancient groves and fruitful orchard wide,

  Its dove-cot and its decent house of prayer,

  Its ample stalls and garners well supplied,

  And spacious bartons clean, well-walled around,

  Where all the wealth of rural life was found.

  That goodly mansion on the ground was laid,

  Save here and there a blackened broken wall;

  The wounded who were borne beneath its shade

  Had there been crushed and buried by the fall;

  And there they lie where they received their doom,..

  Oh let no hand disturb that honourable tomb!

  Contiguous to this wreck the little fane

  For worship hallowed, still uninjured stands,

  Save that its Crucifix displays too plain

  The marks of outrage from irreverent hands.

  Alas, to think such irreligious deed

  Of wrong from British soldiers should proceed!

  The dove-cot too remains; scared at the fight

  The birds sought shelter in the forest shade;

  But still they kept their native haunts in sight,

  And when few days their terror had allayed,

  Forsook again the solitary wood,

  For their old home and human neighbourhood.

  The gardener’s dwelling was untouched; his wife

  Fled with her children to some near retreat,

  And there lay trembling for her husband’s life:

  He stood the issue, saw the foe’s retreat,

  And lives unhurt where thousands fell around,

  To tell the story of that famous ground.

  His generous dog was well approved that hour,

  By courage as by love to man allied;

  He through the fiery storm and iron shower

  Kept the ground bravely by his master’s side:

  And now when to the stranger’s hand he draws,

  The noble beast seems conscious of applause.

  Toward the grove the wall with musket holes

  Is pierced; our soldiers here their station held

  Against the foe, and many were the souls

  Then from their fleshly tenements expelled.

  Six hundred Frenchmen have been burnt close by,

  And underneath one mound their bones and ashes lie.

  One streak of blood upon the wall was traced,

  In length a man’s just stature from the head;

  There where it gushed you saw it uneffaced:

  Of all the blood which on that day was shed

  This mortal stain alone remained impressed,..

  The all-devouring earth had drunk the rest.

  Here from the heaps who strewed the fatal plain

  Was Howard’s corse by faithful hands conveyed,

  And not to be confounded with the slain,

  Here in a grave apart with reverence laid,

  Till hence his honoured relics o’er the seas

  Were borne to England, there to rest in peace.

  Another grave had yielded up its dead,

  From whence to bear his son a father came,

  That he might lay him where his own grey head

  Ere long must needs be laid. That soldier’s name

  Was not remembered there, yet may the verse

  Present this reverent tribute to his herse.

  Was it a soothing or a mournful thought

  Amid this scene of slaughter as we stood,

  Where armies had with recent fury fought,

  To mark how gentle Nature still pursued

  Her quiet course, as if she took no care

  For what her noblest work had suffered there?

  The pears had ripened on the garden wall;

  Those leaves which on the autumnal earth were spread,

  The trees, though pierced and scarred with many a ball,

  Had only in their natural season shed:

  Flowers were in seed whose buds to swell began

  When such wild havoc here was made of man!

  Throughout the garden, fruits and herbs and flowers

  You saw in growth, or ripeness, or decay;

  The green and well-trimmed dial marked the hours

  With gliding shadow as they passed away;

  Who would have thought, to see this garden fair,

  Such horrors had so late been acted there!

  Now Hougoumont, farewell to thy domain!

  Might I dispose of thee, no woodman’s hand

  Should e’er thy venerable groves profane;

  Untouched, and like a temple should they stand,

  And consecrate by general feeling, wave

  Their branches o’er the ground where sleep the brave.

  Thy ruins as they fell should aye remain,..

  What monument so fit for those below?

  Thy garden through whole ages should retain

  The form and fashion which it weareth now,

  That future pilgrims here might all things see,

  Such as they were at this great victory.

  IV.

  THE SCENE OF WAR.

  No cloud the azure vault of heaven distained

  That day when we the field of war surveyed;

  The leaves were falling, but the groves retained

  Foliage enough for beauty and for shade;

  Soft airs prevailed, and thro’ the sunny hours

  The bees were busy on the year’s last flowers.

  Well was the season with the scene combined.

  The autumnal sunshine suited well the mood

  Which here possessed the meditative mind,..

  A human sense upon the field of blood,

  A Christian thankfulness, a British pride,

  Tempered by solemn thought, yet still to joy allied.

  What British heart that would not feel a flow

  Upon that ground, of elevating pride?

  What British cheek is there that would not glow

  To hear our country blest and magnified?..

  For Britain here was blest by old and young,

  Admired by every heart and praised by every tongue.

  Not for brave bearing in the field alone

  Doth grateful Belgium bless the British name;

  The order and the perfect honour shown

  In all things, have enhanced the soldier’s fame:

  For this we heard the admiring people raise

  One universal voice sincere of praise.

  Yet with indignant feeling they enquired

  Wherefore we spared the author of this strife?

  Why had we not, as highest law required,

  With ignominy closed the culprit’s life?

  For him alone had all this blood been shed,..

  Why had not vengeance struck the guilty head?

  O God! they said, it was a piteous thing

  To see the after-horrors of the fight,

  The lingering death, the hopeless suffering,..

  What heart of flesh unmoved could bear the sight?

  One man was cause of all this world of woe,..

  Ye had him,.. and ye did not strike the blow!

  How will ye answer to all after time

  For that great lesson which ye failed to give?

  As if excess of guilt excused the crime,

  Black as he is with blood ye
let him live!

  Children of evil, take your course henceforth,

  For what is Justice but a name on earth!

  Vain had it been with these in glosing speech

  Of precedents to use the specious tongue:

  This might perplex the ear, but fail to reach

  The heart, from whence that honest feeling sprung:

  And had I dared my inner sense belie,

  The voice of blood was there to join them in their cry.

  We left the field of battle in such mood

  As human hearts from thence should bear away,

  And musing thus our purposed route pursued,

  Which still through scenes of recent bloodshed lay,

  Where Prussia late with strong and stern delight

  Hung on her hated foes to persecute their flight.

  No hour for tarriance that, or for remorse!

  Vengeance, who long had hungered, took her fill.

  And Retribution held its righteous course:

  As when in elder time, the Sun stood still

  On Gibeon, and the Moon above the vale

  Of Ajalon hung motionless and pale.

  And what though no portentous day was given

  To render here the work of wrath compleat,

  The Sun, I ween, seemed standing still in heaven

  To those who hurried from that dire defeat;

  And when they prayed for darkness in their flight,

  The Moon arose upon them broad and bright.

  No covert might they find; the open land,

  O’er which so late exultingly they passed,

  Lay all before them and on either hand;

  Close on their flight the avengers followed fast,

  And when they reached Genappe and there drew breath,

  Short respite found they there from fear and death.

  That fatal town betrayed them to more loss;

  Through one long street the only passage lay,

  And then the narrow bridge they needs must cross

  Where Dyle, a shallow streamlet, crossed the way:

  For life they fled,.. no thought had they but fear,

  And their own baggage choaked the outlet here.

  He who had bridged the Danube’s affluent stream,

  With all the unbroken Austrian power in sight,

  (So had his empire vanished like a dream)

  Was by this brook impeded in his flight;..

  And then what passions did he witness there...

  Rage, terror, execrations, and despair!

  Ere thro’ the wreck his passage could be made,

  Three miserable hours, which seemed like years,

  Was he in that ignoble strait delayed;

  The dreadful Prussian’s cry was in his ears,

  Fear in his heart, and in his soul that hell

  Whose due rewards he merited so well.

  Foremost again as he was wont to be

  In flight, though not the foremost in the strife,

  The Tyrant hurried on, of infamy

  Regardless, nor regarding ought but life;..

  Oh wretch! without the courage or the faith

  To die with those whom he had led to death!

  Meantime his guilty followers in disgrace,

  Whose pride for ever now was beaten down,

  Some in the houses sought a hiding place;

  While at the entrance of that fatal town

  Others, who yet some show of heart displayed,

  A short vain effort of resistance made:

  Feeble and ill-sustained! The foe burst through;

  With unabating heat they searched around;

  The wretches from their lurking-holes they drew,..

  Such mercy as the French had given they found;

  Death had more victims there in that one hour

  Than fifty years might else have rendered to his power.

  Here did we inn upon our pilgrimage,

  After such day an unfit resting-place:

  For who from ghastly thoughts could disengage

  The haunted mind, when every where the trace

  Of death was seen,.. the blood-stain on the wall,

  And musquet-marks in chamber and in hall!

  All talk too was of death. They shewed us here

  The room where Brunswick’s body had been laid,

  Where his brave followers, bending o’er the bier,

  In bitterness their vow of vengeance made;

  Where Wellington beheld the slaughtered Chief,

  And for awhile gave way to manly grief.

  Duhesme, whose crimes the Catalans may tell,

  Died here;.. with sabre strokes the posts are scored,

  Hewn down upon the threshold where he fell,

  Himself then tasting of the ruthless sword;

  A Brunswicker discharged the debt of Spain,

  And where he dropt the stone preserves the stain.

  Too much of life hath on thy plains been shed,

  Brabant! so oft the scene of war’s debate;

  But ne’er with blood were they so largely fed

  As in this rout and wreck; when righteous Fate

  Brought on the French, in warning to all times,

  A vengeance wide and sweeping as their crimes:

  Vengeance for Egypt and for Syria’s wrong;

  For Portugal’s unutterable woes;

  For Germany, who suffered all too long

  Beneath these lawless, faithless, godless foes;

  For blood which on the Lord so long had cried,

  For Earth opprest, and Heaven insulted and defied.

  We followed from Genappe their line of flight

  To the Cross Roads, where Britain’s sons sustained

  Against such perilous force the desperate fight:

  Deserving for that field so well maintained,

  Such fame as for a like devotion’s meed

  The world hath to the Spartan band decreed.

  Upon this ground the noble Brunswick died,

  Led on too rashly by his ardent heart;

  Long shall his grateful country tell with pride

  How manfully he chose the better part;

  When groaning Germany in chains was bound,

  He only of her Princes faithful found.

  And here right bravely did the German band

  Once more sustain their well-deserved applause;

  As when, revenging there their native land,

  In Spain they laboured for the general cause.

  In this most arduous strife none more than they

  Endured the heat and burthen of the day.

  Here too we heard the praise of British worth,

  Still best approved when most severely tried;

  Here were broad patches of loose-lying earth,

  Sufficing scarce the mingled bones to hide,..

  And, half-uncovered graves, where one might see

  The loathliest features of mortality.

  Eastward from hence we struck, and reached the field

  Of Ligny, where the Prussian, on that day

  By far-outnumbering force constrained to yield,

  Fronted the foe, and held them still at bay;

  And in that brave defeat acquired fresh claim

  To glory, and enhanced his country’s fame.

  Here was a scene which fancy might delight

  To treasure up among her cherished stores,

  And bring again before the inward sight

  Often when she recalls the long-past hours;..

  Well-cultured hill and dale extending wide,

  Hamlets and village spires on every side;

  The autumnal-tinted groves; the upland mill

  Which oft was won and lost amid the fray:

  Green pastures watered by the silent rill;

  The lordly Castle yielding to decay,

  With bridge and barbican and moat and tower,

  A fairer sight perchance than when it frowned in power:
r />   The avenue before its ruined gate,

  Which when the Castle, suffering less from time

  Than havoc, hath foregone its strength and state,

  Uninjured flourisheth in nature’s prime;

  To us a grateful shade did it supply,

  Glad of that shelter from the noontide sky:

  The quarries deep, where many a massive block

  For some Parisian monument of pride,

  Hewn with long labour from the granite rock,

  Lay in the change of fortune cast aside;

  But rightly with those stones should Prussia build

  Her monumental pile on Ligny’s bloody field!

  The wealthy village bearing but too plain

  The dismal marks of recent fire and spoil;

  Its decent habitants, an active train,

  And many a one at work with needful toil

  On roof or thatch, the ruin to repair,..

  May never War repeat such devastation there!

  Ill had we done if we had hurried by

  A scene in faithful history to be famed

  Through long succeeding ages; nor may I

  The hospitality let pass unnamed,

  And courteous kindness on that distant ground,

  Which strangers as we were for England’s sake we found.

  And dear to England should be Ligny’s name,

  Prussia and England both were proved that day;

  Each generous nation to the other’s fame

  Her ample tribute of applause will pay;

  Long as the memory of those labours past,

  Unbroken may their Fair Alliance last!

  The tales which of that field I could unfold,

  Better it is that silence should conceal.

  They who had seen them shuddered while they told

  Of things so hideous; and they cried with zeal,

  One man hath caused all this, of men the worst,..

  O wherefore have ye spared his head accurst!

  It fits not now to tell our farther way

  Through many a scene by bounteous nature blest