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[June 15, 1815]
From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
THERE was a sound of revelry by night, | |
| And Belgium’s capital had gathered then | |
| Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright | |
| The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men; | |
| A thousand hearts beat happily; and when | 5 |
| Music arose with its voluptuous swell, | |
| Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, | |
| And all went merry as a marriage-bell; | |
| But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! | |
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| Did ye not hear it?—No; ’t was but the wind, | 10 |
| Or the car rattling o’er the stony street; | |
| On with the dance! let joy be unconfined! | |
| No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet | |
| To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet,— | |
| But hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more, | 15 |
| As if the clouds its echo would repeat; | |
| And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! | |
| Arm! arm! it is—it is—the cannon’s opening roar! | |
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| Within a windowed niche of that high hall | |
| Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear | 20 |
| That sound the first amidst the festival, | |
| And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear; | |
| And when they smiled because he deemed it near, | |
| His heart more truly knew that peal too well | |
| Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, | 25 |
| And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: | |
| He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. | |
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| Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, | |
| And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, | |
| And cheeks all pale which but an hour ago | 30 |
| Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; | |
| And there were sudden partings, such as press | |
| The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs | |
| Which ne’er might be repeated: who would guess | |
| If evermore should meet those mutual eyes | 35 |
| Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise! | |
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| And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, | |
| The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, | |
| Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, | |
| And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; | 40 |
| And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; | |
| And near, the beat of the alarming drum | |
| Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; | |
| While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, | |
| Or whispering with white lips,—“The foe! they come! they come!” | 45 |
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| And wild and high the “Cameron’s gathering” rose, | |
| The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills | |
| Have heard,—and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: | |
| How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills | |
| Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills | 50 |
| Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers | |
| With the fierce native daring which instills | |
| The stirring memory of a thousand years, | |
| And Evan’s, Donald’s fame, rings in each clansman’s ears! | |
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| And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, | 55 |
| Dewy with nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, | |
| Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, | |
| Over the unreturning brave,—alas! | |
| Ere evening to be trodden like the grass | |
| Which now beneath them, but above shall grow | 60 |
| In its next verdure, when this fiery mass | |
| Of living valor, rolling on the foe, | |
| And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. | |
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| Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, | |
| Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay, | 65 |
| The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, | |
| The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day | |
| Battle’s magnificently stern array! | |
| The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent | |
| The earth is covered thick with other clay, | 70 |
| Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, | |
| Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent! | |
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| Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine; | |
| Yet one I would select from that proud throng, | |
| Partly because they blend me with his line, | 75 |
| And partly that I did his sire some wrong, | |
| And partly that bright names will hallow song! | |
| And his was of the bravest, and when showered | |
| The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along, | |
| Even where the thickest of war’s tempest lowered, | 80 |
| They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard! | |
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| There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, | |
| And mine were nothing, had I such to give; | |
| But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, | |
| Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, | 85 |
| And saw around me the wide field revive | |
| With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring | |
| Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, | |
| With all her reckless birds upon the wing, | |
| I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. | 90 |
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| I turned to thee, to thousands, of whom each | |
| And one as all a ghastly gap did make | |
| In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach | |
| Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake; | |
| The Archangel’s trump, not glory’s, must awake | 95 |
| Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame | |
| May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake | |
| The fever of vain longing, and the name | |
| So honored but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. | |
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| They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn: | 100 |
| The tree will wither long before it fall; | |
| The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn; | |
| The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall | |
| In massy hoariness; the ruined wall | |
| Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; | 105 |
| The bars survive the captive they enthrall; | |
| The day drags through though storms keep out the sun; | |
| And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on; | |
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| Even as a broken mirror, which the glass | |
| In every fragment multiplies, and makes | 110 |
| A thousand images of one that was | |
| The same, and still the more, the more it breaks; | |
| And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, | |
| Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold, | |
| And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, | 115 |
| Yet withers on till all without is old, | |
| Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. | |
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