Then, Wellesley, on thy tortur'd thought
What honest anguish crost!
Oh! how thy generous bosom burn'd
To see, e'en by a glorious fault,
The flowing tide of victory turn'd,
And Spain and England lost!—
Lost, but that as the peril great,
And rising on the storms of fate,
His rapid genius soars:
Sees, at a glance, his whole resource,
Drains from each stronger point its force,
And on the weaker pours;
Present where'er his soldiers bleed,
He rushes thro' the fray;
And, so dangerous chances need,
In high emprize and desperate deed,
Squanders himself away!
Now from the summit, at his call,
A gallant legion, firm and slow,
Advances on victorious Gaul,
Undaunted, tho' their comrades fall!
Unshaken, tho' their leader's low !
Fix'd as the high and buttress'd mound,
That guards some leagur'd city round,
They stand unmov'd; behind them form
The flying fragments of the storm;
While on their sheltering front, amain
France drives, with all her thund'ring train,
Her full career of death:
But drives in vain-for, unir..press'd,
The arm of havoc they arrest,
And from the foe's exulting crest
Tear down the laurel wreath;
Nor does the gallant foe resign
A tame inglorious prize;
Long, long on Britain's rallied line,
The deadly fire he plies;
Long, long where Britain's banners shine,
He vainly toils and dies!-
Ne'er to a battle's fiercer groan
Did mountain echoes roar,
Nor ever evening blush upon
A redder field of gore.
But feebler now, and feebler still
The panting French assail the hill,
And weaker grows their cannon's roar.
And thinner falls their musket shower,
Fainter their clanging steel;
They shout, they charge, they stand no more,
And staggering in the slippery gore,
Their very leaders reel.
But shooting high and rolling far,
What new and horrid face of war
Now flushes on the sight?
'Tis France, as furious she retires,
That wrecks in desolating fires,
The vengeance of her flight.
The flames the grassy vale o'er-run,
Already parch'd by summer's sun;
And sweeping turbid down the breeze,
In clouds the arid thicket seize,
And climb the dry and wither'd trees
In flashes long and bright.
Oh! 'twas a scene sublime and dire,
To see that billowy sea of fire,
Rolling its fierce and flaky flood,
O'er cultur'd fields and tangled wood,
And drowning in the flaming tide,
Autumn's hope and summer's pride.
From Talavera's wall and tower,
And from the mountain's height,
Where they had stood for many a hour
To view the varying fight,
Burghers and peasants in amaze
Behold their groves and vineyards blaze;
Trembling they view'd the bloody fray,
But little thought, ere close of day,
That England's sigh and France's groan
Should be re-echo'd by their own!
But ah! far other cries than these
Are wafted on the dismal breeze
Groans, not the wounded's lingering groans, Shrieks, not the shriek of death alone
But groan, and shriek, and horrid yell
Of terror, torture and despair;
Such as t'would freeze the tongue to tell,
And chill the heart to hear,
When to the very field of fight,
Dreadful alike in sound and sight,
The conflagration spread;
Involving in its fiery wave,
The brave and reliques of the brave-
The dying and the dead!
And now again the evening sheds
Her dewy veil on Tajo's side,
And from the Sierra's rocky heads,
The giant shadows stride:
And all is dim and dark again-
Save here and there upon the plain,
As if from funeral pyres,
Casting a dull and flickering light
Across the umber'd face of night,
Still flash the baleful fires.
But since the close of yester-e'en,
How alter'd is the martial scene:
Again, in night's surrounding veil,
France moves her busy bands, but now ~
She comes not, venturous, to assail
The victors in their guarded vale,
Or on the mountain's brow.
No! baffled and dishearten'd, o'er
Alberche's stream and from his shore
With silent haste she speeds,
Nor dares, e'en at that midnight hour,
To take the rest she needs;
Far from the tents where late she lay,
Far from the field where late she fought,
With rapid step and humble thought,
All night she holds her way:
Leaving to Britain's conquering sons,
Standards rent and ponderous guns,
The trophies of the fray!
The weak, the wounded, and the slain-
The triumph of the battle plain-
The glory of the day!
I would not hush the tender sigh,
I would not check the pious tear,
That heaves the heart and dims the eye,
When honor'd friend and kinsman dear,
E'en upon victory's proudest bier,
Loved, lost, lamented, lie!
But I would say, for those that die
In honour's high career,
For those in glory's grave who sleep,
Weep fondly, but exulting, weep!
The fairest wreath that fame combin'd,
Is ever with the cypress twin'd;
And fresher from th' untimely tomb
Renown's eternal laurels bloom;
Fickle is fortune and as sure
Must be in death enshrin'd!
I too have known what 'tis to part
With the first inmate of my heart;
To feel the bonds of nature riv'n,
To witness o'er the glowing morn!
The spring of youth, the fire of heaven,
The grave's deep shadows dawn!
He slept not on the battle plain
The slumber of the brave
Worn with disease, and rack'd with pain,
Far o'er 'th Atlantic wave
He sought eluding health in vain→
Health never let his eye again,
He fills a foreign grave!
Oh, had he lived, his hand to-day
Had woven for the victor's brow
Such chaplet as the Enthusiast lay
Of genius may bestow;
Or, since 'twas Heaven's severer doom
To call him to an early tomb.
Would, Wellesley, would that he had died.
Beneath thine eye and at thy side!
It would have lighten'd sorrow's load,
Had thy applause on him bestow'd
The fame he lov'd in thee;
And rear'd his gallant head beside
Those of the gallant hearts who died,
Their kinsmen's, friends' and country's pride,
In Talavera's victory!
YE mariners of England,
Who guard our native seas,
Whose flag has brav'd, a thousand
The battle and the breeze:
Your glorious standard launch again,
To match another foe;
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every grave!
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave :
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow;
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.
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