THE SAME. LATER [NEY’S long attacks on the centre with cavalry having failed, those left of the squadrons and their infantry-supports fall back pell-mell in broken groups across the depression between the armies. Meanwhile BÜLOW, having engaged LOBAU’S Sixth Corps, carries Plancenoit. The artillery-fire between the French and the English continues. An officer of the Third Foot-guards comes up to WELLINGTON and those of his suite that survive.]

OFFICER Our Colonel Canning—coming I know not whence—

WELLINGTON I lately sent him with important words To the remoter lines.

OFFICER As he returned A grape-shot struck him in the breast; he fell, At once a dead man. General Halkett, too, Has had his cheek shot through, but still keeps going.

WELLINGTON And how proceeds De Lancey?

OFFICER I am told That he forbids the surgeons waste their time On him, who well can wait till worse are eased.

WELLINGTON A noble fellow. [NAPOLÉON can now be seen, across the valley, pushing forward a new scheme of some sort, urged to it obviously by the visible nearing of further Prussian corps. The EMPEROR is as critically situated as WELLINGTON, and his army is now formed in a right angle [“en potence”], the main front to the English, the lesser to as many of the Prussians as have yet arrived. His gestures show him to be giving instructions of desperate import to a general whom he has called up.]

SPIRIT IRONIC He bids La Bedoyere to speed away Along the whole sweep of the surging line, And there announce to the breath-shotten bands Who toil for a chimaera trustfully, With seventy pounds of luggage on their loins, That the dim Prussian masses seen afar Are Grouchy’s three-and-thirty thousand, come To clinch a victory.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES But Ney demurs!

SPIRIT IRONIC Ney holds indignantly that such a feint Is not war-worthy. Says Napoléon then, Snuffing anew, with sour sardonic scowl, That he is choiceless.

SPIRIT SINISTER Excellent Emperor! He tops all human greatness; in that he To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime, Of being without a conscience. [LA BEDOYERE and orderlies start on their mission. The false intelligence is seen to spread, by the excited motion of the columns, and the soldiers can be heard shouting as their spirits revive. WELLINGTON is beginning to discern the features of the coming onset, when COLONEL FRASER rides up.]

FRASER We have just learnt from a deserting captain, One of the carabineers who charged of late, That an assault which dwarfs all instances— The whole Imperial Guard in welded weight— Is shortly to be made.

WELLINGTON For your smart speed My thanks. My observation is confirmed. We’ll hasten now along the battle-line [to Staff], As swiftest means for giving orders out Whereby to combat this. [The speaker, accompanied by HILL, UXBRIDGE, and others—all now looking as worn and besmirched as the men in the ranks—proceed along the lines, and dispose the brigades to meet the threatened shock. The infantry are brought out of the shelter they have recently sought, the cavalry stationed in the rear, and the batteries of artillery hitherto kept in reserve are moved to the front. The last Act of the battle begins. There is a preliminary attack by DONZELOT’S columns, combined with swarms of sharpshooters, to the disadvantage of the English and their Allies. WELLINGTON has scanned it closely. FITZROY SOMERSET, his military secretary, comes up.]

WELLINGTON What casualty has thrown its shade among The regiments of Nassau, to shake them so?

SOMERSET The Prince of Orange has been badly struck— A bullet through his shoulder—so they tell; And Kielmansegge has shown some signs of stress. Kincaird’s tried line wanes leaner and more lean— Whittled to a weak skein of skirmishers; The Twenty-seventh lie dead.

WELLINGTON Ah yes—I know! [While they watch developments a cannon-shot passes and knocks SOMERSET’S right arm to a mash. He is assisted to the rear. NEY and FRIANT now lead forward the last and most desperate assault of the day, in charges of the Old and Middle Guard, the attack by DONZELOT and ALLIX further east still continuing as a support. It is about a quarter-past eight, and the midsummer evening is fine after the wet night and morning, the sun approaching its setting in a sky of gorgeous colours. The picked and toughened Guard, many of whom stood in the ranks at Austerlitz and Wagram, have been drawn up in three or four echelons, the foremost of which now advances up the slopes to the Allies’ position. The others follow at intervals, the drummers beating the “pas de charge.”]

CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music] Twice thirty throats of couchant cannonry— Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze Upon the advancing files—wait silently Like to black bulls at gaze. The Guard approaches nearer and more near: To touch-hole moves each match of smoky sheen: The ordnance roars: the van-ranks disappear As if wiped off the scene. The aged Friant falls as it resounds; Ney’s charger drops—his fifth on this sore day— Its rider from the quivering body bounds And forward foots his way. The cloven columns tread the English height, Seize guns, repulse battalions rank by rank, While horse and foot artillery heavily bite Into their front and flank. It nulls the power of a flesh-built frame To live within that zone of missiles. Back The Old Guard, staggering, climbs to whence it came. The fallen define its track. [The second echelon of the Imperial Guard has come up to the assault. Its columns have borne upon HALKETT’S right. HALKETT, desperate to keep his wavering men firm, himself seizes and waves the flag of the Thirty-third, in which act he falls wounded. But the men rally. Meanwhile the Fifty-second, covered by the Seventy-first, has advanced across the front, and charges the Imperial Guard on the flank. The third echelon next arrives at the English lines and squares; rushes through the very focus of their fire, and seeing nothing more in front, raises a shout.

IMPERIAL GUARD The Emperor! It’s victory!

WELLINGTON Stand up, Guards! Form line upon the front face of the square! [Two thousand of MAITLAND’S Guards, hidden in the hollow roadway, thereupon spring up, form as ordered, and reveal themselves as a fence of leveled firelocks four deep. The flints click in a multitude, the pans flash, and volley after volley is poured into the bear-skinned figures of the massed French, who kill COLONEL D’OYLEY in returning fire.]

WELLINGTON Now drive the fellows in! Go on; go on! You’ll do it now! [COLBORNE converges on the French guard with the Fifty-second, and The former splits into two as the climax comes. ADAM, MAITLAND, and COLBORNE pursue their advantage. The Imperial columns are broken, and their confusion is increased by grape-shot from BOLTON’S battery.] Campbell, this order next: Vivian’s hussars are to support, and bear Against the cavalry towards Belle Alliance. Go—let him know. [Sir C. CAMPBELL departs with the order. Soon VIVIAN’S and VANDELEUR’S light horse are seen advancing, and in due time the French cavalry are rolled back. WELLINGTON goes in the direction of the hussars with UXBRIDGE. A cannon-shot hisses past.]

UXBRIDGE [starting] I have lost my leg, by God!

WELLINGTON By God, and have you! Ay—the wind o’ the shot Blew past the withers of my Copenhagen Like the foul sweeping of a witch’s broom.— Aha—they are giving way! [While UXBRIDGE is being helped to the rear, WELLINGTON makes a sign to SALTOUN, Colonel of the First Footguards.]

SALTOUN [shouting] Boys, now’s your time; Forward and win!

FRENCH VOICES The Guard gives way—we are beaten! [They recede down the hill, carrying confusion into NAPOLÉON’S centre just as the Prussians press forward at a right angle from the other side of the field. NAPOLÉON is seen standing in the hollow beyond La Haye Sainte, alone, except for the presence of COUNT FLAHAULT, his aide-de-camp. His lips move with sudden exclamation.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS He says “Now all is lost! The clocks of the world Strike my last empery-hour.” [Towards La Haye Sainte the French of DONZELOT and ALLIX, who are fighting KEMPT, PACK, KRUSE, and LAMBERT, seeing what has happened to the Old and Middle Guard, lose heart and recede likewise; so that the whole French line rolls back like a tide. Simultaneously the Prussians are pressing forward at Papelotte and La Haye. The retreat of the French grows into a panic.]

FRENCH VOICES [despairingly] We are betrayed! [WELLINGTON rides at a gallop to the most salient point of the English position, halts, and waves his hat as a signal to all the army. The sign is answered by a cheer along the length of the line.]

WELLINGTON No cheering yet, my lads; but bear ahead, Before the inflamed face of the west out there Dons blackness. So you’ll round your victory! [The few aides that are left unhurt dart hither and thither with this message, and the whole English host and it allies advance in an ordered mass down the hill except some of the artillery, who cannot get their wheels over the bank of corpses in front. Trumpets, drums, and bugles resound with the advance. The streams of French fugitives as they run are cut down and shot by their pursuers, whose clothes and contracted features are blackened by smoke and cartridge-biting, and soiled with loam and blood. Some French blow out their own brains as they fly. The sun drops below the horizon while the slaughter goes on.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Is this the last Esdraelon of a moil For mortal man’s effacement?

SPIRIT IRONIC Warfare, mere, Plied by the Managed for the Managers; To wit: by frenzied folks who profit nought For those who profit all!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Between the jars Of these who live, I hear uplift and move The bones of those who placidly have lain Within the sacred garths of yon grey fanes— Nivelles, and Plancenoit, and Braine l’Alleud— Beneath the unmemoried mounds through deedless years Their dry jaws quake: “What Sabaoath is this, That shakes us in our unobtrusive shrouds, As though our tissues did not yet abhor The fevered feats of life?”

SPIRIT IRONIC Mere fancy’s feints! How know the coffined what comes after them, Even though it whirl them to the Pleiades?— Turn to the real.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR That hatless, smoke-smirched shape There in the vale, is still the living Ney, His sabre broken in his hand, his clothes Slitten with ploughing ball and bayonet, One epaulette shorn away. He calls out “Follow!” And a devoted handful follow him Once more into the carnage. Hear his voice.

NEY [calling afar] My friends, see how a Marshal of France can die!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Alas, not here in battle, something hints, But elsewhere!... Who’s the sworded brother-chief Swept past him in the tumult?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR D’Erlon he. Ney cries to him:

NEY Be sure of this, my friend, If we don’t perish here at English hands, Nothing is left us but the halter-noose The Bourbons will provide!

SPIRIT IRONIC A caustic wit, And apt, to those who deal in adumbrations! [The brave remnant of the Imperial Guard repulses for a time the English cavalry under Vivian, in which MAJOR HOWARD and LIEUTENANT GUNNING of the Tenth Hussars are shot. But the war-weary French cannot cope with the pursuing infantry, helped by grape-shot from the batteries. NAPOLÉON endeavours to rally them. It is his last effort as a warrior; and the rally ends feebly.]

NAPOLÉON They are crushed! So it has ever been since Crecy! [He is thrown violently off his horse, and bids his page bring another, which he mounts, and is lost to sight.]

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR He loses his last chance of dying well! [The three or four heroic battalions of the Old and Middle Guard fall back step by step, halting to reform in square when they get badly broken and shrunk. At last they are surrounded by the English Guards and other foot, who keep firing on them and smiting them to smaller and smaller numbers. GENERAL CAMBRONNE is inside the square.]

COLONEL HUGH HALKETT [shouting] Surrender! And preserve those heroes’ lives!

CAMBRONNE [with exasperation] Mer-r-rde!... You’ve to deal with desperates, man, today: Life is a byword here! [Hollow laughter, as from people in hell, comes approvingly from the remains of the Old Guard. The English proceed with their massacre, the devoted band thins and thins, and a ball strikes CAMBRONNE, who falls, and is trampled over.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Observe that all wide sight and self-command Desert these throngs now driven to demonry By the Immanent Unrecking. Nought remains But vindictiveness here amid the strong, And there amid the weak an impotent rage.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Why prompts the Will so senseless-shaped a doing?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS I have told thee that It works unwittingly, As one possessed, not judging.

SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music] Of Its doings if It knew, What It does It would not do!

SEMICHORUS II Since It knows not, what far sense Speeds Its spinnings in the Immense?

SEMICHORUS I None; a fixed foresightless dream Is Its whole philosopheme.

SEMICHORUS II Just so; an unconscious planning, Like a potter raptly panning!

CHORUS Are then, Love and Light Its aim— Good Its glory, Bad Its blame? Nay; to alter evermore Things from what they were before.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Your knowings of the Unknowable declared, Let the last pictures of the play be bared. [Enter, fighting, more English and Prussians against the French. NEY is caught by the throng and borne ahead. RULLIERE hides an eagle beneath his coat and follows Ney. NAPOLÉON is involved none knows where in the crowd of fugitives. WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER come severally to the view. They meet in the dusk and salute warmly. The Prussian bands strike up “God save the King” as the two shake hands. From his gestures of assent it can be seen that WELLINGTON accepts BLÜCHER’S offer to pursue. The reds disappear from the sky, and the dusk grows deeper. The action of the battle degenerates to a hunt, and recedes further and further into the distance southward. When the tramplings and shouts of the combatants have dwindled, the lower sounds are noticeable that come from the wounded: hopeless appeals, cries for water, elaborate blasphemies, and impotent execrations of Heaven and hell. In the vast and dusky shambles black slouching shapes begin to move, the plunderers of the dead and dying. The night grows clear and beautiful, and the moon shines musingly down. But instead of the sweet smell of green herbs and dewy rye as at her last beaming upon these fields, there is now the stench of gunpowder and a muddy stew of crushed crops and gore.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS So hath the Urging Immanence used to-day Its inadvertent might to field this fray: And Europe’s wormy dynasties rerobe Themselves in their old gilt, to dazzle anew the globe! [The scene us curtained by a night-mist.25]