Note 289 — CANTO THE THIRD.
Reading edition
[With this "obstinate questioning" of the final import and outcome of "that world-famous Waterloo," compare the Ode from the French, "We do not curse thee, Waterloo," written in 1815, and published by John Murray in Poems (1816). Compare, too, The Age of Waterloo, v. 93, "Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!" and Don Juan, Canto VIII. stanzas xlviii.-l., etc. Shelley, too, in his sonnet on the Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte (1816), utters a like lament (Shelley's Works, 1895, ii. 385)—
"I know Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of Time."
Even Wordsworth, after due celebration of this "victory sublime," in his sonnet Emperors and Kings, etc. (Works, 1889, p. 557), solemnly admonishes the "powers"—
"Be just, be grateful; nor, the oppressor's creed Reviving heavier chastisement deserve Than ever forced unpitied hearts to bleed."
But the Laureate had no misgivings, and in The Poet's Pilgrimage, iv. 60, celebrates the national apotheosis—
"Peace hath she won ... with her victorious hand Hath won thro' rightful war auspicious peace; Nor this alone, but that in every land The withering rule of violence may cease. Was ever War with such blest victory crowned! Did ever Victory with such fruits abound!"]