The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 108

NAPOLEON

It shall not be! Our burst of natal joy Must not be sullied by so mean a thing: Aid shall be rendered. Much as we may suffer, England must suffer more, and I am content.

What has come in from Spain and Portugal?

BERTHIER

Vaguely-voiced rumours, sire, but nothing more, Which travel countries quick as earthquake thrills, No mortal knowing how.

NAPOLEON

Of Ma.s.sena?

BERTHIER

Yea. He retreats for prudence' sake, it seems, Before Lord Wellington. Dispatches soon Must reach your Majesty, explaining all.

NAPOLEON

Ever retreating! Why declines he so From all his olden prowess? Why, again, Did he give battle at Busaco lately, When Lisbon could be marched on without strain?

Why has he dallied by the Tagus bank And shunned the obvious course? I gave him Ney, Soult, and Junot, and eighty thousand men, And he does nothing. Really it might seem As though we meant to let this Wellington Be even with us there!

BERTHIER

His mighty forts At Torres Vedras hamper Ma.s.sena, And quite preclude advance.

NAPOLEON

O well--no matter: Why should I linger on these haps of war Now that I have a son!

[Exeunt NAPOLEON by one door and by another the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, CAMBACERES, LEBRUN, BERTHIER, and officials.]

CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]

The Will Itself is slave to him, And holds it blissful to obey!-- He said, "Go to; it is my whim

"To bed a bride without delay, Who shall unite my dull new name With one that shone in Caesar's day.

"She must conceive--you hear my claim?-- And bear a son--no daughter, mind-- Who shall hand on my form and fame

"To future times as I have designed; And at the birth throughout the land Must cannon roar and alp-horns wind!"

The Will grew conscious at command, And ordered issue as he planned.

[The interior of the Palace is veiled.]

SCENE IV

SPAIN. ALBUERA

[The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the village of Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summit of a line of hills on which the English and their allies are ranged under Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to the right foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detached from the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill are untrodden--though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of the most murderous struggle of the whole war.

The village itself lies to the left foreground, with its stream flowing behind it in the distance on the right. A creeping brook at the bottom of the heights held by the English joins the stream by the village. Behind the stream some of the French forces are visible. Away behind these stretches a great wood several miles in area, out of which the Albuera stream emerges, and behind the furthest verge of the wood the morning sky lightens momently. The birds in the wood, unaware that this day is to be different from every other day they have known there, are heard singing their overtures with their usual serenity.]

DUMB SHOW

As objects grow more distinct it can be perceived that some strategic dispositions of the night are being completed by the French forces, which the evening before lay in the woodland to the front of the English army. They have emerged during the darkness, and large sections of them--infantry, cuira.s.siers, and artillery--have crept round to BERESFORD'S right without his suspecting the movement, where they lie hidden by the great hill aforesaid, though not more than half-a-mile from his right wing.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

A hot ado goes forward here to-day, If I may read the Immanent Intent From signs and tokens blent With weird unrest along the firmament Of causal coils in pa.s.sionate display.

--Look narrowly, and what you witness say.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I see red smears upon the sickly dawn, And seeming drops of gore. On earth below Are men--unnatural and mechanic-drawn-- Mixt nationalities in row and row, Wheeling them to and fro In moves dissociate from their souls' demand, For dynasts' ends that few even understand!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Speak more materially, and less in dream.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

I'll do it.... The stir of strife grows well defined Around the hamlet and the church thereby: Till, from the wood, the ponderous columns wind, Guided by G.o.dinot, with Werle nigh.

They bear upon the vill. But the gruff guns Of d.i.c.kson's Portuguese Punch spectral vistas through the maze of these!...

More Frenchmen press, and roaring antiphons Of cannonry contuse the roofs and walls and trees.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Wrecked are the ancient bridge, the green spring plot, the blooming fruit-tree, the fair flower-knot!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Yet the true mischief to the English might Is meant to fall not there. Look to the right, And read the shaping scheme by yon hill-side, Where cannon, foot, and brisk dragoons you see, With Werle and Latour-Maubourg to guide, Waiting to breast the hill-brow bloodily.