The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 144

I have seen him go!

And while he pa.s.sed the gate I stood i' the crowd So close I could have touched him! Few discerned In one so soiled the erst Arch-Emperor!-- In the lax mood of him who has lost all He stood inert there, idly singing thin: "Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre!"--until his suite Came up with horses.

SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing afar]

Poniatowski's Poles Wearily walk the level causeway now; Also, meseems, Macdonald's corps and Reynier's.

The frail-framed, new-built bridge has broken down: They've but the old to cross by.

FIRST CITIZEN

Feeble foresight!

They should have had a dozen.

SECOND CITIZEN

All the corps-- Macdonald's, Poniatowski's, Reynier's--all-- Confusedly block the entrance to the bridge.

And--verily Blucher's troops are through the town, And are debouching from the Ranstadt Gate Upon the Frenchmen's rear!

[A thunderous report stops his words, echoing through the city from the direction in which he is gazing, and rattling all the windows.

A hoa.r.s.e chorus of cries becomes audible immediately after.]

FIRST, THIRD, ETC., CITIZENS

Ach, Heaven!--what's that?

SECOND CITIZEN

The bridge of Lindenau has been upblown!

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

There leaps to the sky and earthen wave, And stones, and men, as though Some rebel churchyard crew updrave Their sepulchres from below.

SEMICHORUS II

To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau; Wrecked regiments reel therefrom; And rank and file in ma.s.ses plough The sullen Elster-Strom.

SEMICHORUS I

A gulf is Lindenau; and dead Are fifties, hundreds, tens; And every current ripples red With marshals' blood and men's.

SEMICHORUS II

The smart Macdonald swims therein, And barely wins the verge; Bold Poniatowski plunges in Never to re-emerge!

FIRST CITIZEN

Are not the French across as yet, G.o.d save them?

SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing above]

Nor Reynier's corps, Macdonald's, Lauriston's, Nor yet the Poles.... And Blucher's troops approach, And all the French this side are prisoners.

--Now for our handling by the Prussian host; Scant courtesy for our king!

[Other citizens appear beside him at the window, and further conversation continues entirely above.]

CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS

The Battle of the Nations now is closing, And all is lost to One, to many gained; The old dynastic routine reimposing, The new dynastic structure unsustained.

Now every neighbouring realm is France's warder, And smirking satisfaction will be feigned: The which is seemlier?--so-called ancient order, Or that the hot-breath'd war-horse ramp unreined?

[The October night thickens and curtains the scene.]

SCENE VI

THE PYRENEES. NEAR THE RIVER NIVELLE

[Evening. The dining-room of WELLINGTON'S quarters. The table is laid for dinner. The battle of the Nivelle has just been fought.

Enter WELLINGTON, HILL, BERESFORD, STEWART, HOPE, CLINTON, COLBORNE, COLE, KEMPT [with a bound-up wound], and other officers.

WELLINGTON

It is strange that they did not hold their grand position more tenaciously against us to-day. By G.o.d, I don't quite see why we should have beaten them!

COLBORNE

My impression is that they had the stiffness taken out of them by something they had just heard of. Anyhow, startling news of some kind was received by those of the Eighty-eighth we took in the signal-redoubt after I summoned the Commandant.

WELLINGTON

Oh, what news?