| |
| FAIR Brussels, thou art far behind, | |
| Though, lingering on the morning wind, | |
| We yet may hear the hour | |
| Pealed over orchard and canal, | |
| With voice prolonged, and measured fall, | 5 |
| From proud Saint Michael’s tower. | |
| Thy wood, dark Soignies, holds us now, | |
| Where the tall beeches’ glossy bough | |
| For many a league around, | |
| With birch and darksome oak between, | 10 |
| Spreads deep and far a pathless screen | |
| Of tangled forest-ground. | |
| Stems planted close by stems defy | |
| The adventurous foot,—the curious eye | |
| For access seeks in vain! | 15 |
| And the brown tapestry of leaves, | |
| Strewed on the blighted ground, receives | |
| Nor sun, nor air, nor rain. | |
| No opening glade dawns on our way, | |
| No streamlet, glancing to the ray, | 20 |
| Our woodland path has crossed; | |
| And the straight causeway which we tread | |
| Prolongs a line of dull arcade, | |
| Unvarying through the unvaried shade, | |
| Until in distance lost. | 25 |
| |
| A brighter, livelier scene succeeds; | |
| In groups the scattering wood recedes, | |
| Hedgerows, and huts, and sunny meads, | |
| And cornfields glance between; | |
| The peasant, at his labor blithe, | 30 |
| Plies the hooked staff and shortened scythe; | |
| But when these ears were green, | |
| Placed close within destruction’s scope, | |
| Full little was that rustic’s hope | |
| Their ripening to have seen! | 35 |
| And lo! a hamlet and its fane: | |
| Let not the gazer with disdain | |
| Their architecture view; | |
| For yonder rude ungraceful shrine | |
| And disproportioned spire are thine, | 40 |
| Immortal Waterloo! * * * * * | |
| Ay, look again,—that line so black | |
| And trampled marks the bivouac, | |
| Yon deep-graved ruts, the artillery’s track, | |
| So often lost and won; | 45 |
| And close beside, the hardened mud | |
| Still shows where, fetlock-deep in blood, | |
| The fierce dragoon, through battle’s flood, | |
| Dashed the hot war-horse on. | |
| These spots of excavation tell | 50 |
| The ravage of the bursting shell,— | |
| And feel’st thou not the tainted steam, | |
| That reeks against the sultry beam, | |
| From yonder trenched mound? | |
| The pestilential fumes declare | 55 |
| That Carnage has replenished there | |
| Her garner-house profound. * * * * * | |
| Pale Brussels! then what thoughts were thine, | |
| When ceaseless from the distant line | |
| Continued thunders came! | 60 |
| Each burgher held his breath to hear | |
| These forerunners of havoc near, | |
| Of rapine and of flame. | |
| What ghastly sights were thine to meet, | |
| When rolling through thy stately street, | 65 |
| The wounded show their mangled plight | |
| In token of the unfinished fight, | |
| And from each anguish-laden wain | |
| The blood-drops laid thy dust like rain! | |
| How often in the distant drum | 70 |
| Heard’st thou the fell invader come, | |
| While Ruin, shouting to his band, | |
| Shook high her torch and gory brand!— | |
| Cheer thee, fair city! from yon stand, | |
| Impatient, still his outstretched hand | 75 |
| Points to his prey in vain, | |
| While maddening in his eager mood, | |
| And all unwont to be withstood | |
| He fires the fight again. * * * * * | |
| On came the whirlwind,—like the last | 80 |
| But fiercest sweep of tempest blast,— | |
| On came the whirlwind,—steel gleams broke | |
| Like lightning through the rolling smoke. | |
| The war was waked anew; | |
| Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud, | 85 |
| And from their throats, with flash and cloud, | |
| Their showers of iron threw. | |
| Beneath their fire, in full career, | |
| Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier, | |
| The lancer couched his ruthless spear, | 90 |
| And hurrying as to havoc near, | |
| The cohorts’ eagles flew. | |
| In one dark torrent, broad and strong, | |
| The advancing onset rolled along, | |
| Forth harbingered by fierce acclaim, | 95 |
| That from the shroud of smoke and flame | |
| Pealed wildly the imperial name. * * * * * | |
| Farewell, sad field! whose blighted face | |
| Wears desolation’s withering trace; | |
| Long shall my memory retain | 100 |
| Thy shattered huts and trampled grain, | |
| With every mark of martial wrong, | |
| That scathe thy towers, fair Hougoumont! | |
| Yet though thy garden’s green arcade | |
| The marksman’s fatal post was made, | 105 |
| Though on thy shattered beeches fell | |
| The blended rage of shot and shell, | |
| Though from thy blackened portals torn, | |
| Their fall thy blighted fruit-trees mourn, | |
| Has not such havoc bought a name | 110 |
| Immortal in the rolls of fame? | |
| Yes,—Agincourt may be forgot, | |
| And Cressy be an unknown spot, | |
| And Blenheim’s name be new; | |
| But still in story and in song, | 115 |
| For many an age remembered long, | |
| Shall live the towers of Hougoumont, | |
| And field of Waterloo. | |
| |
