if such vast valour will endure?

The Austro-Russians are withdrawn from the marshes by SCHWARZENBERG.
But the French cavalry also get entangled in the swamps, and
simultaneously MARMONT is beaten at Mockern.

Meanwhile NEY, to the north of Leipzig, having heard the battle
raging southward, leaves his position to assist it. He has nearly
arrived when he hears BLUCHER attacking at the point he came from,
and sends back some of his divisions.

BERTRAND has kept open the west road to Lindenau and the Rhine, the
only French line of retreat.

Evening finds the battle a drawn one. With the nightfall three blank
shots reverberate hollowly.

SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS

They sound to say that, for this moaning night,
As Nature sleeps, so too shall sleep the fight;
Neither the victor.

SEMICHORUS II

But, for France and him,
Half-won is losing!

CHORUS

Yea, his hopes drop dim,
Since nothing less than victory to-day
Had saved a cause whose ruin is delay!

The night gets thicker and no more is seen.

SCENE III

THE SAME, FROM THE TOWER OF THE PLEISSENBURG

[The tower commands a view of a great part of the battlefield.
Day has just dawned, and citizens, saucer-eyed from anxiety and
sleeplessness, are discover watching.]

FIRST CITIZEN

The wind increased at midnight while I watched,
With flapping showers, and clouds that combed the moon,
Till dawn began outheaving this huge day,
Pallidly--as if scared by its own issue;
This day that the Allies with bonded might
Have vowed to deal their felling finite blow.

SECOND CITIZEN

So must it be! They have welded close the coop
Wherein our luckless Frenchmen are enjailed
With such compression that their front has shrunk
From five miles' farness to but half as far.--
Men say Napoleon made resolve last night
To marshal a retreat. If so, his way
Is by the Bridge of Lindenau.

[They look across in the cold east light at the long straight
causeway from the Ranstadt Gate at the north-west corner of the
town, and the Lindenau bridge over the Elster beyond.]

FIRST CITIZEN

Last night I saw, like wolf-packs, hosts appear
Upon the Dresden road; and then, anon,
The already stout arrays of Schwarzenberg
Grew stoutened more. I witnessed clearly, too,
Just before dark, the