SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

To his shame.
We must discount war's generous impulses
I sadly see.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Be mute, and let spin on
This whirlwind of the Will!

[As NEY'S cavalry ascends the English position the swish of the
horses' breasts through the standing corn can be heard, and the
reverberation of hoofs increases in strength. The English gunners
stand with their portfires ready, which are seen glowing luridly
in the daylight. There is comparative silence.]

A VOICE

Now, captains, are you loaded?

CAPTAINS

Yes, my lord.

VOICE

Point carefully, and wait till their whole height
Shows above the ridge.

[When the squadrons rise in full view, within sixty yards of the
cannon-mouths, the batteries fire, with a concussion that shakes
the hill itself. Their shot punch holes through the front ranks
of the cuirassiers, and horse and riders fall in heaps. But they
are not stopped, hardly checked, galloping up to the mouths of the
guns, passing between the pieces, and plunging among the Allied
infantry behind the ridge, who, with the advance of the horsemen,
have sprung up from their prone position and formed into squares.]

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Ney guides the fore-front of the carabineers
Through charge and charge, with rapid recklessness.
Horses, cuirasses, sabres, helmets, men,
Impinge confusedly on the pointed prongs
Of the English kneeling there, whose dim red shapes
Behind their slanted steel seem trampled flat
And sworded to the sward. The charge recedes,
And lo, the tough lines rank there as before,
Save that they are shrunken.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Hero of heroes, too,
Ney, [not forgetting those who gird against him].--
Simple and single-souled lieutenant he;
Why should men's many-valued motions take
So barbarous a groove!

[The cuirassiers and lancers surge round the English and Allied
squares like waves, striking furiously on them and well-nigh
breaking them. They stand in dogged silence amid the French
cheers.]

WELLINGTON [to the nearest square]

Hard pounding this, my men! I truly trust
You'll pound the longest!

SQUARE

Hip-hip-hip-hurrah!

MUFFLING [again referring to his