The Battle of Talavera — Themes and Context

Fly to their guardian sea. On then!--let _Britain_ prove our might! _Her’s_ be the trial of the fight, The peril and the pain! Press her with growing thousands round, Dash that red banner to the ground, And seal the fate of Spain!’

Thus France her baseless vision forms: But HE,--long tried in battle storms-- In Ind’s unequal war Scattering, like dust, the sable swarms Of Scindiah and Berar; He, conqueror still where’er he turns, On Zealand’s frozen reign, Or where the sultry summer burns Vimero’s rocky plain; Who, from his tyrant station shook, With grasp of steel, Abrantes’ Duke; HE, who from Douro’s rescued side, Dispersed Dalmatia’s upstart pride;-- In fortune and desert, the same On every scene of war, Sebastiani’s pride shall tame; And practised Jourdan’s veteran fame, And Victor! thy portentous name Shall fade before his star!

In front of Talavera’s wall, And near the confluent streams, the Gaul His royal banner rears to sight, With all the borrow’d blazon bright Of Leon and Castille; And seems to meditate a fight That Spain alone shall feel. Oh, vain pretence! to Wellesley’s eyes, As pervious as the air! He knows, that while the red cross flies, From the strong covert, where she lies Entrench’d and shelter’d, Spain defies The utmost France can dare-- That Britain, on her blood-stain’d hill, The brunt of fight must bear-- And France, though baffled thrice, will still Strain all her force, exhaust her skill, To plant her eagles there; Which soon, from that commanding height Would speed their desolating flight, And, sweeping o’er the scatter’d plain, The hopes of England and of Spain With iron talon tear.

Now from the dark artillery broke Lightning flash and thunder stroke; And cloud on cloud of fiery smoke Rolls in the darken’d air: Wrapp’d in its shade, unheard, unseen, Artful surprise and onset keen The crafty foes prepare-- Three columns of the flower of France With rapid step and firm, advance, At first thro’ tangled ground, O’er fence and dell and deep ravine; At length they reach the level green-- The midnight battle’s murderous scene-- The valley’s eastern bound. There in a rapid line they form, Thence are just rushing to the storm By bold Belluno led, When sudden thunders shake the vale, Day seems, as if eclipsed, to fail, The light of heaven is fled; A dusty whirlwind rides the sky, A living tempest rushes by With deafening clang and tread-- ‘A charge! a charge!’ the British cry, ‘And Seymour at its head.’

Belluno sees the coming storm, And feels the instant need-- ‘Break up the line, the column form, And break and form with speed, Or under Britain’s thundering arm In rout and ruin bleed!’ Quick, as upon the sea-beat sands Vanish the works of childish hands, The lengthen’d lines are gone, And broken into nimble bands Across the plain they run: ‘Spur, Britain, spur thy foaming horse, O’ertake them in their scatter’d course, And sweep them from the land!’ She spurs, she flies; in vain, in vain-- Already they have pass’d the plain, And now the broken ground they gain, And now, a column, stand! ‘Rein up thy courser, Britain, rein!’-- But who the tempest can restrain? The mountain flood command? Down the ravine, with hideous crash, Headlong the foremost squadrons dash, And many a soldier, many a steed Crush’d in the dire confusion bleed. The rest, as ruin fills the trench, Pass clear, and on the column’d French, A broken and tumultuous throng, With glorious rashness pour along, Too prodigal of life; And they had died, ay every one, But Wellesley cries, ‘On, Anson, on, Langworth, and Albuquerque and Payne, Lead Britain, Hanover, and Spain, And turn the unequal strife.’

Needs it to tell how fierce the flame Burn’d of that doubtful strife, Whose precious prize was life, and fame More precious still than life!-- By France what English hearts were gor’d, What crests were cleft by Britain’s sword, When horse and foot infuriate met, And sabre clash’d with bayonet, And how they fought and how they fell, And man and steed, ’midst shout and yell, The field of carnage strew’d: It were a tedious tale to tell, A tedious tale of blood. But when the fierce and cloudless sun Blazed from his noontide height, And ere the field was lost or won, Worn and unable quite The hostile stroke to make or shun, Faint, breathless, all with toil foredone, They paus’d amid the fight! Oft, when the midnight tempests sweep With fiercest fury o’er the deep, Short, sullen pauses intervene, And, ev’ry fitful gust between, The stormy roar is still’d: Thus was the rage of battle staid, And clash of bayonet and blade Subsided o’er the field: Hush’d was the shout, the tumult laid, And each receding line obey’d The truce which weary nature made, And mutual honour seal’d.

There is a brook, that from its source High in the rocky hill, Pours o’er the plain its limpid course, To pay to Teio’s monarch force Its tributary rill; Which, in the peaceful summer-tide, The swarthy shepherd sits beside, And loitering, as it rolls along In cadence pours his rustic song-- Carol of love or pious chaunt, Or tale of knight and giant gaunt, And lady captive held; Or strains, not fabled, of the war, Where the great champion of Bivar The Moorish pagan quell’d. But now, no shepherd loiters there-- He flies, with all his fleecy care, To mountains high and far, And starts, and breathless stops to hear Borne on the breeze, and to his fear Seeming, at every gust, more near, The distant roar of war.

But on the streamlet’s margin green Other than shepherd forms are seen; And sounds, unlike the rustic song, The troubled current rolls along; When, of the cooling wave to taste, From either host the warriors haste With busy tread and hum: You would have thought that streamlet bound Were listed field or sacred ground Where battle might not come. So late in adverse contest tried, So deep in recent carnage dyed, To mutual honour they confide Their mutual fates; nor shrink To throw the cap and helm aside, As, mingled o’er the narrow tide, They bend their heads to drink; Or, nature’s feverish wants supplied, Unarm’d, unguarded, side by side, Safe in a soldier’s faith and pride They rest them on the brink. They speak not--in each others phrase Unskill’d--but yet the thoughts of praise, And honour to unfold, The heart has utterance of its own; And ere the signal trump was blown, And ere the drum had roll’d, The honest grasp of manly hands, That common link of distant lands, That sign which nature understands, The generous feeling told: The high and sacred pledge it gave, That both were true, and both were brave, And something added of regret, At parting when so lately met, And (not developed quite) Some dubious hopes of meeting yet As heaven their devious paths might set, In friendship or in fight.

But short the truce that they can keep-- For now the signals shrill Sounding along, from plain and steep, Longer forbid the fight to sleep; Light from the ground the warriors leap, And seize the rein and steel: All arm’d, all ardent, all array’d, Again their weapons wield; And echoing thro’ the livid shade, The clash of bayonet and blade Revives along the field. The hurried fight from post to post, Kindles, but on the center most, Whence, hoping on a happier stage, The renovated war to wage, France now assails the hill, And pours with aggregated rage The storm of fire and steel; Soon from the eye the hostile crowd The gathering shade conceals, While from its bosom, long and loud, Like thunder from a vernal cloud, The din of battle peals.

But when the freshening breezes broke A chasm in the volumed smoke, Busy and black was seen to wave The iron harvest of the field,-- That harvest, which, in slaughter till’d, Is gathered in the grave:-- And now before their mutual fires They yield, and now advance; And now ’tis Britain that retires, And now the line of France: They struggle long with changeful fate; And all the battle’s various cries, Now depress’d and now elate, In mingled clamours rise; Till France at length before the weight Of British onset flies: ‘Forward,’ the fiery victors shout, ‘Forward, the enemy’s in rout, Pursue him and he dies!’

Hot and impetuous they pursued, And wild with carnage, drunk with blood, Rush’d on the plain below; The wily Frenchman saw and stood-- Screen’d by the verges of the wood He turn’d him on the foe. The gallant bands that guard the crown Of England, led the battle down, And, in their furious mood, Thrice they essay’d with onset fierce, Thrice fail’d, collected France to pierce-- Still France collected, stood! While full on each uncover’d flank Cannon and mortar swept their rank, And many a generous Briton sank Before the dreadful blaze; Yet ’midst that dreadful blaze and din The fearless shout they raise, And ever, as their numbers thin, Fresh spirits rush unbidden in, Thoughtless, but how the meed to win Of peril and of praise. And still, as with a blacker shade Fortune obscures the day, Commingled thro’ the fight they wade, And hand to hand and blade to blade, Their blind and furious efforts braid, As if, still dark and disarray’d, They fought the midnight fray.

In vain.--New hopes and fresher force Inspirit France, and urge her course, A torrent, rapid, wild, and hoarse, On Britain’s wavering train. As when, before the wintery skies, The struggling forests sink and rise, And rise and sink again, While the gale scatters as it flies Their ruins o’er the plain; Before the tempest of her foes, So England sank, and England rose, And, though still rooted in the vale, Strew’d her rent branches on the gale. Then, Wellesley! on thy tortured thought With ripening hopes of glory fraught, What honest anguish crost! Oh, how thy generous bosom burn’d, To see the tide of victory turn’d, And Spain and England lost!-- Lost--but that, as the peril great And rising with the storms of fate, His rapid genius soars, Sees, at a glance, his whole resource, Drains from each stronger point its force, And on the weaker pours: Present where’er his soldiers bleed, He rushes thro’ the fray, And, (so the doubtful chances need,) In high emprize and desperate deed, Squanders himself away!

Now from the summit, at his call, A gallant legion firm and slow Advances on victorious Gaul; Undaunted, though their comrades fall! Unshaken, though their leader’s low! Fix’d--as the high and buttress’d mound Which guards some leaguer’d city round, They stand unmoved--Behind them form The scatter’d fragments of the storm; While on their sheltering front, amain France drives, with all her thundering train, Her full career of death: But drives not long her full career, For now, that living bulwark near, Fault’ring between fatigue and fear She stops and pants for breath: That dubious pause, that wavering rest, The Britons seize, and breast to breast Opposing, havoc’s arm arrest, And from the foe’s exulting crest, Tear down the laurel wreath.

Nor does the gallant foe resign, Even while his hopes and strength decline, A tame inglorious prize;-- Long, long on Britain’s rallied line The deadly fire he plies; Long, long where Britain’s banners shine He vainly toils and dies! Ne’er to a battle’s fiercer groan Did mountain echo roar, Nor ever evening blush upon A redder field of gore. But feebler now, and feebler still, The panting French assail the hill, And weaker grows their cannon’s roar, And thinner falls their missile shower, Fainter their clanging steel; The hot and furious fit is o’er, They shout--they charge--they stand no more-- And staggering in the slippery gore, Their very leaders reel.

But shooting high and rolling far, What new and horrid face of war Now flushes on the sight? ’Tis France, as furious she retires, That wreaks, in desolating fires, The vengeance of her flight. Already parch’d by summer’s sun, The grassy vale the flames o’er-run; And, sweeping wreath’d and light Before the wind, the thickets seize, And climb the dry and withered trees, In flashes long and bright. Oh! ’twas a scene sublime and dire, To see that billowy sea of fire, Rolling its flaky tide O’er cultured field and tangled wood, And drowning in the flaming flood The seasons’ hope and pride!

From Talavera’s wall and tower And from the mountain’s height, Where they had stood for many an hour To view the varying fight, Burghers and peasants in amaze Behold their groves and vineyards blaze: Calm they had view’d the bloody fray, And little thought that France’s groan And England’s sigh, ere close of day, Should mingle with their own! But ah! far other cries than these Are wafted on the dismal breeze-- Groans, not the wounded’s lingering groan-- Shrieks, not the shriek of death alone-- But groan, and shriek, and yell, Of terror, torture, and despair; Such as ’twould chill the heart to hear And freeze the tongue to tell-- When to the very field of fight, Dreadful alike in sound and sight, The conflagration spread, Involving in its fiery wave The brave and reliques of the brave-- The dying and the dead!

And now again the evening sheds Her dewy veil on Teio’s side, And from the Sierra’s rocky heads The giant shadows stride; And all is dim and dark again-- Save here and there upon the plain, Still flash the baleful fires, Across the umber’d face of night Casting a dull and flickering light, As if from funeral pyres. But since the close of yester-e’en How alter’d is the martial scene! Again, in night’s surrounding veil, France moves her busy bands--but now She comes not, venturous, to assail The victors in their guarded vale, Or on the mountain’s brow-- Dash’d from her triumph’s windy car She mourns the wayward fate of war, And baffled and dishearten’d, o’er Alberche’s stream and from his shore, With silent haste she speeds, Nor dares, ev’n at that midnight hour, To snatch the rest she needs; Far from the field where late she fought-- The tents where late she lay-- With rapid step and humbled thought, All night she holds her way: Leaving, to Britain’s conquering sons, Standards rent and ponderous guns, The trophies of the fray! The weak, the wounded, and the slain-- The triumph of the battle plain-- The glory of the day!

I would not check the tender sigh, Nor chide the pious tear, That heaves the heart and dims the eye For friend or kinsman dear; Ev’n when their honoured reliques lie On victory’s proudest bier; But I would say, for those that die In honour’s high career, For those in glory’s grave who sleep, Weep fondly, but, _exulting_, weep! More freshly from the untimely tomb Renown’s eternal laurels bloom With sullen cypress twined. Fortune is fickle and unsure, And worth and fame to be secure Must be in death enshrin’d!

I too have known what ’tis to part With the first inmate of my heart-- To feel the bonds of nature riven-- To witness o’er the glowing dawn, The spring of youth, the fire of heaven, The grave’s deep shadows drawn! He sleeps not on the gory plain The slumber of the brave-- Dear Victim of disease, and pain, Where high Madeira’s summits reign Far o’er the Atlantic wave, He sought eluding health--in vain-- Health never lit his eye again, He fills a foreign grave! Oh, had he lived, his hand to-day Had woven for the victor’s brow, Such garland of immortal bay, Such chaplet as the enraptured lay Of genius may bestow! Or,--since ’twas Heaven’s severer doom To snatch him to an earlier tomb-- Would, Wellesley, would that he had died Beneath thine eye and at thy side! It would have lighten’d sorrow’s load, Had thy applause on him bestow’d The fame he loved in thee; And rear’d his honoured tomb beside Those of the gallant hearts who died, Their kinsmen’s, friends’, and country’s pride, In Talavera’s victory!

SUNG AT THE DINNER GIVEN BY THE GENTLEMEN FROM INDIA TO FIELD-MARSHAL THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, K.G. MONDAY, JULY 11, 1814.

Victor of Assaye’s orient plain;-- Victor of all the fields of Spain;-- Victor of France’s despot reign;-- Thy task of glory done! Welcome!--from dangers greatly dared; From triumphs, with the vanquish’d shared; From nations saved, and nations spared; Unconquer’d Wellington!--

_Unconquer’d!_ yet thy honours claim A nobler, than a Conqueror’s, name;-- At the red wreaths of guilty fame Thy generous soul had blush’d: The blood--the tears the world has shed-- The throngs of mourners--piles of dead-- The grief--the guilt--are on _his_ head, The Tyrant thou hast crush’d.

Thine was the sword which Justice draws; Thine was the pure and generous cause, Of holy rites and human laws The impious thrall to burst; And _thou_ wast destin’d for thy part! The noblest mind, the firmest heart, Artless--but in the warrior’s art-- And in that art, the first.

And WE, who in the eastern skies Beheld thy Sun of glory rise, Still follow, with exulting eyes, His proud Meridian height. Late,--on thy grateful country’s breast, Late, may that Sun descend to rest, Beaming through all the glowing West The memory of his light.

Wave, wave, the banners of the fight; Be every breast in armour dight, And every soul on fire! To trembling Europe’s frighted eyes, Red let the sun of battle rise; And bloody be the morning skies That bring the day of ire!

Whose impious voice, from his dark cave Wakes the destroyer of the brave? What hand prepares their tomb? ’Tis He, Ambition’s perjured sprite, ’Tis He, that waves the flags of fight, ’Tis He, in clouds of deadliest night, Who weaves the warrior’s doom.

Weep, weep, ye gentle dames of France, Ye, whose devoted sons advance To Britain’s fatal shore: O! kiss their lips before ye part, O! press them to your bursting heart-- Save in a dream’s convulsive start-- Ye ne’er shall clasp them more.

Arouse, arouse, ye British dames, With words of fire, the patriot flames That burn for glorious deed. For him that lives, the raptur’d eye Of love shall dance! for those who die, Their ladies’ tears, their country’s sigh, Shall be the sacred meed!

Though I do love my country’s weal As well as any soul that breathes; Though more than filial pride I feel To see her crown’d, with conqu’ring wreaths;

Yet from my heart do I deplore Her recent triumphs on the main-- Those laurels dripping red with gore-- That victory bought with NELSON slain.

Oh! dearest conquest, heaviest loss, That England’s hope and heart have known Since first, in fight, her blood-red cross O’er the great deep triumphant shone.--

And she should wail that conquest dear, And she that heavy loss should mourn; Hallow with sighs her Hero’s bier, And gem with tears her Hero’s urn.

Shame on the wild and callous rout That lights for joy its countless fires, That hails the day with madd’ning shout, While HE, who won the day, expires!

It was, indeed, a glorious day,-- And every homage of the heart Were just, that rescued realms can pay, Had NELSON lived to share his part.

Had NELSON lived to hear our praise, I too had hymn’d the victor’s song; I too had lit the joyous blaze, And wildly join’d the exulting throng.

But HE is blind to pageant gay, And he is deaf to joyous strain; And I will raise no pleasant lay, And swell no pomp for NELSON slain.

But I will commune with my mind, To celebrate its darling Chief What worthiest tribute it may find Of soften’d pride, of temper’d grief.