Wessex Poems and Other Verses

Scattered that champaign o’er.

Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau
Did that red sunset see;
Colbert, Legros, Blancard!.. And of the foe
Picton and Ponsonby;

With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,
L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,
Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,

Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,
And hosts of ranksmen round.
Memorials linger yet to speak to thee
Of those that bit the ground!

The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead
Lay between vale and ridge,
As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped
In packs to Genappe Bridge.

Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;
Intact each cock and hen;
But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,
And thirty thousand men.

O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn
And saved the cause once prized!
O Saints, why such false witness had I borne
When late I’d sympathized!.

So now, being old, my children eye askance
My slowly dwindling store,
And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,
I care for life no more.

To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,
And Virgin-Saint Marie;
O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,
Entreat the Lord for me!

THE ALARM

(1803)

See “The Trumpet-Major”

In Memory of one of the Writer’s Family who was a

Volunteer during the War with Napoleon

In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.

’Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on
A harnessed Volunteer.

In haste he’d flown there
To his comely wife alone there,
While marching south hard by, to still her fears,
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there
In these campaigning years.

’Twas time to be Good-bying,
Since the assembly-hour was nighing
In royal George’s town at six that morn;
And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing
Ere ring of bugle-horn.

“I’ve laid in food, Dear,
And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear;
And if our July hope should antedate,
Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear,
And fetch assistance straight.

“As for Buonaparte, forget him;
He’s not like to land!  But let him,
Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!
And the war-boats built to float him; ’twere but wanted to upset him
A slat from Nelson’s guns!

“But, to assure thee,
And of creeping fears to cure thee,
If he should be rumoured anchoring in the Road,
Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure thee
Till we’ve him safe-bestowed.

“Now, to turn to marching matters: —
I’ve my knapsack, firelock, spatters,
Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay’net, blackball, clay,
Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step clatters;
.. My heart, Dear; that must stay!”