Alas! Where are the Eagles? THE VOICES. Water!--This brook runs blood!--Yet let me drink! I thirst!--I die!--God's curse!--I'm hurt!--Mother! THE DUKE. Ah! A VOICE. For God's sake! put a bullet through my head! THE DUKE. Ah! Now I understand my wakeful nights-- A VOICE. Curse the Light Cavalry! They're base assassins! THE DUKE. The racking cough that wakes me in a sweat! A VOICE. I cannot drag my leg! Oh, wrench it off! THE DUKE. The blood I spit! I know whose blood it is! THE PLAIN. Ah!--Ah--! THE DUKE. And all the arms! And all the arms I see! The handless wrists! The hands with shattered fingers! The monstrous harvest which a mighty wind Bends me-ward with a curse! Oh! Mercy! Mercy! Old Cuirassier, groaning with outstretched hands-- Horrible agonized hands with bloody wrists!-- Mercy! Poor little Private of the Guards, Who slowly raise your livid face to mine! Look not upon me with those glazing eyes! Why do you creep upon me through the gloom? God! 'Tis as though you strove to utter cries! Why do you all suck in a mighty breath? Why do you open horror-sated lips? What will you cry?--What?--What? ALL THE VOICES. Long live the Emperor! THE DUKE. Ah! Pardon, for the glory's sake!--I thank you. I understand. I am the expiation. All was not paid, and I complete the price. 'Twas fated I should seek his battle-field, And here, above the multitudinous dead, Be the white victim, growing daily whiter, Renouncing, praying, asking but to suffer, Yearning toward heaven, like sacrificial incense! And while betwixt the heavens and this field I am outstretched with all my soul and body, Father, I feel the shuddering furrows rise, I feel the hill upheaved beneath my feet To lift me gently to the stooping heavens! 'Tis meet and right the battle-field should offer This sacrifice, that henceforth it may bear Pure and unstained its name of Victory. Wagram, behold me! Ransom of old days, Son, offered for, alas! how many sons! Above the dreadful haze wherein thou stirrest, Uplift me, Wagram, in thy scarlet hands! It must be so! I know it! Feel it! Will it! The breath of death has rustled through my hair! The shudder of death has passed athwart my soul! I am all white: a sacramental Host! What more reproaches can they hurl, O Father, Against our hapless fate?--Oh, hush! I add In silence Schönbrunn to Saint Helena!-- 'Tis done!--But if the Eaglet is resigned To perish like the innocent, yielding swan, Nailed in the gloom above some lofty gate, He must become the high and holy signal That scares the ravens and calls back the eagles. There must be no more meanings in the field, Nor dreadful writhings in the underwood. Bear on thy wings, O whirlwind of the plain, The shouts of conquerors and songs of triumph! [_A proud and joyous clamor arises in the distance._] I've changed the meanings into trumpet blasts! [_The wind wafts vague sounds of trumpet-calls._]