A moment pause, ye British fair, While pleasure’s phantom ye pursue, And say if dance and sprightly air Suit with the name of Waterloo. Dearly bought the victory, Chasten’d should the triumph be; ’Midst the laurels she has won, Britain weeps for many a son. Veil’d in clouds the morning rose, Nature seem’d to mourn the day Which consign’d before its close Thousands to their kindred clay. How unfit for courtly ball, Or the giddy festival, Was the grim and ghastly view Ere evening closed on Waterloo. See the Highland warrior rushing, First in danger, on the foe, Till the life-blood, stemless gushing, Lays the plaided hero low. His native pipe’s heart-thrilling sound, ’Mid war’s infernal concert drown’d, Cannot soothe his last adieu, Nor wake his sleep on Waterloo. Crashing o’er the cuirassier, See the foaming charger flying, Trampling in his wild career, All alike, the dead and dying. See the bullets pierce his side, See, amid a crimson tide, Helmet, horse, and rider too, Roll on bloody Waterloo. Shall sights like these the dance inspire, Or wake the jocund notes of mirth? Oh, shiver’d be the recreant lyre That gave the base idea birth! Other sounds, I ween, were there, Other music rent the air, Other _Waltz_ the warriors knew, When they closed at Waterloo. Forbear, till time with lenient hand Has heal’d the wounds of recent sorrow, And let the picture distant stand, The softening hue of years to borrow. When our race has pass’d away, Hands unborn may wake the lay, And give to joy alone the view Of victory at Waterloo. [Sidenote: WILLIAM FORSYTH.]