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! XXIX. 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. XXX. 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. XXXI.