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.’ XXII. 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. XXIII.