A wingèd Goddess--clothed in vesture wrought Of rainbow colours; One whose port was bold, Whose overburthened hand could scarcely hold The glittering crowns and garlands which it brought-- Hovered in air above the far-famed Spot. 5 She vanished; leaving prospect blank and cold Of wind-swept corn that wide around us rolled In dreary billows, wood, and meagre cot, And monuments that soon must disappear: Yet a dread local recompense we found; 10 While glory seemed betrayed, while patriot-zeal Sank in our hearts, we felt as men _should_ feel[481] With such vast hoards of hidden carnage near, And horror breathing from the silent ground! "Namur, Tuesday 18th.--Our ride yesterday, except for the intervention of Waterloo, and its interests, which were so melancholy that I do not like to touch upon them, was a dull one, though the road was pleasant through the forest of Soignies. Waterloo, its pretty chapel, the walls within covered with monuments, recording the fall of many of our brave countrymen, and some few others as brave, La Haye Sainte, La Belle Alliance, Quatre Bras. Dined at Genappe; two bullet shots in the wainscot of the room, which, during the battle, had been heaped with dead and dying." (From Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal.) "Monday, 17th July, Brussels.--I could understand little till we got to the field of battle, where we stood upon an elevation; and thence, looking round upon every memorable spot, by help of gesture and action, and the sounds 'les Anglois, les Francois,' etc. etc., I gathered up a small portion of the story, helped out by a few monuments erected to the memory of the slain; but all round, there was no other visible record of slaughter: the wide fields were covered with luxuriant crops, just as they had been before the battles, except that now the corn was nearly ripe, and _then_ it was green. We stood upon grass, and corn fields where _heaps_ of our countrymen lay buried beneath our feet. There was little to be seen, but much to be felt; sorrow and sadness, and even something like horror breathed out of the ground as we stood upon it!" (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.) Compare the two sonnets _Occasioned by the Battle of Waterloo, February, 1816_, also the _Thanksgiving Ode_.--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 481: 1827. She vanished--All was joyless, blank, and cold; But if from wind-swept fields of corn that roll'd In dreary billows, from the meagre cot, And monuments that soon may disappear, Meanings we craved which could not there be found; If the wide prospect seemed an envious seal Of great exploits; we felt as Men _should_ feel, 1822. ] V BETWEEN[482] NAMUR AND LIEGE