Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau Did that red sunset see; Colbert, Legros, Blancard! . . . And of the foe Picton and Ponsonby; With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda, L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe, Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay, Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek, Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby, And hosts of ranksmen round . . . Memorials linger yet to speak to thee Of those that bit the ground! The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead Lay between vale and ridge, As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped In packs to Genappe Bridge. Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain; Intact each cock and hen; But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain, And thirty thousand men. O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn And saved the cause once prized! O Saints, why such false witness had I borne When late I’d sympathized! . . . So now, being old, my children eye askance My slowly dwindling store, And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance, I care for life no more. To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed, And Virgin-Saint Marie; O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest, Entreat the Lord for me! [Picture: Silhouette of solder standing on hill] THE ALARM (1803) _See_ “_The Trumpet-Major_” IN MEMORY OF ONE OF THE WRITER’S FAMILY WHO WAS A VOLUNTEER DURING THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON IN a ferny byway Near the great South-Wessex Highway, A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft; The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way, And twilight cloaked the croft. ’Twas hard to realize on This snug side the mute horizon That beyond it hostile armaments might steer, Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on A harnessed Volunteer. In haste he’d flown there To his comely wife alone there, While marching south hard by, to still her fears, For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there In these campaigning years. ’Twas time to be Good-bying, Since the assembly-hour was nighing In royal George’s town at six that morn; And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing Ere ring of bugle-horn. “I’ve laid in food, Dear, And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear; And if our July hope should antedate, Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear, And fetch assistance straight.