Yes, thou shalt learn--and, at the tale,
Thy pride shall shrink, thy hope shall fail,
Though falsehood’s hand have trac’d
The lying legend--thou shall know
Thy marshals foiled--thy thousands low--
Thy puppet King disgrac’d!
Far other thoughts their bosoms fill;
As now to Talavera’s hill
Proud in their numbers and their skill,
The Gallic columns haste:
The same they are, and led by those,
The scourges of the world’s repose,
Victors of Milan’s fair domain,
Of Austerlitz’s wintry plain,
And Friedland’s sandy waste:
Who Prussia’s shiver’d sceptre hurl’d
Down to the dust, and from the world
Her very name erased:
Who boast them, in presumptuous tone,
Each feat and fortune to have known
Of war, except _defeat_ alone;
But now of _that_ to taste!