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.’