And now again the evening sheds
Her dewy veil on Teio’s side,
And from the Sierra’s rocky heads
The giant shadows stride;
And all is dim and dark again--
Save here and there upon the plain,
Still flash the baleful fires,
Across the umber’d face of night
Casting a dull and flickering light,
As if from funeral pyres.
But since the close of yester-e’en
How alter’d is the martial scene!
Again, in night’s surrounding veil,
France moves her busy bands--but now
She comes not, venturous, to assail
The victors in their guarded vale,
Or on the mountain’s brow--
Dash’d from her triumph’s windy car
She mourns the wayward fate of war,
And baffled and dishearten’d, o’er
Alberche’s stream and from his shore,
With silent haste she speeds,
Nor dares, ev’n at that midnight hour,
To snatch the rest she needs;
Far from the field where late she fought--
The tents where late she lay--
With rapid step and humbled thought,
All night she holds her way:
Leaving, to Britain’s conquering sons,
Standards rent and ponderous guns,
The trophies of the fray!
The weak, the wounded, and the slain--
The triumph of the battle plain--
The glory of the day!