IV
PART SECOND
like \vax from an e*ect position to confused heaps. Their forms lie d5 or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by the hoofs of ^nemy's horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist / . . .
is that towering form That tears across the mist where the shocks are sorest ? — his with arm Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye, J~*ike one who, having done his deeds, will die ?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
fie* is one Beresford> who heads the fight For England here to-day,
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
He calls the sight JDespite itself 7 — -parries yon lancers thrust,
with his own sword renders dust to dust 1
The ghastly climax of the strife is reached \ the combatants are seen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, and dis-cliarging musketry in each other's faces when so close that their complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouths blackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-away knapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priming-horns, together with, red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters, epaulettes, limbs, and viscera, accumulate on the slopes, increasing from twos and threes to li^lf-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps, which steam with tlaeir own warmth as the spring rain falls gently upon them.
The critical instant has come, and the English break. But a comparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into the turmoil "by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain to save the clay, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount the incline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy by their arrival on a spot deemed won.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES (aerial music)
They come, beset by riddling hail;
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