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Full text of "The Dynasts : Parts First And Second"

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SCENE in                   PART FIRST
SOULT
Some twenty minutes or less, your Majesty: Our troops down there, still mantled by the'mist, Are half upon the way.
NAPOLEON
^Good!    Set forthwith Vandamme and Saint Hilaire to mount the slopes------
Firing begins in the marsh to the right by Tilnitz and the pools,
though the thick air yet hides the operations.
*
O, there you are, Buxhovden, boozy, blind! Achieve your worst    Davout will hold you firm.
The head of an aide-de-camp rises through the fog on that side, and he hastens up to NAPOLEON and his companions, to whom the officer announces what has happened. DAVOUT rides off, disappearing legs first into the white stratum that covers the attack,
Lannes and Murat, you have concern enough Here on the left, with Prince Bagration And all the Austro-Russian cavalry. Haste off.    The victory promising to-day Will, like a thunder-clap, conclude the war!
The Marshals with their aides gallop away towards their respective divisions. Soon the two divisions under SOULT are seen ascending in close column the inclines of the Pratzen height. Thereupon the heads of the Russian centre columns disclose themselves, breaking the sky-line of the summit from the other side, in a desperate attempt to regain the position vacated by the Russian left A fierce struggle develops there between SOULT'S divisions and these, who, despite their tardy attempt to recover the lost post of dominance, are pressed by the French off the slopes into the lowland.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES (aerial music)
O Great Necessitator, heed us now !
If it indeed must be
That this day Austria smoke with slaughteryy Quicken the issue as Thou knowest^ how ; And dull to suffering those whom it befalls To quit their lodgment in a flesh that galls !
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