(AA) Canto 68: Mont Saint-Jean
D’Erlon’s Attack
I belong to you and call you mine
like my mother whom I did not choose
but nonetheless love
Conceição Lima
As low, dense powder clouds drifted away,
The bands struck up, notes melting the mile,
Juggernauts launch, & slowly make their way
Across the valley in the same old style;
War’s theatre
Rips with the sounds of drum;
Rrum-da, rrum-dum…rrum-da, rrubba-dabba-dum-dum!
As mile-long lines of skirmisher
Drive the keen sharpshooters back
From behind, in phalanx terror,
Five thousand from front to back,
Pass into the smoke & sulphur,
Press glorious attack
Upon the British, ignoble retreat
Must come to them & consummate defeat.
A blaze of muskets strafed the flanks
Flung out from La Haye Saint,
From cannon clanks ploughs thro’ the ranks
Screaming balls of iron,
Dreamy, regardless of their loss, men joyously march’d on.
The Fields of Waterloo
June 18th 1815
13:40
Death of Picton
Doing, a filthy pleasure is, & short:
& done, we straight repent us of the sport:
Let us not then rush blindly on unto it
Petronius
Below the ridge, in nervous ribaldry,
Gin rations allay a real human fear,
Ready to die, the Highlander stands steady,
Eyes on the crest, appears the Grenadier!
A Cymric roar
Defies the glide of France,
His tartan & claymore piped into an advance.
As driving on those men he led,
“At ’em you drunken rascals!”
What lucky shot pierc’d Picton’s head,
From his mount he slowly falls,
But still that regiment in red
Blow forwards musketballs,
As bayonets are thrust into the charge,
”Get into ‘em!” bellows their foul-mouth’d sarge.
Little do we know of courage
’Til battle’s lust takes oer,
With fearful rage our fight we rage
Altho’ we know not for,
To kill a man, or by him slain, the sacrament of war.
The Fields of Waterloo
June 18th 1815
13:45
Scots Greys
O what is Death? ‘Tis life’s last shore,
Where vanities are vain no more!
Where all pursuits their goal obtain
Leigh Richmond
Lord Uxbridge watch’d the battle’s lethal course,
Observ’d the gravitas of the melee,
Spurr’d to face his fine phalanx of grey horse,
Order’d their sabers from rest to ready;
The bugle’s peel
Cancels all distraction,
Perform’d a perfect wheel, forth into the action
The earth-thumping hoofbeats propel
Centaurs of derring & dash,
Bloodstirring the Britisher’s yell
As into the Gaul they crash,
How many a gallant foe fell
Neath scything sabre slash
& the hooves of the stamping stallion –
Grave panic grips the forces of D’Erlon.
With the capture of their standard
Brave Frenchmen fled like sheep,
Fully routed or led founder’d,
Dead or feigning Death’s sleep,
While nigh three thousand prisoners lament the lives they keep.
The Fields of Waterloo
14:00
Sanguine Stalemate
I go up onto the rocky earth-hill summit,
Till my horses are sick with the effort;
My charioteer is poorly now
Chou South
Drunk on rum & bloodshed the Grey’s charg’d on;
No voice nor blast could halt the lusty heart
Careering round each small yet deadly gun,
Wreaking revenge for those they blew apart;
Heroic fray,
Fought in that danger zone,
Safety skulk’d far away as their mounts became blown.
He watch’d as tho’ struck by thunder,
A terrible sight to see,
Then cast the Polish Lancer
Gin’ the milling cavalry,
With the promise of no quarter
They spear’d the enemy,
Slaying spent stragglers with furious zest,
Oft times twenty lances punctur’d the chest.
The plain was litter’d with the slain
Like shrapnel from a bomb,
While fresh cocaine sped to his brain
He rode back to Rossome,
Screaming, “Where the fuck is Grouchy? Where are these English from!”
Rossome
June 18th 1815
14:30
Wellington’s Caution
He’d dreamt he was a shaft of wood
By axehead topp’d, his foes to fight
To chop off heads & branches smite!
Jaan Kaplinski
The field lay taken by an eerie calm,
But for the musketry’s endless rattle
Rising from the blazing Hougoumont farm,
A fierce battle within a fierce battle;
Across the ground
Ten thousand corpses strewn,
Aft’ that first frightful round e’en the stout-hearted swoon.
A young ensign upbraved the crest,
Peer’d into the smoky haze,
Saw tranquil horses, riderless,
On bleeding leg-stumps graze,
Watch’d silent, white & motionless
Whilst wounded Death’s knell raise –
‘Til BOOM! thro’ air cooling cannonball cuts,
Punctures his belly, out trails white worm guts.
The ridge becomes a smoking pyre,
Armies turn to spaces,
“To dodge this fire we shall retire
Back a hundred paces!”
Breathing relief, that hot-spot left, war’s pain on strain’d faces.
The Ridge of Mont Saint-Jean
June 18th 1815
15:30
Ney’s Attack
I have seen in the hunt
The pulse of rent flesh;
Seen the fingers of Time
Mary Eliza Fullerton
Half-a-mile from the eyes of his master
Ney watch’d the scarlet enemy retreat,
Giving hordes of cavalry the order,
”Come claim the glory of England’s defeat;
In consequence
The Confederacy
Must offer no defence to French supremacy.”
Tween La Haye Saint & Hougoumont
The noble Cuirassier,
His golden breastplate gleaming dun,
His horse-pistol & sabre,
Came on, came slow & calmly on,
Some sea-wave of sommer –
A long, glittering line of man & steed
Emanating grandeur’s will to succeed.
“Shoot at the horses!” came the cry,
Down fell many a steed,
A human sigh dwelt in the eye
Of our most noble breed,
Man’s heavenly companions dying hell-bent for his greed.
The Fields of Waterloo
June 18th 1815
16:00
Rocks of Empire
Weeping another’s death, my grief atones
No whit. All forms of human doom
Arouse but transient thoughts of joy or gloom
Jan Kochanowski
They stood about the shot-tatter’d colours,
Driven to the limits of endurance,
Defending their ground ‘gainst the warriors
Driven by the spirits of ancyent France;
Without a flinch
They took all France could throw,
Nor yield a single inch to the relentless foe.
Each wave of brave sabres withstood
By the savage squares of red,
Melting into the Belgian mud,
Courtyards litter’d with the dead,
Between each foam-fleck’d horseman flood
Descended deadly dread,
For black balls from BOOM-BOOMING batteries
Cut carnage in swathes thro’ the companies.
With each assault dwindl’d the foe,
Their dead litter’d the plain,
The weighty blow did drain & slow
Tho’ still they came again,
‘Til the last spectres of this ghastly danse macabre wane.
The Fields of Waterloo
June 18th 1815
17:30
Farmhouse Fall
The two God’s creatures
Fight odiously.
They fight vehemently
Gueorgui Konstantinov
With Wellington press’d hard to distraction
D’Erlons rallied remnants swarm round this farm
In the midst of a furious action,
Show contemptuous recklessness tward harm;
From shot-pock’d walls
The Kings German Legion
Pour’d streams of musketballs into the blue ocean.
As la rage steam-soak’d in despair
Hurls men at the bold defence,
Stone, cold fire of the legionnaire
Splutters to vanquish’d silence,
‘Twas such a murderous affair
The French claim recompense –
Bayonets plunge into wounded soldiers,
“Take zat for being such good defenders!”
On the key to the position
The Tricolor waved free,
The battle won! The division
Of Wellington’s army
Must soon be follow’d by the Brussels march & VICTORY!
La Haye Saint
June 18th 1815
18:00
The Killing Time
heart is dead, no longer is there prayer
on my lips; all strength is gone, and
hope is no more
Hayyim Nahman Bialik
The French advance their cannon down the slopes
& up again, where halting they commence
A constant fire, in which hot blaze lie hopes
Of victory & tigrish recompense;
Now is the time
When England’s best are slain
Cull’d savage & sublime under a silver rain.
As canister’d shells macerate,
Pulping flesh to mushy pink,
The Iron Duke now felt his fate
A-tottering on the brink,
No further minute could he wait,
No seconds left to think,
So marshalling all forces of the line
He fortifies the vital centre-spine.
As every man, & everyone,
Was taking turns to die,
Palladian the sinking sun
Diminishes the sky,
Brave Wellington gazed gravely on with grim, determined eye.
Mont St Jean
June 18th 1815
18:10
Mumble Words 