The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 56

That means the Duke of Brunswick, I conceive, Impacting on the enemy's further force Led by, they say, Davout and Bernadotte.

G.o.d grant his star less lurid rays then ours, Or this too pregnant, hoa.r.s.ely-groaning day Shall, ere its loud delivery be done, Have twinned disasters to the fatherland That fifty years will fail to sepulchre!

Enter a straggler on horseback.

STRAGGLER

Prince, I have circuited by Auerstadt, And bring ye dazzling tidings of the fight, Which, if report by those who saw't be true, Has raged thereat from clammy day-dawn on, And left us victors!

HOHENLOHE

Thitherward go I, And patch the mischief wrought upon us here!

Enter a second and then a third straggler.

Well, wet-faced men, whence come ye? What d'ye bring?

STRAGGLER II

Your Highness, I rode straight from Ha.s.senhausen, Across the stream of battle as it boiled Betwixt that village and the banks of Saale, And such the turmoil that no man could speak On what the issue was!

HOHENLOHE [To Straggler III]

Can you add aught?

STRAGGLER III

Nothing that's clear, your Highness.

HOHENLOHE

Man, your mien Is that of one who knows, but will not say.

Detain him here.

STRAGGLER III

The blackness of my news, Your Highness, darks my sense!... I saw this much: His charging grenadiers, received in the face A grape-shot stroke that gouged out half of it, Proclaiming then and there his life fordone.

HOHENLOHE

Fallen? Brunswick! Reed in council, rock in fire...

Ah, this he looked for. Many a time of late Has he, by some strange gift of foreknowing, Declared his fate was hovering in such wise!

STRAGGLER III

His aged form being borne beyond the strife, The gallant Moellendorf, in flushed despair, Swore he would not survive; and, pressing on, He, too, was slaughtered. Patriotic rage Brimmed marshals' b.r.e.a.s.t.s and men's. The King himself Fought like the commonest. But nothing served.

His horse is slain; his own doom yet unknown.

Prince William, too, is wounded. Brave Schmettau Is broke; himself disabled. All give way, And regiments crash like trees at felling-time!

HOHENLOHE

No more. We match it here. The yielding lines Still sweep us backward. Backward we must go!

[Exeunt HOHENLOHE, Staff, stragglers, etc.]

The Prussian retreat from Jena quickens to a rout, many thousands taken prisoners by MURAT, who pursues them to Weimar, where the inhabitants fly shrieking through the streets.

The October day closes in to evening. By this time the troops retiring with the King of Prussia from the second battlefield of Auerstadt have intersected RUCHEL'S and HOHENLOHE'S flying battalions from Jena. The crossing streams of fugitives strike panic into each other, and the tumult increases with the thickening darkness till night renders the scene invisible, and nothing remains but a confused diminis.h.i.+ng noise, and fitful lights here and there.

SCENE V

BERLIN. A ROOM OVERLOOKING A PUBLIC PLACE

[A fluttering group of ladies is gathered at the window, gazing out and conversing anxiously. The time draws towards noon, when the clatter of a galloping horse's hoofs is heard echoing up the long Potsdamer-Stra.s.se, and presently turning into the Leipziger- Stra.s.se reaches the open s.p.a.ce commanded by the ladies' outlook.

It ceases before a Government building opposite them, and the rider disappears into the courtyard.]

FIRST LADY

Yes: surely he is a courier from the field!

SECOND LADY

Shall we not hasten down, and take from him The doom his tongue may deal us?

THIRD LADY

We shall catch As soon by watching here as hastening hence The tenour of his new. [They wait.] Ah, yes: see--see The bulletin is straightway to be nailed!

He was, then, from the field....

[They wait on while the bulletin is affixed.]