dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  For a Monument at Albuera

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.

Spain: Albuera

For a Monument at Albuera

By Robert Southey (1774–1843)

SEVEN thousand men lay bleeding on these heights,

When Beresford in strenuous conflict strove

Against a foe whom all the accidents

Of battle favored, and who knew full well

To seize all offers that occasion gave.

Wounded or dead, seven thousand here were stretched,

And on the plain around a myriad more,

Spaniard and Briton and true Portuguese,

Alike approved that day; and in the cause

Of France, with her flagitious sons compelled,

Pole and Italian, German, Hollander,

Men of all climes and countries, hither brought,

Doing and suffering for the work of war.

This point by her superior cavalry

France from the Spaniard won, the elements

Aiding her powerful efforts; here awhile

She seemed to rule the conflict; and from hence

The British and the Lusitanian arm

Dislodged with irresistible assault

The enemy, even when he deemed the day

Was written for his own. But not for Soult,

But not for France, was that day in the rolls

Of war to be inscribed by Victory’s hand,

Not for the inhuman chief, and cause unjust;

She wrote for after-times, in blood, the names

Of Spain and England, Blake and Beresford.