Poems (Southey)/Volume 1/To Horror

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4248570Poems — To HorrorRobert Southey

To HORROR.

Τιν γαρ ποταεισομαι
ταν και σκυλικες τρομεοντι
Ερχομεναν νεκυων ανα τ' ηρια, και μελαν αιμα.
ΘΕΟΚΡΙΤΟΣ.

Dark Horror, hear my call!
Stern Genius hear from thy retreat
On some old sepulchre's moss-canker'd seat,
Beneath the Abbey's ivied wall
That trembles o'er its shade;
Where wrapt in midnight gloom, alone,
Thou lovest to lie and hear
The roar of waters near,
And listen to the deep dull groan
Of some perturbed sprite
Borne fitful on the heavy gales of night.

Or whether o'er some wide waste hill
Thou mark'st the traveller stray,
Bewilder'd on his lonely way.
When, loud and keen and chill,
The evening winds of winter blow,
Drifting deep the dismal snow.

Or if thou followest now on Groenland's shore,
With all thy terrors, on the lonely way
Of some wreck'd mariner, when to the roar
Of herded bears, the floating ice-hills round
Pour their deep echoing sound,
And by the dim drear Boreal light
Givest half his dangers to the wretch's sight.

Or if thy fury form,
When o'er the midnight deep
The dark-wing'd tempests sweep
Watches from some high cliff the encreasing storm,
Listening with strange delight,
As the black billows to the thunder rave
When by the lightning's light
Thou seest the tall ship sink beneath the wave.

Dark Horror! bear me where the field of fight
Scatters contagion on the tainted gale,
When to the Moon's faint beam,
On many a carcase shine the dews of night,
And a dead silence stills the vale
Save when at times is heard the glutted Raven's scream.

Where some wreck'd army from the Conqueror's might
Speed their disastrous flight,
With thee fierce Genius! let me trace their way,
And hear at times the deep heart-groan
Of some poor sufferer left to die alone,
His sore wounds smarting with the winds of night;
And we will pause, where, on the wild,
The ^[1]Mother to her frozen breast,
On the heap'd snows reclining clasps her child
And with him sleeps, chill'd to eternal rest!

Black Horror! speed we to the bed of Death,
Where he whose murderous power afar
Blasts with the myriad plagues of war,
Struggles with his last breath,
Then to his wildly-starting eyes
The phantoms of the murder'd rise;
Then on his frenzied ear
Their groans for vengeance and the Demon's yell
In one heart-maddening chorus swell.
Cold on his brow convulsing stands the dew,
And night eternal darkens on his view.

Horror! I call thee yet once more!
Bear me to that accursed shore
Where round the stake the impaled Negro writhes.
Assume thy sacred terrors then! dispense
The blasting gales of Pestilence!
Arouse the race of Afric! holy Power,
Lead them to vengeance! and in that dread hour
When Ruin rages wide,
I will behold and smile by Mercy's side.
1791.

↑ I extract the following picture of consummate horror from the notes to a poem written in twelve syllable verse upon the campaign of 1794 and 1795; it was during the retreat to Deventer. "We could not proceed a hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies of men, women, children and horses in every direction. One scene made an impression upon my memory which time will never be able to efface. Near another cart we perceived a stout looking man, and a beautiful young woman with an infant, about seven months old, at the breast, all three frozen and dead. The mother had most certainly expired in the act of suckling her child, as with one breast exposed, she lay upon the drifted snow, the milk to all appearance in a stream drawn from the nipple by the babe, and instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its lips had but just then been disengaged, and it reposed its little head upon the mother's bosom, with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trickled from the mouth; their countenances were perfectly composed and fresh, resembling those of persons in a sound and tranquil slumber."
The following description of a field of battle, is in the words of one who passed over the field of Jemappe after Dumouriez' victory.
"It was on the third day after the victory obtained by General Dumouriez over the Austrians, that I rode across the field of battle. The scene lies on a waste common, rendered then more dreary by the desertion of the miserable hovels before occupied by peasants. Every thing that resembled a human habitation was desolated, and for the most part they had been burnt or pulled down, to prevent their affording shelter to the posts of the contending armies. The ground was ploughed up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons; every thing like herbage was trodden into mire; broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead horses and men, were strewed over the heath. This was the third day after the battle: it was the beginning of November, and for three days a bleak wind and heavy rain had continued incessantly. There were still remaining alive several hundred of horses and of the human victims of that dreadful fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen more than four hundred men still living, unsheltered, without food, and without any human assistance, most of them confined to the spot where they had fallen by broken limbs. The two armies had proceeded, and abandoned these miserable wretches to their fate. Some of the dead persons appeared to have expired in the act of embracing each other. Two young French Officers, who were brothers, had crawled under the side of a dead horse, where they had contrived a kind of shelter by means of a cloak; they were both mortally wounded, and groaning for each other. One very fine young man had just strength enough to drag himself out of a hollow partly filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock groaning with agony; a grape-shot had cut across the upper part of his belly, and he was keeping in his bowels with a handkerchief and hat. He begged of me for God's sake to end his misery! he complained of dreadful thirst. I filled him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which he nearly drank off at once, and left him to that end of his wretchedness which could not be far distant."
I hope I have always felt and expressed an honest and christian abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that produce them; but my ideas of their immediate horrors fell infinitely short of this authentic picture.

[p68-1] I extract the following picture of consummate horror from the notes to a poem written in twelve syllable verse upon the campaign of 1794 and 1795; it was during the retreat to Deventer. "We could not proceed a hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies of men, women, children and horses in every direction. One scene made an impression upon my memory which time will never be able to efface. Near another cart we perceived a stout looking man, and a beautiful young woman with an infant, about seven months old, at the breast, all three frozen and dead. The mother had most certainly expired in the act of suckling her child, as with one breast exposed, she lay upon the drifted snow, the milk to all appearance in a stream drawn from the nipple by the babe, and instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its lips had but just then been disengaged, and it reposed its little head upon the mother's bosom, with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trickled from the mouth; their countenances were perfectly composed and fresh, resembling those of persons in a sound and tranquil slumber."
The following description of a field of battle, is in the words of one who passed over the field of Jemappe after Dumouriez' victory.
"It was on the third day after the victory obtained by General Dumouriez over the Austrians, that I rode across the field of battle. The scene lies on a waste common, rendered then more dreary by the desertion of the miserable hovels before occupied by peasants. Every thing that resembled a human habitation was desolated, and for the most part they had been burnt or pulled down, to prevent their affording shelter to the posts of the contending armies. The ground was ploughed up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons; every thing like herbage was trodden into mire; broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead horses and men, were strewed over the heath. This was the third day after the battle: it was the beginning of November, and for three days a bleak wind and heavy rain had continued incessantly. There were still remaining alive several hundred of horses and of the human victims of that dreadful fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen more than four hundred men still living, unsheltered, without food, and without any human assistance, most of them confined to the spot where they had fallen by broken limbs. The two armies had proceeded, and abandoned these miserable wretches to their fate. Some of the dead persons appeared to have expired in the act of embracing each other. Two young French Officers, who were brothers, had crawled under the side of a dead horse, where they had contrived a kind of shelter by means of a cloak; they were both mortally wounded, and groaning for each other. One very fine young man had just strength enough to drag himself out of a hollow partly filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock groaning with agony; a grape-shot had cut across the upper part of his belly, and he was keeping in his bowels with a handkerchief and hat. He begged of me for God's sake to end his misery! he complained of dreadful thirst. I filled him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which he nearly drank off at once, and left him to that end of his wretchedness which could not be far distant."
I hope I have always felt and expressed an honest and christian abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that produce them; but my ideas of their immediate horrors fell infinitely short of this authentic picture.

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