Hardinge, no:
Nature is nonplussed there! My shoulder's gone,
And this left side laid open to my lungs.
There's but a brief breath now for me, at most....
Could you--move me along--that I may glimpse
Still how the battle's going?

HARDINGE

Ay, Sir John--
A few yard higher up, where we can see.

[He is borne in the blanket a little way onward, and lifted so
that he can view the valley and the action.]

MOORE [brightly]

They seem to be advancing. Yes, it is so!

[Enter SIR JOHN HOPE.]

Ah, Hope!--I am doing badly here enough;
But they are doing rarely well out there. [Presses HOPE'S hand.]
Don't leave! my speech may flag with this fierce pain,
But you can talk to me.--Are the French checked?

HOPE

My dear friend, they are borne back steadily.

MOORE [his voice weakening]

I hope England--will be satisfied--
I hope my native land--will do me justice!...
I shall be blamed for sending Craufurd off
Along the Orense road. But had I not,
Bonaparte would have headed us that way....

HOPE

O would that Soult had but accepted battle
By Lugo town! We should have crushed him there.

MOORE

Yes... yes.--But it has never been my lot
To owe much to good luck; nor was it then.
Good fortune has been mine, but [bitterly] mostly so
By the exhaustion of all shapes of bad!...
Well, this does not become a dying man;
And others have been chastened more than I
By Him who holds us in His hollowed hand!...

I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said,
The siege goes sorely with her, which it must.
I heard when at Dahagun that late day
That she was holding out heroically.
But I must leave such now.--You'll see my friends
As early as you can? Tell them the whole;
Say to my mother.... [His voice fails.]
Hope, Hope, I have so much to charge you with,
But weakness clams my tongue!... If I must die
Without a word with Stanhope, ask him, Hope,
To--name me to his sister. You may know
Of what there was between us?...
Is Colonel Graham well, and all my aides?
My will I have made--it is in Colborne's charge
With other papers.

HOPE

He's now coming up.

[Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, principal aide-de-camp.]

MOORE

Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed?
Alas! you see what they have done too me!

COLBORNE

I do, Sir John: I am more than sad ther