Penned by George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron), the poem puts forward the vision of human lives wasted by wars– a comment on the vanity of imperial desires. Byron must have written the poem not because Blucher and Wellington won the battle but because it was lost by Napoleon, a peerless soldier and leader who became self-crowned Emperor of France.

In the first stanza the key phrase is “empire’s dust” which is drawn from the romantic theory of founding art on terror. The speaker in the poem exhorts Harold to stop to make him see how useless war is. The dead  are  buried  or “sepulchered below” without a  trophy or a  statue ( “bust”)  to mark their graves — showing that “victory”  is all hype, a matter of show. In comparing war to an “earthquake” devastating God’s land, one imagines the womb of the earth pregnant with the   remnants of war. Sunk in dust are the blood (“red rain”) and the vain ambitions of the fierce and unreturning brave as well as those of the fain-hearted and war weapons.  What is achieved by war? The sterile dust and silence in Waterloo seem to answer “None”, which glides down to the aphorism — “as the ground was before, thus let it be.” Waterloo rejects war as a means to settle disputes, a futile negotiation.  

In the second stanza Harold having thus stopped, stands on “the place of skulls” or “grave” referring to  Waterloo, Belgium, the setting of  Napoleon’s last war. The  “eagle” pierced through by the “shaft of banded nations” alludes to Napoleon’s capture by a coalition of nations (historically Austria, Russia, Prussia, England) — an implication of war as  an organized crime. Napoleon ends up wearing “the shattered links of the world’s broken chain”, a reference to him  as a fallen leader and to  the world at large  as a loser. To Byron war is a delusion, a  miscalculation. Victory or fame may be “gifts” but they are “fleeting”.

TEXT

Stop! For thy tread is on an empire’s dust!

An earthquake’s spoil is sepulchered below!

Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?

Nor column trophied for triumphant show?

As the ground was before, thus let it be;—

How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!

And is this all the world has gained by thee,

Thou first and last of fields ! King- making Victory?

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!

How in an hour the power which gave annuls

Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!

In  “pride of place” here last the eagle flew!

Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,

Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through;

Ambition’s life and labors all in vain;

He wears the shattered links of the world’s broken chain!   ###