I should take as an example, for instance ..., these very straightforward
and martial words of Dreyden:

The trumpet's loud clangour
   Invites us to arms
With shrill notes of anger
   And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
   Of the thundering drum
   Cries, heark the Foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.

   (Song for St. Cecilia's Day.)

It is curious on the face of it that one should represent, in a mood of such
heroic simplicity, a reckless excitement, a feverish and exalted eagerness
for battle, by saying (in the most prominent part of the stanza from the
point of view of final effect) that we can't get out of the battle now and
must go through with it as best we can.  Yet that is what has happened, and
it is not a cynical by-blow on the part of Dryden; the last line is entirely
rousing and single-hearted.  Evidently the thought is that it is no good
running away is an important ingredient of military enthusiasm; at any rate
in the form of consciousness of unity with comrades, who ought to be encouraged
not to retreat (even if they are not going to, they cannot have not thought
of it, so that this encouragement is a sort of recognition of their merits),
and of consciousness of the terror one should be exciting in the foe; so
that all elements of the affair, including terror, must be part of the judgment
of the most normally heroic mind, and that, since it is too late for him
to retreat, the Lord has delivered him into your hands.  Horses, in a way
very like this, display mettle by a continual expression of timidity.

(Wm. Empson, 7 Types of Ambiguity, p.198)