Part 15

Croissy, Ile-de-France, June, 1815

"Whoa! Victorine. Devil take the mare! I've never seen so vicious a beast. She kicked Jules the last time she was here, He's been lame ever since, poor chap." Rap! Tap! Tap-a-tap-a-tap! Tap! Tap! "I'd rather be lame than dead at Waterloo, M'sieu Charles." "Sacre Bleu! Don't mention Waterloo, and the damned grinning British. We didn't run in the old days. There wasn't any running at Jena. Those were decent days, And decent men, who stood up and fought. We never got beaten, because we wouldn't be. See!" "You would have taught them, wouldn't you, Sergeant Boignet? But to-day it's everyone for himself, And the Emperor isn't what he was." "How the Devil do you know that? If he was beaten, the cause Is the green geese in his army, led by traitors. Oh, I say no names, Monsieur Charles, You needn't hammer so loud. If there are any spies lurking behind the bellows, I beg they come out. Dirty fellows!" The old Sergeant seizes a red-hot poker And advances, brandishing it, into the shadows. The rows of horses flick Placid tails. Victorine gives a savage kick As the nails Go in. Tap! Tap! Jules draws a horseshoe from the fire And beats it from red to peacock-blue and black, Purpling darker at each whack. Ding! Dang! Dong! Ding-a-ding-dong! It is a long time since any one spoke. Then the blacksmith brushes his hand over his eyes, "Well," he sighs, "He's broke." The Sergeant charges out from behind the bellows. "It's the green geese, I tell you, Their hearts are all whites and yellows, There's no red in them. Red! That's what we want. Fouche should be fed To the guillotine, and all Paris dance the carmagnole. That would breed jolly fine lick-bloods To lead his armies to victory." "Ancient history, Sergeant. He's done." "Say that again, Monsieur Charles, and I'll stun You where you stand for a dung-eating Royalist." The Sergeant gives the poker a savage twist; He is as purple as the cooling horseshoes. The air from the bellows creaks through the flues. Tap! Tap! The blacksmith shoes Victorine, And through the doorway a fine sheen Of leaves flutters, with the sun between. By a spurt of fire from the forge You can see the Sergeant, with swollen gorge, Puffing, and gurgling, and choking; The bellows keep on croaking. They wheeze, And sneeze, Creak! Bang! Squeeze! And the hammer strokes fall like buzzing bees Or pattering rain, Or faster than these, Like the hum of a waterfall struck by a breeze. Clank! from the bellows-chain pulled up and down. Clank! And sunshine twinkles on Victorine's flank, Starting it to blue, Dropping it to black. Clack! Clack! Tap-a-tap! Tap! Lord! What galloping! Some mishap Is making that man ride so furiously. "Francois, you! Victorine won't be through For another quarter of an hour." "As you hope to die, Work faster, man, the order has come." "What order? Speak out. Are you dumb?" "A chaise, without arms on the panels, at the gate In the far side-wall, and just to wait. We must be there in half an hour with swift cattle. You're a stupid fool if you don't hear that rattle. Those are German guns. Can't you guess the rest? Nantes, Rochefort, possibly Brest." Tap! Tap! as though the hammers were mad. Dang! Ding! Creak! The farrier's lad Jerks the bellows till he cracks their bones, And the stifled air hiccoughs and groans. The Sergeant is lying on the floor Stone dead, and his hat with the tricolore Cockade has rolled off into the cinders. Victorine snorts and lays back her ears. What glistens on the anvil? Sweat or tears?

St. Helena, May, 1821

Tap! Tap! Tap! Through the white tropic night. Tap! Tap! Beat the hammers, Unwearied, indefatigable. They are hanging dull black cloth about the dead. Lustreless black cloth Which chokes the radiance of the moonlight And puts out the little moving shadows of leaves. Tap! Tap! The knocking makes the candles quaver, And the long black hangings waver Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! In the ears which do not heed. Tap! Tap! Above the eyelids which do not flicker. Tap! Tap! Over the hands which do not stir. Chiselled like a cameo of white agate against the hangings, Struck to brilliance by the falling moonlight, A face! Sharp as a frozen flame, Beautiful as an altar lamp of silver, And still. Perfectly still. In the next room, the men chatter As they eat their midnight lunches. A knife hits against a platter. But the figure on the bed Between the stifling black hangings Is cold and motionless, Played over by the moonlight from the windows And the indistinct shadows of leaves.

Tap! Tap! Upholsterer Darling has a fine shop in Jamestown. Tap! Tap! Andrew Darling has ridden hard from Longwood to see to the work in his shop in Jamestown. He has a corps of men in it, toiling and swearing, Knocking, and measuring, and planing, and squaring, Working from a chart with figures, Comparing with their rules, Setting this and that part together with their tools. Tap! Tap! Tap! Haste indeed! So great is the need That carpenters have been taken from the new church, Joiners have been called from shaping pews and lecterns To work of greater urgency. Coffins! Coffins is what they are making this bright Summer morning. Coffins--and all to measurement. There is a tin coffin, A deal coffin, A lead coffin, And Captain Bennett's best mahogany dining-table Has been sawed up for the grand outer coffin. Tap! Tap! Tap! Sunshine outside in the square, But inside, only hollow coffins and the tapping upon them. The men whistle, And the coffins grow under their hammers In the darkness of the shop. Tap! Tap! Tap!

Tramp of men. Steady tramp of men. Slit-eyed Chinese with long pigtails Bearing oblong things upon their shoulders March slowly along the road to Longwood. Their feet fall softly in the dust of the road; Sometimes they call gutturally to each other and stop to shift shoulders. Four coffins for the little dead man, Four fine coffins, And one of them Captain Bennett's dining-table! And sixteen splendid Chinamen, all strong and able And of assured neutrality. Ah! George of England, Lord Bathhurst & Co. Your princely munificence makes one's heart glow. Huzza! Huzza! For the Lion of England!

Tap! Tap! Tap! Marble likeness of an Emperor, Dead man, who burst your heart against a world too narrow, The hammers drum you to your last throne Which always you shall hold alone. Tap! Tap! The glory of your past is faded as a sunset fire, Your day lingers only like the tones of a wind-lyre In a twilit room. Here is the emptiness of your dream Scattered about you. Coins of yesterday, Double napoleons stamped with Consul or Emperor, Strange as those of Herculaneum-- And you just dead! Not one spool of thread Will these buy in any market-place. Lay them over him, They are the baubles of a crown of mist Worn in a vision and melted away at waking. Tap! Tap! His heart strained at kingdoms And now it is content with a silver dish. Strange World! Strange Wayfarer! Strange Destiny! Lower it gently beside him and let it lie. Tap! Tap! Tap!

Two Travellers in the Place Vendome

Reign of Louis Philippe

A great tall column spearing at the sky With a little man on top. Goodness! Tell me why? He looks a silly thing enough to stand up there so high.

What a strange fellow, like a soldier in a play, Tight-fitting coat with the tails cut away, High-crowned hat which the brims overlay.

Two-horned hat makes an outline like a bow. Must have a sword, I can see the light glow Between a dark line and his leg. Vertigo

I get gazing up at him, a pygmy flashed with sun. A weathercock or scarecrow or both things in one? As bright as a jewelled crown hung above a throne.

Say, what is the use of him if he doesn't turn? Just put up to glitter there, like a torch to burn, A sort of sacrificial show in a lofty urn?

But why a little soldier in an obsolete dress? I'd rather see a Goddess with a spear, I confess. Something allegorical and fine. Why, yes--

I cannot take my eyes from him. I don't know why at all. I've looked so long the whole thing swims. I feel he ought to fall. Foreshortened there among the clouds he's pitifully small.

What do you say? There used to be an Emperor standing there, With flowing robes and laurel crown. Really? Yet I declare Those spiral battles round the shaft don't seem just his affair.

A togaed, laurelled man's I mean. Now this chap seems to feel As though he owned those soldiers. Whew! How he makes one reel, Swinging round above his circling armies in a wheel.

Sweeping round the sky in an orbit like the sun's, Flashing sparks like cannon-balls from his own long guns. Perhaps my sight is tired, but that figure simply stuns.

How low the houses seem, and all the people are mere flies. That fellow pokes his hat up till it scratches on the skies. Impudent! Audacious! But, by Jove, he blinds the eyes!

WAR PICTURES

The Allies

August 14th, 1914

Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The zigzagging cry of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the head of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching men. Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war. The cry jars and splits against the brazen, burnished sky.

This is the war of wars, and the cause? Has this writhing worm of men a cause?

Crackling against the polished sky is an eagle with a sword. The eagle is red and its head is flame.

In the shoulder of the worm is a teacher.

His tongue laps the war-sucked air in drought, but he yells defiance at the red-eyed eagle, and in his ears are the bells of new philosophies, and their tinkling drowns the sputter of the burning sword. He shrieks, "God damn you! When you are broken, the word will strike out new shoots."