ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{The Drama of Kings 1871}

                                                                                                                                                                 205

CHORUS.

Who in the name of France curses French souls this day?
How! shall the tempter curse? Silence; and turn away;
Turn we our faces hence white with a wild desire,
Westward we lift our gaze till the straining balls flash fire,
Westward we look to France, sadly we watch and mark:—
Far thro’ the pitch-black air, like breaking foam in the dark,
Cometh and goeth a light across the stricken land,
And we hear a distant voice like the wash of waves on the sand.

VOICES.

Set the cannon on the heights, and under
     Let the black moat gape, the black graves grow!
Now, let thunder                                                                                         206
     Answer back the thunder of the foe!
France has torn her cerements asunder—
     France doth live to strike the oppressor low.

CHORUS.

O hark! O hark! a voice arises wild and strong,
Loud as a bell that rings alarm it lifts the song.
See! see! the dark is lit, fire upon fire upsprings,
Loudly from town to town the fiery tiding rings.
Now the red smithies blaze and the blue steel is sped,
They twist bright steel for guns, they cast the fatal lead;
Cannon is drawn to the gate,—and lo, the bravest stand
Bare to the shoulder there, smoke-begrim’d, fuse in hand,
Now to the winds of heaven the Flag of Stars they raise,                             207
While those sing martial songs who are too frail for frays.
France is uprisen again! France the sworn slayer of Kings!
With bleeding breast and bitter heart at the Teuton’s throat she springs.

VOICES.

Now like thunder
     Be our voice together while we cry;
Kings shall never hold our spirits under,
     Kings shall cast their crowns aside and fly:
Latin, Sclav, or Teuton, they shall wonder;
     The soul of man hath doom’d them—let them die.
We have slain Kings of old, they were our own to slay,
But now we doom all Kings until the Judgment Day,
Raise ye the Flag of Stars! Tremble, O kings, and behold!                            208
Raise ye the Flag of Man, while the knell of anarchs is tolled.
This is a festal day for all the seed of Eve;
France shall redeem the world, and heal all hearts that grieve;
France with her sword this day shall free all human things,
With blood drain’d from her heart our France shall write the doom of Kings.

CHORUS.

Silence and hearken yet! O but it is a cry
Heard under heaven of old, tho’ the terrible day blew by.
The red fire flames to heaven, and in the crimson glow
Black shapes with prayers and cries, are gliding to and fro.

VOICES.

Fill each loophole with a man! and finding
     Each a foe, aim slowly at the brain,
While the blinding                                                                                       209
     Lightnings flash, and the great guns refrain.
To the roofs! and while beneath the foe are winding,
     Dash ye stones and missiles down like rain.
Watch for the grey-beard King: to drink his blood were great.
Watch for the Cub thereto—aim at his brain full straight.
Watch most for that foul Knave, who crawls behind the crown,
Who smiles, befooling all with crafty eyes cast down;
Sweeter than wine indeed his wretched blood would flow,
Curst juggler with our souls, he who hath wrought this woe.
France hath uprisen again! Let the fierce shaft be sped
Till all the foul satanic things that flatter Kings be dead.

                                                                                                                   210

CHORUS.

Echo the dreadful prayer, let the fierce shaft be sped,
Till all the foul satanic things that flatter Kings be dead!

VOICES.

Send the light balloon aloft with singing,
     Let our hopes rise with it to the sky,
Let our voices like one fount upspringing
     Tell the mighty realm that hope is nigh!
See, in answer, from the distance winging
     Back unto our feet the swift doves fly!

CHORUS.

We see the City now, dark square and street and mart,
The muffled drum doth sound réveille in its heart,
The chain’d balloon doth swing, while men stand murmuring by,
Then with elastic bound upleaps into the sky.
We see the brightening dawn, the dimly dappled land,
The shapes with arms outstretch’d that on the housetops stand,                     211
The eyes that turn to meet with one quick flash of fear
The birds that sad and slow wing nearer and more near.
O courage! all is well—yea, let your hearts be higher,
North, south, east, west, the souls of Frenchmen are as fire,
The reaper leaves the wheat, the workman leaves his loom,
Tho’ the black priest may frown who heeds his look of gloom?
Flash the wild tidings forth! ring them from town to town,
Till like a storm of scythes ye rise, and the foe like wheat go down.

VOICES.

See! how northward the wild heavens lighten,
     Red as blood the fierce aurora waves,
Let it bathe us strong in blood, and brighten
     Sweet with resurrection on our graves,
Lighten, lighten,                                                                                          212
Scroll of God!—unfold above and brighten,
     Light the doom of monarchs and their slaves.
This is a day indeed—be sure that God can see.
Raise the fierce cry again, “Liberty! Liberty!”
Courage! No man dies twice, and he shall live in death,
Who for the Flag of Stars strikes with his latest breath.
Nay, not a foe shall live to tell if France be slain:
If the wild cause be lost, only the grave shall gain.
Teuton and Frank in fierce embrace shall strew the fatal sod;
And they shall live indeed who died to save their souls for God.

CHORUS.

O Spirits turn and look no more and hark not to their cry,
A Hand is flashed before our eyes, a Shape goes sadly by.                          213
And as it goes, it looks on us with eyes that swim in tears,
And bitter as the death-cry sounds the echo in our ears.
O look no more and seek no more to read the days unborn,
’Tis storm this night on the world’s sea, and ’twill be storm at morn.
The Lord hath sent his breath abroad, and all the waves are stirr’d:
Amid the tempest Liberty flies like a white sea-bird,
And, while the heavens are torn apart and the fierce waters gleam,
Doth up and down the furrow’d waves dart with a sea-bird’s scream.
O bow the head, and close the eyes, and pray a quiet prayer,
But let the bitter curse of Man go by upon the air.

                                                                                                                                                                 214

NAPOLEON. An OFFICER.

NAPOLEON.

Is there no hope for France?

OFFICER.

                                 None. Yet I know not!
A nation thus miraculously strengthen’d,
And acting in the fiercest wrath of love,
Hath risen ere this above calamity,
And out of anguish conjured victory.                                                 [l.vi]
If strength and numbers, if the mighty hands
Of the Briareus, shall decide the day,
Then surely as the sun sets France must fall;
If love or prayer can make a miracle
And bring an angel down to strike for her,
Then France may rise again.

NAPOLEON.

                                     Have we not proved
Her children cowards? Yea, by God! Like dogs
That rend the air with wrath upon the chain,
And being loosen’d slink before the thief,                                           215
They fail’d me—those who led and those who follow’d;
Scarce knowing friend from foe, while inch by inch
The Germans ate their ranks as a slow fire
Devoureth wind-blown wheat. I cannot trust
In France or Frenchmen.

OFFICER.

                                 Sire——

NAPOLEON.

                                   Why dost thou hang
Thy head, old friend, and look upon the ground?
Nay, if all Frenchmen had but hearts like thine,
Then France were blest in sooth, and I, its master,
Were safe against the swords of all the world.

                                                                                                                                                                 216

OFFICER.

Sire, ’twas not that I meant—my life is yours
To give or take, to blame or praise; I blush’d
Not for myself, but France.

NAPOLEON.

                                   Then hadst thou cause
For crimson cheeks indeed.

OFFICER.

                                               Sire, as I live,
Thou wrongest her! The breast whereon we grew
Suckled no cowards. For one dizzy hour
France totter’d, and look’d back; but now indeed
She hath arisen to the very height
Of her great peril.

NAPOLEON.

                               ’Tis too late. She is lost.
She did betray her master, and shall die.

                                                                                                                                                                 217

OFFICER.

Not France betrayed thee, Sire; but rather those
Whom thy most noble nature, royally based
Above suspicion and perfidious fear,
Welcom’d unto thy council; not poor France,
Whose bleeding wounds speak for her loud as tongues,
Bit at the hand that raised her up so high;
Not France, but bastard Frenchmen, doubly damn’d
Alike by her who bare them, and by thee
Who fed them. These betrayed thee to thy doom,
And falling clutch’d at thine imperial crown,
Dragging it with them to the bloody dust;
But these that held her arms like bands of lead
Being torn from off her, France, unchain’d and free,
Uplifts her pale front to the stars, and stands
Serene in doom and danger, and sublime
In resurrection.

                                                                                                                                                                 218

NAPOLEON.

                                   How the popular taint
Corrupts the wholesome matter of thy mind!
This would be treason, friend, if we were strong—
Now ’tis less perilous: the commonest wind
Can blow its scorn upon the fallen.

OFFICER.

                                                         Sire,
Behold me on my knees, tears in mine eyes,
And sorrow in my heart. My life is thine,
My life, my heart, my soul are pledged to thine;
And trebly now doth thy calamity                                                       [l.x]
Hold me thy slave and servant. If I pray,
’Tis that thou mayst arise, and thou shalt rise;
And if I praise our common mother, France,
Who for the moment hath forgot her lord,
’Tis that my soul rejoices for thy sake,
That, when thou comest to thine own again
Thy realm shall be a realm regenerate,
Baptized a fair thing worthy of thy love
In its own blood of direful victory.

                                                                                                                                                                 219

NAPOLEON.

Sayest thou?—Rise!—Friend, thou art little skilled
In reading that abstruse astrology
Whereby our cunning politicians cast
The fate of Kings. France robed in victory
Is France for ever lost to our great house.
France fallen, is France that with my secret hand
I may uplift again. But tell thy tale
Most freely: let thy soul beat its free wings
Before me as it lists. Come! as thou sayest,
France is no coward;—she hath at last arisen;
Nay, more—she is sublime. Proceed.

OFFICER.

                                                     My liege,
God, ere he made me thy most loving servant,
Made and baptized me, Frenchman; and my heart,
A soldier’s heart, yearns out this day in pride
To her who bare me, and both great and low                                     220
My brethren. Courage is a virtue, Sire,
Even in a wretched cause. In Strasbourg still
Old Uhrich, with his weight of seventy years
Starves unsubdued, while the dull enemy
Look on in wonder at such strength in woe;
Bazaine still keeps the glittering hosts at bay,
And holds them with a watchful hand and eye;
The captain of the citadel at Laon,
Soon as the foeman gather’d on his walls,
Illumed the hidden mine, and Frank and Teuton,
With that they strove for, strew’d the path in death;
From Paris to the Vosges, loud and wild,
The tocsin rings to arms, and on the fields
The fat ripe ear empties itself unreapt,
While every man whose hand can grasp a sword
Flocks to the petty standard of his town;
The many looms of the great factory
Stand silent, but the fiery moulds of clay                                             221
Are fashioning cannon, and the blinding wheels
Are sharpening steel. In every marketplace
Peasant and prince are drilling side by side;
Roused from their wine-fed torpor, changed from swine
To men, the very country burghers arm,
Nay, what is more to them than blood, bleed gold
Bounteously, freely; I have heard that priests,
Doffing the holy cassock secretly,
Shouting uplift the sword, and crying Christ
To aid them strike for France. Only the basest,
Only the scum, shrink now; for even women,
Catching the noble fever of the time,
Buckle the war-belts round their lovers’ waists,
And clapping hands, with mingled cries and sobs,
Urge young and old against the enemy.

                                                                                                                                                                 222

NAPOLEON.

Of so much thunder may the lightning spring.
I know how France can thunder, and I have felt
How women’s tongues can urge. But what of Paris?
What of the city of light? How doth it bear
The terror and the agony?

OFFICER.

                                           Most bravely,
As doth become the glorious heart of France:
Strong, fearless, throbbing with a martial might,
Dispensing from its core the vital heat
Which filleth all the members of the land;
Tho’ even now the sharp steel pricks the skin,
To stab it in its strength.

NAPOLEON.

                                     Who holds the reins
Within the gates?

                                                                                                                                                                 223

OFFICER.

                                 Trochu.

NAPOLEON.

                                 Still? Why, how long
Have the poor fools been constant? Favre also?
Gambetta? Rochefort? All these gentlemen
Still flourish? And Thiers? Hath the arch-schemer
A seat among the gods, a place of rank
With the ephemera?

OFFICER.

                                   Not so, my liege.

NAPOLEON.

Well, being seated on Olympus’ top,
What thunderbolts are France’s puny Joves
Casting abroad? Or do they sit and quake
For awe of their own voices, which in France,
As in the shifting glaciers of the Alps,
May bring the avalanche upon their heads?

                                                                                                                                                                 224

OFFICER.

The men, to do them justice, use their power
Calmly and soldierly, and for a time
Forget the bitter humours of the senate
In the great common cause. Paris is strong,
And full of noble souls.

NAPOLEON.

                                       Paris must fall.

OFFICER.

Not soon, my liege—for she is belted round
And arm’d impregnable on every side.
Hunger and thirst may slay her, not the sword;
And ere the foeman’s foot is heard within,
Paris will spring upon her funeral pyre
And follow Hope to heaven. Last week I walk’d
Reading men’s faces in the silent streets,
And, as I am a soldier, saw in none
Fear or capitulation: very harlots                                                         225
Cried in their shame the name of Liberty,
And, hustled from the gates, shriek’d out a curse
Upon the coming Teuton: all was still 
And dreadful; but the citizens in silence
Drilled in the squares; on the great boulevard groups
Whisper’d together, with their faces pale
At white heat; in the silent theatre,
Dim lit by lamps, were women, wives and mothers,
Silently working for their wounded sons
And husbands; in the churches too they sat
And wrought, while ever and anon a foot
Rung on the pavement, and with sad red eyes
They turn’d to see some armëd citizen
Kneel at his orisons or vespers. Nightly,
Ere the moon rose, the City slept like death;
Yet as a lion sleeps, with half-shut eyes,
Hearing each murmur on the weary wind,
Crouching and ready for the spring. Each dawn
I saw the country carts come rumbling in,
And the scared country-folk, with large wild eyes                              226
And open mouths, who flock’d for shelter bringing
Horrible tidings of the enemy
Who had devoured their fields and happy homes.
Then suddenly like a low earthquake came
The rumour that the foe was at the gates;
And climbing a cathedral roof that night,
I saw the pitch-black distance sown with fire
Gleam phosphorescent like the midnight sea,
And heard at intervals mysterious sound,                                         [l.x]
Like far off thunder or the Atlantic waves
Clashing on some great headland in a storm,
Come smother’d from afar. But, lingering yet,
I haunted the great City in disguise,
While silently the fatal rings were wound
Around about it by the Teuton hosts:
Still, as I am a soldier, saw no face
That look’d capitulation: rather saw
The knitted eyebrow and the clenchëd teeth,
The stealthy hand that fingered with the sword,
The eye that glanced as swift as hunger’s doth                                   227
Towards the battlements. Then (for at last
A voice was raised against my life) I sought
Trochu, my schoolfellow and friend in arms,
And, though his brow darkened a moment’s space,
He knew me faithful and reached out his hand
To save me. By his secret help I found
A place in a balloon, that in the dusk
Ere daylight rose upon a moaning wind
And drifted southward with the drifting clouds;
And as the white and frosty daylight grew,
And opening crimson as a rose’s leaves
The clouds to eastward parted, I beheld
The imperial City, gables, roofs, and spires,
White and fantastic as a city of dream,
Gleam orient, while the muffled drums within
Sounded réveille; then a red flash and wreath
Of vapour broke across the outer line,
Where the back fortifications frowning rose
Ring above ring around the imperial gates,
And flash on flash succeeded with a sound
Most faint and lagging wearily behind.
Still all without the City seemed as husht                                             228
As sleep or death. But as the reddening day
Scattered the mists, the tiny villages
Loomed dim; and there were distant glimmerings,
And far-off muffled sounds: yet scarce a sign 
Showed the innumerable enemy,—
Who snugly housed and canopied with stone
Lay hidden in their strength; only the watch-fire
Gleam’d here and there, only from place to place
Masses of shadow seem’d to move, and light
Was glittered dimly back from hidden steel;                                      [l.xi]
And, woefullest sight of all, miles to the west,
Along the dark line of the foe’s advance,
On the straight rim where earth and heaven meet,
The forests blazed and to the driving clouds
Cast blood-red phantoms growing dim in day.
Meantime, like one whirl’d in a dizzy dream,                                     229
Onward we drove below the driving cloud,
And from the region of the burning fire
And smouldering hamlet rose still higher, and saw
The white stars like to tapers burning out
Above the region of the nether storm,
And the illimitable ether growing
Silent and dark in the deep wintry dawn.

                                                                                           [Enter a MESSENGER.

MESSENGER.

Most weighty news, my liege, from Italy.

NAPOLEON.

Yes?

MESSENGER.

             Rome is taken. The imperial walls
Yawn where the cannon smote; in the red streets                              [l.xii]
Romans embracing shout for Liberty;
From Florence to Messina bonfires blaze,                                         230
And rockets rise and wild shouts shake the air;
And with the thunder in his aged ears,
Surrounded by his cold-eyed Cardinals,
Clutching his spiritual crown more close,
Trembling with dotage, sits the grey-haired Pope
Anathematizing in the Vatican.         [Exit.

OFFICER.

Woe to the head on whom his curse shall fall,
For in the day of judgment it shall be
Better with Sodom and Gomorrah. Wait!
This is the twilight; red will rise the dawn.

NAPOLEON.

Peace, friend; yet if it ease thy heart, speak on.
I would to God, I did believe in God
As thou dost. Twilight surely—’tis indeed
A twilight—and therein from their fair spheres                                   231
Kings shoot like stars. How many nights of late 
The heavens have troubled been with fiery signs,
With characters like monstrous hieroglyphs,
And the aurora, brighter than the day
And red as blood, has burnt from west to east.                                 [l.vi]

OFFICER.

I do believe the melancholy air
Is full of pain and portent.

NAPOLEON.

                                           Would to God
I had more faith in God, for in this work
I fail to trace His hand; but rather feel
The nether-shock of earthquake everywhere
Shaking old thrones and new, those rear’d on rock
As well as those on sand. All darkens yet,
And in that darkness, while with cheeks of snow                                232
The affrighted people gaze at one another,
The Teuton still, mouthing of Deity,
Works steadfastly to some mysterious end.
My heart was never Rome’s so much as now,
Now, when she shares my cup of agony.
Agony! Is this agony? then indeed
All life is agony.

OFFICER.

                             Your Imperial Highness
Is suffering! Take comfort, Sire.

NAPOLEON.

                                           It is nought—
Only a passing spasm at the heart—
’Tis my disease, comrade; ’tis my disease!
So leave me: it is late; and I would rest.

OFFICER.

God in his gracious goodness give thee health.

                                                                                                                                                                 233

NAPOLEON.

Pray that He may; for am I deeply sick—                                          [l.i]
Too sick for surgery—too sick for drugs—
Too sick for man to heal. ’Tis a complaint
Incident to our house; and of the same
Mine imperial uncle died.          [Exit Officer.
                                     France in the dust,
With the dark Spectre of the Red above her!
Rome fallen! Aye me, well may the face of heaven
Burn like a fiery scroll. Had I but eyes
To read whose name is written next for doom!
The Teuton’s? O the Serpent, that has bided
His time so long, and now has stabbed so deep!
Would I might bruise his head before I die!          [Exit.

                                                                                                                                                                 234

Night. NAPOLEON sleeping. CHORUS of SPIRITS.

A VOICE.

What shapes are ye whose shades darken his rest this night?

CHORUS.

Cold from the grave we come, out of the dark to the light.

A VOICE.

Voices ye have that moan, and eyes ye have that weep,
Ah! woe for him who feels such shadows round his sleep!

CHORUS.

Tho’ thou wert buried and dead,
     Still would we seek thee and find thee,
Ever there follows the tread
     Of feet from the tomb behind thee;
Sleep, shall thy soul have sleep?                                                        235
     Nay, but be broken and shaken.
Gather around him and weep,
     Trouble him till he awaken.

A VOICE.

Who, in imperial raiment, darkly frowning stand,
Laurel-leaves in their hair, sceptred, yet sword in hand.

ANOTHER VOICE.

Who in their shadow looms, woman-eyed, woe-begone,
And bares his breast to show the piteous wounds thereon?

CHORUS.

Peace, they are Kings, they are crowned;
     Kings, tho’ their realms have departed,
Realms of the grave they have found,
     And they walk in the same heavy-hearted.
Sleep? did their souls have sleep?                                                     236
     Nay, for like his was their being.
Gather around him and weep,
     Awake him to hearing and seeing.

SPIRIT OF CÆSAR.

Greater than thou I fell. Die; for thy day is o’er.
Thou reap the world with swords? thou wear the robe I wore?
Up like the bird of Jove, I rose from height to height,
Poised on the heavenly air, eyes to the blood-red light;
Swift came the flash of wrath, one long-avenging glare—
Down like a stone I fell, down thro’ the dizzy air;
Dark burnt the heaven above, red ran the light of day,
In the great square of Rome, bloody I fell, and lay.

                                                                                                                                                                 237

CHORUS.

Kings of the realms of fear,
     Each the sad ghost of the other,
One by one step near,
     Look in the eyes of a brother.
Hush! draw nearer and speak—
     And ere he waketh each morrow
Blow on his bloodless cheek
     With the chilly wind of your sorrow.

SPIRIT OF BONAPARTE.

Greater than thou I fell. Die, Icarus, and give place.
Thou take from my cold grave the glory and the grace!
Out of the fire I came, onward thro’ fire I strode;
Under my path earth burnt, o’er it the pale stars glow’d;
Sun of the earth, I leapt up thro’ the wondering sky,
Naming my name with God’s, Kings knelt as I went by.
Aye; but my day declined;—to one glad cry of the free                      238
My blood-red sunset died on the eternal Sea.

A VOICE.

What spirit art thou, with cold still smile and face like snow?

SPIRIT.

Orsini; and avenged. Too soon I struck the blow.

A VOICE.

And thou, with bleeding breast, and eyes that roll in pain? 

SPIRIT.

I am that Maximilian, miserably slain.

A VOICE.

And ye, O shadowy things, featureless, wild, and stark?

VOICES.

We are the nameless ones whom he hath slain in the dark.

                                                                                                                                                                 239

A VOICE.

Ye whom this man hath doom’d, Spirits, are ye all there?

CHORUS.

Not yet; they come, they come—they darken all the air.

A VOICE.

O latest come, and what are ye? Why do ye moan and call?

CHORUS.

O hush! O hush! they come to speak the bitterest curse of all.

                                                                                                                                                                 [note]

SPIRITS.

     With Sin and Death our mothers’ milk was sour,
     The womb wherein we grew from hour to hour
Gather’d pollution dark from the polluted frame—
     Beside our cradles naked Infamy
     Caroused, and Lust sat smiling hideously—
We grew like evil weeds apace, and knew not shame.

     With incantations and with spells most rank,                                            240
     The fount of Knowledge where we might have drank,
And learnt to love the taste, was hidden from our eyes;
     And if we learn’d to spell out written speech,
     Thy slaves were by, and we had books to teach
Falsehood and Filth and Sin, Blasphemies, Scoffs, and Lies.

     We drank of poison, ev’n as flowers drink dew;
     We ate and drank of poison till we grew
Noxious, polluted, black, like that whereon we fed;
     We never felt the light and the free wind—
     Sunless we grew, and deaf, and dumb, and blind—
How should we dream of God, souls that were slain and dead?

     Love with her sister Reverence passed our way                                     241
     As angels pass unseen, but did not stay—
We had no happy homes wherein to bid them dwell;
     We turn’d from God’s blue heaven with eyes of beast,
     We heard alike the atheist and the priest,
And both these lied alike to smooth our hearts for Hell.

     Of some, both Soul and Body died; of most,
     The Body fatten’d on, while the poor ghost,
Prison’d from the sweet day, was withering in woe;
     Some robed in purple quaff’d their fatal cup,
     Some out of rubied goblets drank it up—
We did not know God was; but now, O God, we know.

     Lambs of thy flock, but oh! not white and fair;                                         242
     Beasts of the field, tamed to thy hand, we were;
Not men and women—nay, not heirs to light and truth:
     Some fattening ate and fed; some lay at ease;
     Some fell and linger’d of a long disease;
But all look’d on the ground—beasts of the field forsooth.

     Ah woe, ah woe, for those thy sceptre swayed,
     Woe most for those whose bodies, fair arrayed,
Insolent, sat at ease, smiled at thy feet of pride;
     Woe for the harlots, with their painted bliss!
     Woe for the red wine-oozing lips they kiss!
Woe for the Bodies that lived, woe for the Souls that died!

                                                                                                                                                                 243

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Tho’ thou wert buried and dead,
     Still would they seek thee and find thee,
Ever there follows the tread
     Of feet from the grave behind thee.

SPIRIT OF HORTENSE.

Woe! woe! woe!

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Ye who saw sad light fall,
     Thro’ the chink of the dungeon gleaming,
And watch’d your shade on the wall
     Till it took a sad friend’s seeming;
Ye who in speechless pain
     Fled from the doom and the danger,
And dragging a patriot’s chain
     Died in the land of the stranger;
Men who stagger’d and died,
     Even as beasts in the traces,
Women he set aside
     For the trade of polluting embraces,
Say, shall his soul have sleep,                                                            244
     Or shall it be troubled and shaken?

CHORUS.

Gather around him and weep,
     Trouble him till he awaken.

NAPOLEON (awakening).

Who’s there? Who speaks?—All silent. O how slowly
Moveth the dark and melancholy night!
I cannot rest—I am too sick at heart—
I have had ill dreams. The inevitable Eyes
Are watching, and the weary void of sleep
Hath voices strangely sad.
                       [He rises, and paces the chamber.
                                         O those dark years
Of Empire! He who tames the tiger, and lies
Pillow’d upon its neck in a lone cave,
Is safer. Who could sleep on such a bed?
Mine eyes were ever dry of the pure dew                                          245
God scatters on the lids of happy men;
Watching with fascinated gaze the orbs,
Ring within ring of blank and bestial light,
Where the wild fury slept: seeking all arts
To soothe the savage instinct in its throes
Of passionate unrest; One cold hand held
Sweet morsels for the furious thing to lap, 
And with the other, held behind my back,
I clutch’d the secret steel: oft, lest its teeth
Should fasten on its master, cunningly
Turning its wrath against the shapes that moved
Outside its splendid lair; until at last,
Let forth to the mad light of War, it sprang
Shrieking, and sought to rend me. O thou beast!
Art thou so wild this day? and dost thou thirst
To fix on thine imperial ruler’s throat?
Why, have I bidden thee “down,” and thou hast crouch’d
Tamely as any hound! Thou shalt crouch yet,                                      246
And bleed with shamefuller stripes!

                                             Let me be calm,
Not bitter. ’Tis too late for bitterness.
Yet I could gnaw my heart to think how France
Hath fail’d me! nay, not France, but rather those
Whom to high offices and noble seats
In France’s name I raised. I bought their souls—
What soul can power not buy?—and, having lost
The blessed measure of all human truth,
Being soulless, these betrayed me; yea, became
A brood of lesser tigers hungering
With their large eyes on mine. I did not build
My throne on sand; no, no,—on Lies and Liars,
Weaker than sand a thousandfold!
                                                       In this                                        247
I did not work for evil. Though my means
Were dark and vile perchance, the end I sought
Was France’s weal, and underneath my care
She grew as tame as any fatted calf.
I never did believe in that stale cry
Raised by the newsman and the demagogue,
Tho’ for mine ends I could cry “Liberty!”
As loud as any man. The draff of men
Are as mere sheep and kine, with heads held down
Grazing, or resting blankly ruminant.
These must be tended, must be shepherded.
But Frenchmen are as wild things scarcely tamed,
Brute-like yet fierce, mad too with some few hours
Of rushing freely with an angry roar.
These must be awed and driven. By a scourge
Dripping with sanguine drops of their own blood,
I awed them: then I drove them: then in time
I tamed them. Fool! deeming them wholly mine,                                  248
I sought to snatch a little brief repose;
But with a groan they found me, and I woke;
And, since they seem’d to suffer pain, I said
“Loosen the yoke a little,” and ’twas done,
And they could raise their heads and gaze at me;
And the wild hunger deepen’d in their eyes,
While fascinated on my throne I sat
Forcing a melancholy smile of peace.
O had I held the scourge in my right hand,
Tighten’d the yoke instead of loosening,
It had not been so ill with me as now!
But Pity found me with her sister Fear,
And lured me. He who sitteth on a throne
Should have no counsellers who come in tears;
But rather that still voice within his brain,
Imperturbable as his own cold eyes
And viewless as his coldly flowing blood;
Rather a heart as strong as the great heart
Driving the hot life through a lion’s thews;
Rather a will that moves to its desire
As steadfast as the silent-footed cloud.                                               249
What peevish humour did my mother mix
With that immortal ichor of our race
Which unpolluted fill’d mine uncle’s veins?
He lash’d the world’s Kings to his triumph-car,
And sat like marble while the fiery wheels
Dript blood beneath him: tho’ the live earth shriek’d
Below him, he was calm, and, like a god
Cold to the eloquence of human tears,
Cold to the quick, cold as the light of stars,
Cold as the hand of Death on the damp brow,
Cold as Death brooding on a battle-field
In the white after-dawn,—from west to east
Royal he moved as the red wintry sun.
He never flatter’d Folly at his feet;
He never sought to syrup Infamy;
He, when the martyrs curst him, drew around him
The purple of his glory and passed on
Indifferently, like Olympian Jove.
There was no weak place in the steel he wore,
Where woman’s tongues might reach his mighty heart                       250 [l.i]
As they have reach’d at mine. O had I kept
A heart of steel, a heart of adamant;
Had I been deaf to clamour and the peal
Of peevish fools; had I for one strong hour
Conjured mine uncle’s soul to mix with mine,
Sedan had never slain me! I am lost
By the damn’d implements mine own hands wrought—
Things that were made as slavish tools of peace,
Never as glittering weapons meet for war.
He never stoop’d to use such peaceful tools;
But, for all uses,
Made the sword serve him—yea, for sceptre and scythe;
Nay more, for Scripture and for counsellor.

Yet he too fell. Early or late, all fall.
No fruit can hang for ever on the tree.
Daily the tyrant and the martyr meet
Naked at Death’s door, with the fatal mark                                       251
Both brows being branded. Doth the world then slay
Only its anarchs? Doth the lightning flash
Smite Cæsar and spare Brutus? Nay, by heaven!
Rather the world keeps for its paracletes
Torture more subtle and more piteous doom
Than it dispenses to its torturers.
Tiberius, with his foot on the world’s neck,
Smileth his cruel smile and groweth grey,
Half dead already with the weight of years
Drinking the death he is too frail to feel,
While in his noon of life the Man Divine
Hath died in anguish at Jerusalem.
[He opens a Life of Jesus and reads. A long pause.

Here too the Teuton works, crafty and slow,
Anatomizing, gauging, questioning,
Till that fair Presence which redeem’d the world
Dwindles into a phantom and a name.
Shall he slay Kings, and spare the King of Kings?
In her fierce madness France denied her God,                                   252
But still the Teuton doth destroy his God
Coldly as he outwits an enemy.
Yet doth he keep the Name upon his lips,
And coldly dedicating the dull deed
To the abstraction he hath christen’d God,
To the creation of his cogent brain,
Conjures against the blessed Nazarene,
That pallid apparition masculine,
That shining orb hem’d in with clouds of flesh;
Till, darken’d with the woe of his own words,
The fool can turn to Wilhelm’s wooden face
And Bismarck’s crafty eyes, and see therein
Human regeneration, or at least
The Teuton’s triumph mightier than Christ’s.
Lie there, Iconoclast! Thou art thrice a fool,
Who, having nought to set within its place
But civic doctrine and a naked sword,
Would tear from out its niche the piteous bust
Of Him whose face was Sorrow’s morning star.
                 [Takes up a second Book, and reads.

Mark, now, how speciously Theology,                                              253
Leaving the broken fragments of the Life
Where the dull Teuton’s hand hath scatter’d them,
Takes up the cause in her high fields of air.
“Darkness had lain upon the earth like blood,                                    [l.v]
And in the darkness human things had shriek’d
And felt for God’s soft hand, and agonised.
But overhead the awful Spirit heard,
Yet stirred not on His throne. Then lastly, One
Dropt like a meteor stone from suns afar,
And stirred and stretch’d out hands, and lived, and knew
That He indeed had dropt from suns afar,
That He had fallen from the Father’s breast
Where He had slumber’d for eternities.
Hither in likeness of a Man He came—
He, Jesus, wander’d forth from heaven and said,
‘Lo, I, the deathless one, will live and die!
Evil must suffer—Good ordains to suffer—
Our point of contact shall be suffering,
There will we meet, and ye will hear my voice;                                   254
And my low tones shall echo on thro’ time,
And one salvation proved in fatal tears 
Be the salvation of Humanity.’”

Ah, old Theology, thou strikest home!
“Evil must suffer—Good ordains to suffer”—
Sayst thou? Did He then quaff His cup of tears
Freely, who might have dash’d it down, and ruled?
The world was ready with an earthly crown,
And yet He wore it not. Ah, He was wise!
Had He but sat upon a human throne,
With all the kingdom’s beggars at His feet,
And all its coffers open at His side,
He had died more shameful death, yea, He had fallen
Even as the Cæsars. Rule the world with Love?
Tame savage human nature with a kiss?
Turn royal cheeks for the brute mob to smite?
He knew men better, and He drew aside,
Ordain’d to do and suffer, not to reign.

     My good physician bade me search in books                               255
For solace. Can I find it? Verily,
From every page of all man’s hand hath writ
A dark face frowns, a voice moans “Vanity!”
There is one Book—one only—that for ever
Passeth the understanding and appeaseth
The miserable hunger of the heart—
Behold it—written with the light of stars
By God in the beginning.
                       [Looks forth. A starry night.

                                         I believe
God is, but more I know not, save but this—
He passeth not as men and systems pass,
For while all change the Law by which they change
Survives and is for ever, being God.
Our sin, our loss, our misery, our death,
Are but the shadows of a dream: the hum
Within our ears, the motes within our eyes;
Death is to us a semblance and an end,
But is as nothing to that central Law
Whereby we cannot die.

                                         Yonder blue dome,                                  256
Gleaming with meanings mystically wrought,
Hath been from the beginning, and shall be
Until the end. How many awe-struck eyes
Have look’d and spelt one word—the name of God,
And call’d it as they listed, Law, Fate, Change,
And marvell’d for its meaning till they died;
And others came and stood upon their graves
And read in their turn, and marvelling gave place.
The Kings of Israel watch’d it with wild orbs,
Madden’d, and cried the Name, and drew the sword.
Above the tented plain of Troy it bent
After the sun of day had set in blood.
The superstitious Roman look’d by night
And trembled. All these faded phantom-like,
And lo! where it remaineth, watch’d with eyes
As sad as any of those this autumn night,—
The Higher Law writ with the light of Stars
By God in the beginning . . .

                                         Let me sleep!                                           257
Or I shall gaze and gaze till I grow wild
And never sleep again. Too much of God
Maketh the heart sick. Come then forth, thou charm,
Thou silent spell wrung from the blood-red flower,
With power to draw the curtains of the soul
And shut the inevitable Eyes away.

Dead mother, at thy knees I said a prayer—
Lead me not into temptation, and, O God,
Deliver me from evil. Is it too late
To murmur it this night? This night, O God,
Whate’er Thou art and wheresoe’er Thou art,
This night at least, when I am sick and fallen,
Deliver me from evil!

CHORUS.

Under the Master’s feet the generations
     Like ants innumerably come and go:
He leans upon a Dial, and in patience
     Watches the hours crawl slow.

In His bright hair the eternal stars are burning,                                    258
     Around His face heaven’s glories burn sublime:
He heeds them not, but follows with eyes yearning
     The shadow men call Time.

Some problem holds Him, and He follows dreaming
     The lessening and lengthening of the shade.—
Under His feet, ants from the dark earth streaming,
     Gather the men He made.

He heeds them not nor turns to them His features—
     They rise, they crawl, they strive, they run, they die;
How should He care to look upon such creatures,
     Who lets great worlds roll by?

He shall be nowise heard who calls unto Him,                                   259
     He shall be nowise seen who seeks His face;
The problem holds Him—no mere man may woo Him,
     He pauseth in His place.

So hath it been since all things were created,
     No change on the immortal Face may fall,
Having made all, God paused and fascinated
     Watch’d Time, the shade of all.

Call to the Maker in thine hour of trial,
     Call with a voice of thunder like the sea:
He watches living shadows on a Dial,
     And hath no ears for thee.

He watches on—He feels the still hours fleeing,
     He heeds thee not, but lets the days drift by;
And yet we say to thee, O weary being,
     Blaspheme not, lest thou die.

Rather, if woe be deep and thy soul wander,                                      260
     Ant among ants that swarm upon a sod,
Watching thy shadow on the grass-blade, ponder
     The mystery with God.

So may some comfort reach thy soul wayfaring,
     While the days run and the swift glories shine,
And something God-like shall that soul grow, sharing
     The attitude divine.

Silent, supreme, sad, wondering, quiescent,
     Seeking to fathom with the spirit-sight
The problem of the Shadow of the Present
     Born of eternal Light.

[Notes:
Page 214, l. vi: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘And out’ is changed to ‘Yea out’.
Page 218, l. x: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘trebly’ is changed to ‘triply’.
Page 226, l. x: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘sound’ is changed to ‘sounds’.
Page 228, l. xi: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘glittered’ is changed to ‘glimmered’.
Page 229, l. xii: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘streets’ is changed to ‘street’.
Page 231, l. vi: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘burnt’ is changed to ‘burst’.
Page 233, l. i: In ‘Fool of Destiny’ ‘am I’ is changed to ‘I am’.
Page 239, ‘SPIRITS’: The original verse breaks are retained, although the text has been changed as in ‘The Fool of Destiny’.
Page 250, l. i: In the 1884 version of ‘The Fool of Destiny’ ‘woman’s tongues’ is changed to ‘women’s tongues’.
Page 253, l. v: In the 1884 version of ‘The Fool of Destiny’ ‘had lain’ is changed to ‘hath lain’. ]

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The Drama of Kings continued

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