| |
| MONTETON, where is thy wall? | |
| Chalençon, where is thy sword? | |
| Where is thy tower, Tournefort? | |
| |
| Noblemen’s swords, how their blades were all sharp and good! | |
| Noblemen’s swords grew dull in plebeian thick blood. | 5 |
| |
| Tournefort’s tower is black and burnt inside, | |
| From the crest they banished the blazon-flag, its pride. | |
| |
| And over the wall of the castle of Monteton | |
| —“Vive le son!”— | |
| Flutter the bloody fragments of song: | 10 |
| “Vive le son del canons!” | |
| |
| This side the wall there fights a nobleman, | |
| Rash, desperate and always in the van— | |
| Wherefore?—Red grows the earth’s green ground hereafter, | |
| Bitter, bitter, bitter rings his laughter. | 15 |
| That side the wall a filthy ocean raves | |
| In greedy and grasping and cowardly waves— | |
| |
| This side, that side—who knew, when the day was spent? | |
| The wall lay low, then rose of herbs a scent; | |
| The battlement a sunken tombstone drear; | 20 |
| Wailing women, the clouds, on the grass wept tear on tear. | |
| |
| Flickering death-lights—balconies, towers burn on— | |
| Cobblestones are the bier of a Monteton. | |
| By the curs of the gutter o’ercome and wounded to death, | |
| Bitterly, bitterly he laughs with last breath. | 25 |
| |
| Monteton, where is thy wall? | |
| Chalençon, where is thy sword? | |
| Where is thy tower, Tournefort? | |
| |
| Our wall is the judge whom the king doth uphold, | |
| Our sword is the army undaunted and bold, | 30 |
| Our tower the church—a steep tower and old! | |
| |
| But in Notre Dame on the altar—horrid sight!— | |
| A naked woman performs a shameful rite, | |
| A naked harlot bawls and screams and sings, | |
| A wild and drunken roar through the cathedral rings. | 35 |
| |
| And judges—judges, too, are by, | |
| As never more vile saw the human eye! | |
| A butcher with bloody apron presides | |
| And listens to lies with his fat ear—besides | |
| His helpers: bullies and stable-boys plain, | 40 |
| The accuser a thief—ha, he can arraign! | |
| And sentence on sentence the scythe whirring saith: | |
| To death! | |
| To death what is calm and noble still, | |
| To death, Cadore, to death d’Anville, | 45 |
| To death what better than they must be, | |
| To death Clermont and Normandy, | |
| To death! | |
| Sentence on sentence the scythe whirring saith. | |
| |
| Monteton, where is thy wall?— | 50 |
| |
| The dungeons of the temple are deep, so deep, | |
| Deeper the captives’ woe till death’s last sleep! | |
| |
| Half rotten the basket where rests the Duchess old, | |
| As proud on this castaway seat as on throne of pure gold, | |
| About her stand marshal with bearing sure, | 55 |
| The old names of the court, the Dames d’atour, | |
| With delicate bows and smiles free and light. | |
| |
| Past the windows above, wheels thunder with might, | |
| The pavement rebounds, | |
| The singing resounds: | 60 |
| “Vive le son des canons!” | |
| |
| The howling of dogs that have torn their chains madly, | |
| The roaring of those who celebrate badly, | |
| The scream of the vulgar who long what is noble to blight— | |
| |
| But down there all is quiet and light. | 65 |
| No forehead grows pale, no eyelashes quiver, | |
| As their lives they have lived, they meet death with no shiver! | |
| |
| A terrible clock is the prison gate | |
| Every half-hour with its grating invidious. | |
| Le Coucou, the hangman, long-armed and hideous— | 70 |
| Le Coucou steps out, who does not wait, | |
| Who counts not the years of your young life—nay, | |
| Not even the months till your wedding-day, | |
| Comtesse de Neuilly! | |
| |
| Before the Duchess low she bends her dainty knee, | 75 |
| And with her three or four court ladies go, | |
| And with her the cavaliers bow low; | |
| With smiling lips she stands, and so: | |
| “Votre bras, Monsieur le bourreau!” | |
| |
| The way through Paris, the way of blood— | 80 |
| Red-hot now surges the song’s wild flood: | |
| “Vive la carmagnole!” | |
| But they are not abashed at all, | |
| They walk into death without timid delay, | |
| They are walking with talk and with laughter gay. | 85 |
| What holds them together fast, they know: | |
| The wall that into the sky doth grow! | |
| Though the stones be falling—the wall upward strives: | |
| They smile in their death as they smiled in their lives.— | |
| |
| Monteton, that is our wall, | 90 |
| Chalençon, that is our sword, | |
| That is our tower, Tournefort! | |
| |
