| |
| ROBESPIERRE reigned in the Place de Grève; | |
| And in distant Avignon his word was doom, | |
| When a band of Royalists, piously brave, | |
| Were marched to the edge of their gaping tomb. | |
| As they went on their way they sang,— | 5 |
| Tender and full the chorus rang,— | |
| A l’heure suprême, Mère chérie, | |
| Ora pro nobis, Sainte Marie! | |
| |
| The maiden young, and the grandsire old, | |
| And the child, whose prayers were shortly told; | 10 |
| And the curé, walking side by side | |
| With the baron, whose name was his only pride; | |
| The noble dame and the serving-maid,— | |
| Neither ashamed nor yet afraid,— | |
| A wonderful sight they were that day, | 15 |
| Singing still as they went their way,— | |
| A l’heure suprême, Mère chérie, | |
| Ora pro nobis, Sainte Marie! | |
| |
| One of their murderers, waiting nigh, | |
| Heard them singing as they went by, | 20 |
| And smiled as he felt the edge of his blade, | |
| At the fulness of music their voices made. | |
| “We ’ll stop that melody soon,” said he, | |
| “In spite of their calling on Sainte Marie.” | |
| But one by one as those voices fell, | 25 |
| The others kept up the chorus well,— | |
| A l’heure suprême, Mère chérie, | |
| Ora pro nobis, Sainte Marie! | |
| |
| When all the victims to death had gone, | |
| And the last sweet music was hushed and done, | 30 |
| When the pit was filled, with no stone to mark, | |
| And the murderers turned through the closing dark, | |
| One of them wiped his sharp knife clean, | |
| Strode over the soil where the grave had been, | |
| And hummed as he went, with an absent air, | 35 |
| Some notes just caught by his memory there,— | |
| A l’heure suprême, Mère chérie, | |
| Ora pro nobis, Sainte Marie! | |
| |
| And when the thought of that day grew dim, | |
| Those obstinate words still clung to him. | 40 |
| He was a man who said no prayers, | |
| But his lips would fashion them unawares; | |
| They mixed with his dreams, and started up | |
| To check the curses bred in his cup; | |
| They wove him round in a viewless net | 45 |
| Of thoughts he could not, though fain, forget, | |
| As he still repeated, again and again, | |
| The ghostly air and the ancient strain,— | |
| A l’heure suprême, Mère chérie, | |
| Ora pro nobis, Sainte Marie! | 50 |
| |
| Thirty years were counted and o’er; | |
| The lilies of France bloomed out once more; | |
| The grapes which hung on the vines were rife, | |
| Like the penitent man on the threshold of life; | |
| When the Angel of Death with healing came | 55 |
| For one who in Lyons had borne no name | |
| But “Le Frère d’Avignon” for many a day; | |
| Who living and dying would hourly say | |
| (’T was on his lip as he passed away),— | |
| A l’heure suprême, Mère chérie, | 60 |
| Ora pro nobis, Sainte Marie! | |
| |
