I. NOW there was one who came in later days | |
| To play at Emperor; in the dead of night | |
| Stole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to light | |
| In sudden purple. The dawn’s straggling rays | |
| Showed Paris fettered, murmuring in amaze, | 5 |
| With red hands at her throat—a piteous sight. | |
| Then the new Cæsar, stricken with affright | |
| At his own daring, shrank from public gaze. | |
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| In the Elysée, and had lost the day | |
| But that around him flocked his birds of prey, | 10 |
| Sharp-beaked, voracious, hungry for the deed. | |
| ’Twixt hope and fear behold great Cæsar hang; | |
| Meanwhile, methinks, a ghostly laughter rang | |
| Through the rotunda of the Invalides. | |
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II. What if the boulevards, at the set of sun, | 15 |
| Reddened, but not with sunset’s kindly glow? | |
| What if from quai and square the murmured woe | |
| Swept heavenward, pleadingly? The prize was won, | |
| A kingling made and Liberty undone. | |
| No Emperor, this, like him a while ago, | 20 |
| But his Name’s shadow; that one struck the blow | |
| Himself, and sighted the street-sweeping gun! | |
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III. I see him as men saw him once—a face | |
| Of true Napoleon pallor; round the eyes | |
| The wrinkled care; moustache spread pinion-wise, | 25 |
| Pointing his smile with odd sardonic grace | |
| As wearily he turns him in his place, | |
| And bends before the hoarse Parisian cries— | |
| Then vanishes, with glitter of gold-lace | |
| And trumpets blaring to the patient skies. | 30 |
| Not thus he vanished later! On his path | |
| The Furies waited for the hour and man, | |
| Foreknowing that they waited not in vain. | |
| Then fell the day, O day of dreadful wrath! | |
| Bow down in shame, O crimson-girt Sedan! | 35 |
| Weep, fair Alsace! weep loveliest Lorraine! | |
| |
IV. So mused I, sitting underneath the trees | |
| In that old garden of the Tuileries, | |
| Watching the dust of twilight sifting down | |
| Through chestnut boughs just touched with autumn’s brown— | 40 |
| Not twilight yet, but that illusive bloom | |
| Which holds before the deep-etched shadows come; | |
| For still the garden stood in golden mist, | |
| Still, like a river of molten amethyst, | |
| The Seine slipped through its spans of fretted stone, | 45 |
| And near the grille that once fenced in a throne, | |
| The fountains still unbraided to the day | |
| The unsubstantial silver of their spray. | |
| |
V. A spot to dream in, love in, waste one’s hours! | |
| Temples and palaces, and gilded towers, | 50 |
| And fairy terraces!—and yet, and yet | |
| Here in her woe came Marie Antoinette, | |
| Came sweet Corday, Du Barry with shrill cry, | |
| Not learning from her betters how to die! | |
| Here, while the nations watched with bated breath, | 55 |
| Was held the saturnalia of Red Death! | |
| For where that slim Egyptian shaft uplifts | |
| Its point to catch the dawn’s and sunset’s drifts | |
| Of various gold, the busy Headsman stood…. | |
| Place de la Concorde—no, the Place of Blood! | 60 |
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VI. And all so peaceful now! One cannot bring | |
| Imagination to accept the thing. | |
| Lies, all of it! some dreamer’s wild romance— | |
| High-hearted, witty, laughter-loving France! | |
| In whose brain was it that the legend grew | 65 |
| Of Maenads shrieking in this avenue, | |
| Of watch-fires burning, Famine standing guard, | |
| Of long-speared Uhlans in that palace-yard! | |
| What ruder sound this soft air ever smote | |
| Than a bird’s twitter or a bugle’s note? | 70 |
| What darker crimson ever splashed these walks | |
| Than that of rose-leaves dropping from the stalks? | |
| |
VII. And yet—what means that charred and broken wall, | |
| That sculptured marble, splintered, like to fall, | |
| Looming among the trees there?… And you say | 75 |
| This happened, as it were, but yesterday? | |
| And here the Commune stretched a barricade, | |
| And here the final desperate stand was made? | |
| Such things have been? How all things change and fade! | |
| How little lasts in this brave world below! | 80 |
| Love dies; hate cools; the Cæsars come and go; | |
| Gaunt Hunger fattens, and the weak grow strong. | |
| Even Republics are not here for long! | |
| |
| Ah, who can tell what hour may bring the doom, | |
| The lighted torch, the tocsin’s heavy boom! | 85 |
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