WANDERLIEDER.
SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.
(PARIS, AUGUST 1865.)
I stand at the break of day
In the Champs Elysees.
The tremulous shafts of dawning,
As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early,
Strike Luxor's cold grey spire,
And wild in the light of the morning
With their marble manes on fire,
Ramp the white Horses of Marly.
But the Place of Concord lies
Dead hushed 'neath the ashy skies.
And the Cities sit in council
With sleep in their wide stone eyes.
I see the mystic plain
Where the army of spectres slain
In the Emperor's life-long war
March on with unsounding tread
To trumpets whose voice is dead.
Their spectral chief still leads them,—
The ghostly flash of his sword
Like a comet through mist shines far,—
And the noiseless host is poured,
For the gendarme never heeds them,
Up the long dim road where thundered
The army of Italy onward
Through the great pale Arch of the Star!
The spectre army fades
Far up the glimmering hill,
But, vaguely lingering still,
A group of shuddering shades
Infects the pallid air,
Growing dimmer as day invades
The hush of the dusky square.
There is one that seems a King,
As if the ghost of a Crown
Still shadowed his jail-bleached hair;
I can hear the guillotine ring,
As its regicide note rang there,
When he laid his tired life down
And grew brave in his last despair.
And a woman frail and fair
Who weeps at leaving a world
Of love and revel and sin
In the vast Unknown to be hurled;
(For life was wicked and sweet
With kings at her small white feet!)
And one, every inch a Queen,
In life and in death a Queen,
Whose blood baptized the place,
In the days of madness and fear,—
Her shade has never a peer
In majesty and grace.
Murdered and murderers swarm;
Slayers that slew and were slain,
Till the drenched place smoked with the rain
That poured in a torrent warm,—
Till red as the Riders of Edom
Were splashed the white garments of Freedom
With the wash of the horrible storm!
And Liberty's hands were not clean
In the day of her pride unchained,
Her royal hands were stained
With the life of a King and Queen;
And darker than that with the blood
Of the nameless brave and good
Whose blood in witness clings
More damning than Queens' and Kings'.
Has she not paid it dearly?
Chained, watching her chosen nation
Grinding late and early
In the mills of usurpation?
Have not her holy tears,
Flowing through shameful years,
Washed the stains from her tortured hands?
We thought so when God's fresh breeze,
Blowing over the sleeping lands,
In 'Forty-Eight waked the world,
And the Burgher-King was hurled
From that palace behind the trees.
As Freedom with eyes aglow
Smiled glad through her childbirth pain,
How was the mother to know
That her woe and travail were vain?
A smirking servant smiled
When she gave him her child to keep;
Did she know he would strangle the child
As it lay in his arms asleep?
Liberty's cruellest shame!
She is stunned and speechless yet,
In her grief and bloody sweat
Shall we make her trust her blame?
The treasure of 'Forty-Eight
A lurking jail-bird stole,
She can but watch and wait
As the swift sure seasons roll.
And when in God's good hour
Comes the time of the brave and true,
Freedom again shall rise
With a blaze in her awful eyes
That shall wither this robber-power
As the sun now dries the dew.
This Place shall roar with the voice
Of the glad triumphant people,
And the heavens be gay with the chimes
Ringing with jubilant noise
From every clamorous steeple
The coming of better times.
And the dawn of Freedom waking
Shall fling its splendours far
Like the day which now is breaking
On the great pale Arch of the Star,
And back o'er the town shall fly,
While the joy-bells wild are ringing,
To crown the Glory springing
From the Column of July!
THE SPHINX OF THE TUILERIES.
Out of the Latin Quarter
I came to the lofty door
Where the two marble Sphinxes guard
The Pavillon de Flore.
Two Cockneys stood by the gate, and one
Observed, as they turned to go,
"No wonder He likes that sort of thing,—
He's a Sphinx himself, you know."
I thought as I walked where the garden glowed
In the sunset's level fire,
Of the Charlatan whom the Frenchmen loathe
And the Cockneys all admire.
They call him a Sphinx,—it pleases him,—
And if we narrowly read,
We will find some truth in the flunkey's praise,—
The man is a Sphinx indeed.
For the Sphinx with breast of woman
And face so debonair
Had the sleek false paws of a lion,
That could furtively seize and tear.
So far to the shoulders,—but if you took
The Beast in reverse you would find
The ignoble form of a craven cur
Was all that lay behind.
She lived by giving to simple folk
A silly riddle to read,
And when they failed she drank their blood
In cruel and ravenous greed.
But at last came one who knew her word,
And she perished in pain and shame,—
This bastard Sphinx leads the same base life
And his end will be the same.
For an OEdipus-People is coming fast
With swelled feet limping on,
If they shout his true name once aloud
His false foul power is gone.
Afraid to fight and afraid to fly,
He cowers in an abject shiver;
The people will come to their own at last,—
God is not mocked for ever.
THE SURRENDER OF SPAIN.
I.
Land of unconquered Pelayo! land of the Cid Campeador!
Sea-girdled mother of men! Spain, name of glory and power;
Cradle of world-grasping Emperors, grave of the reckless invader,
How art thou fallen, my Spain! how art thou sunk at this hour!
II.
Once thy magnanimous sons trod, victors, the portals of Asia,
Once the Pacific waves rushed, joyful thy banners to see;
For it was Trajan that carried the battle-flushed eagles to Dacia,
Cortes that planted thy flag fast by the uttermost sea.
III.
Hast thou forgotten those days illumined with glory and honour,
When the far isles of the sea thrilled to the tread of Castile?
When every land under Heaven was flecked by the shade of thy banner,—
When every beam of the sun flashed on thy conquering steel?
IV.
Then through red fields of slaughter, through death and defeat and
disaster,
Still flared thy banner aloft, tattered, but free from a stain,—
Now to the upstart Savoyard thou bendest to beg for a master!
How the red flush of her shame mars the proud beauty of Spain!
V.
Has the red blood run cold that boiled by the Xenil and Darro?
Are the high deeds of the sires sung to the children no more?
On the dun hills of the North hast thou heard of no plough-boy Pizarro?
Roams no young swine-herd Cortes hid by the Tagus' wild shore?
VI.
Once again does Hispania bend low to the yoke of the stranger!
Once again will she rise, flinging her gyves in the sea!
Princeling of Piedmont! unwitting thou weddest with doubt and with
danger,
King over men who have learned all that it costs to be free.