President!... Emperor!...
President!... On the floor
Spake a sharp Senator
Widening his ranges:
‘From Paris I impeach
Vannes for disloyal speech;
Send thither troops to teach,
How the world changes!’
Down on the peasants then
Rode the Republic’s men,
Trampling the corn again,
Miring the flowers;
Hewed thro’ the rebels nigh,
Scoffed at the women’s cry,
Set the tricolor high
On the church towers.
Pale in his cot that day,
Dying, the pastor lay,
Where still his eye could stray
Up valleys gleaming;
Watchers were at his side;
Prayer unto prayer replied:
Hush! what was that he spied,
Pinnacle-streaming?
(Nothing was he aware
In his deaf Breton air,—
So gray traditions there
Throve unforgotten,—
That, by a final chance,
Kings all were led a dance;
Long since, in fickle France,
Sceptres were rotten!)
Sprang the old lion, still
Live with prodigious will,
To his stone casement-sill;
Foolish and true one!
Snatched up the blade he bore,
Rough with its rust of yore,
Kissed it, a saint no more—
Only a Chouan!