BERTRAND AND GOURGAUD TALK OVER OLD TIMES

Gourgaud, these tears are tears — but look, this laugh,

How hearty and serene — you see a laugh

Which settles to a smile of lips and eyes

Makes tears just drops of water on the leaves

When rain falls from a sun-lit sky, my friend,

Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, call me

Beloved Bertrand. Ha! I sigh for joy.

Look at our Paris, happy, whole, renewed,

Refreshed by youth, new dressed in human leaves,

Shaking its fresh blown blossoms to the world.

And here we sit grown old, of memories

Top-full — your hand — my breast is all afire

With happiness that warms, makes young again.

You see it is not what we saw to-day

That makes me spirit, rids me of the flesh:—

But all that I remember, we remember

Of what the world was, what it is to-day,

Beholding how it grows. Gourgaud, I see

Not in the rise of this man or of that,

Nor in a battle's issue, in the blow

That lifts or fells a nation — no, my friend,

God is not there, but in the living stream

Which sweeps in spite of eddies, undertows,

Cross-currents, what you will, to that result

Where stillness shows the star that fits the star

Of truth in spirits treasured, imaged, kept

Through sorrow, blood and death,— God moves in that

And there I find Him.

But these tears — for whom

Or what are tears? The Old Guard — oh, my friend

That melancholy remnant! And the horse,

White, to be sure, but not Marengo, wearing

The saddle and the bridle which he used.

My tears take quality for these pitiful things,

But other quality for the purple robe

Over the coffin lettered in pure gold

“Napoleon” — ah, the emperor at last

Come back to Paris! And his spirit looks

Over the land he loved, with what result?

Does just the army that acclaimed him rise

Which rose to hail him back from Elba?— no

All France acclaims him! Princes of the church,

And notables uncover! At the door

A herald cries “The Emperor!” Those assembled

Rise and do reverence to him. Look at Soult,

He hands the king the sword of Austerlitz,

The king turns to me, hands the sword to me,

I place it on the coffin — dear Gourgaud,

Embrace me, clasp my hand! I weep and laugh

For thinking that the Emperor is home;

For thinking I have laid upon his bed

The sword that makes inviolable his bed,

Since History stepped to where I stood and stands

To say forever: Here he rests, be still,

Bow down, pass by in reverence — the Ages

Like giant caryatides that look

With sleepless eyes upon the world and hold

With never tiring hands the Vault of Time,

Command your reverence.

What have we seen?

Why this, that every man, himself achieving

Exhausts the life that drives him to the work

Of self-expression, of the vision in him,

His reason for existence, as he sees it.

He may or may not mould the epic stuff

As he would wish, as lookers on have hope

His hands shall mould it, and by failing take —

For slip of hand, tough clay or blinking eye,

A cinder for that moment in the eye —

A world of blame; for hooting or dispraise

Have all his work misvalued for the time,

And pump his heart up harder to subdue

Envy, or fear or greed, in any case

He grows and leaves and blossoms, so consumes

His soul's endowment in the vision of life.

And thus of him. Why, there at Fontainebleau

He is a man full spent, he idles, sleeps,

Hears with dull ears: Down with the Corsican,

Up with the Bourbon lilies! Royalists,

Conspirators, and clericals may shout

Their hatred of him, but he sits for hours

Kicking the gravel with his little heel,

Which lately trampled sceptres in the mud.

Well, what was he at Waterloo?— you know:

That piercing spirit which at mid-day power

Knew all the maps of Europe — could unfold

A map and say here is the place, the way,

The road, the valley, hill, destroy them here.

Why, all his memory of maps was blurred

The night before he failed at Waterloo.

The Emperor was sick, my friend, we know it.

He could not ride a horse at Waterloo.

His soul was spent, that's all. But who was rested?

The dirty Bourbons skulking back to Paris,

Now that our giant democrat was sick.

Oh, yes, the dirty Bourbons skulked to Paris

Helped by the Duke and Blücher, damn their souls.

What is a man to do whose work is done

And does not feel so well, has cancer, say?

You know he could have reached America

After his fall at Waterloo. Good God!

If only he had done it! For they say

New Orleans is a city good to live in.

And he had ceded to America

Louisiana, which in time would curb

The English lion. But he did n't go there.

His mind was weakened else he had foreseen

The lion he had tangled, wounded, scourged

Would claw him if it got him, play with him

Before it killed him. Who was England then?—

An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king

Who lost a continent for the lust that slew

The Emperor — the world will say at last

It was no other. Who was England then?

A regent bad as husband, father, son,

Monarch and friend. But who was England then?

Great Castlereagh who cut his throat, but who

Had cut his country's long before. The duke —

Since Waterloo, and since the Emperor slept —

The English stoned the duke, he bars his windows

With iron‘ gainst the mobs who break to fury,

To see the Duke waylay democracy.

The world's great conqueror's conqueror!— Eh bien!

Grips England after Waterloo, but when

The people see the duke for what he is:

A blocker of reform, a Tory sentry,

A spotless knight of ancient privilege,

They up and stone him, by the very deed

Stone him for wronging the democracy

The Emperor erected with the sword.

The world's great conqueror's conqueror — Oh, I sicken!

Odes are like head-stones, standing while the graves

Are guarded and kept up, but falling down

To ruin and erasure when the graves

Are left to sink. Hey! there you English poets,

Picking from daily libels, slanders, junk

Of metal for your tablets‘ gainst the Emperor,

Melt up true metal at your peril, poets,

Sweet moralists, monopolists of God.

But who was England? Byron driven out,

And courts of chancery vile but sacrosanct,

Despoiling Shelley of his children; Southey,

The turn-coat panegyrist of King George,

An old, mad, blind, despised, dead king at last;

A realm of rotten boroughs massed to stop

The progress of democracy and chanting

To God Almighty hymns for Waterloo,

Which did not stop democracy, as they hoped.

For England of to-day is freer — why?

The revolution and the Emperor!

They quench the revolution, send Napoleon

To St. Helena — but the ashes soar

Grown finer, grown invisible at last.

And all the time a wind is blowing ashes,

And sifting them upon the spotless linen

Of kings and dukes in England till at last

They find themselves mistaken for the people.

Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me — tiens!

The Emperor is home again in France,

And Europe for democracy is thrilling.

Now do n't you see the Emperor was sick,

The shadows falling slant across his mind

To write to such an England: “My career

Is ended and I come to sit me down

Before the fireside of the British people,

And claim protection from your Royal Highness” —

This to the regent — “as a generous foe

Most constant and most powerful” — I weep.

They tricked him Gourgaud. Once upon the ship,

He thinks he's bound for England, and why not?

They dine him, treat him like an Emperor.

And then they tack and sail to St. Helena,

Give him a cow shed for a residence.

Depute that thing Sir Hudson Lowe to watch him,

Spy on his torture, intercept his letters,

Step on his broken wings, and mock the film

Descending on those eyes of failing fire....

One day the packet brought to him a book

Inscribed by Hobhouse, “To the Emperor.”

Lowe kept the book but when the Emperor learned

Lowe kept the book, because‘ twas so inscribed,

The Emperor said — I stood near by — “Who gave you

The right to slur my title? In a few years

Yourself, Lord Castlereagh, the duke himself

Will be beneath oblivion's dust, remembered

For your indignities to me, that's all.

England expended millions on her libels

To poison Europe's mind and make my purpose

Obscure or bloody — how have they availed?

You have me here upon this scarp of rock,

But truth will pierce the clouds,‘ tis like the sun

And like the sun it cannot be destroyed.

Your Wellingtons and Metternichs may dam

The liberal stream, but only to make stronger

The torrent when it breaks. “Is it not true?

That's why I weep and laugh to-day, my friend

And trust God as I have not trusted yet.

And then the Emperor said: “What have I claimed?

A portion of the royal blood of Europe?

A crown for blood's sake? No, my royal blood

Is dated from the field of Montenotte,

And from my mother there in Corsica,

And from the revolution. I'm a man

Who made himself because the people made me.

You understand as little as she did

When I had brought her back from Austria,

And riding through the streets of Paris pointed

Up to the window of the little room

Where I had lodged when I came from Brienne,

A poor boy with my way to make — as poor

As Andrew Jackson in America,

No more a despot than he is a despot.

Your England understands. I was a menace

Not as a despot, but as head and front,

Eyes, brain and leader of democracy,

Which like the messenger of God was marking

The doors of kings for slaughter. England lies.

Your England understands I had to hold

By rule compact a people drunk with rapture,

And torn by counter forces, had to fight

The royalists of Europe who beheld

Their peoples feverish from the great infection,

Who hoped to stamp the plague in France and stop

Its spread to them. Your England understands.

Save Castlereagh and Wellington and Southey.

But look you, sir, my roads, canals and harbors,

My schools, finance, my code, the manufactures

Arts, sciences I builded, democratic

Triumphs which I won will live for ages —

These are my witnesses, will testify

Forever what I was and meant to do.

The ideas which I brought to power will stifle

All royalty, all feudalism — look

They live in England, they illuminate

America, they will be faith, religion

For every people — these I kindled, carried

Their flaming torch through Europe as the chief

Torch bearer, soldier, representative.”

You were not there, Gourgaud — but wait a minute,

I choke with tears and laughter. Listen now:

Sir Hudson Lowe looked at the Emperor

Contemptuous but not the less bewitched.

And when the Emperor finished, out he drawled

“You make me smile.” Why that is memorable:

It should be carved upon Sir Hudson's stone.

He was a prophet, founder of the sect

Of smilers and of laughers through the world,

Smilers and laughers that the Emperor

Told every whit the truth. Look you at Europe,

What were it in this day except for France,

Napoleon's France, the revolution's France?

What will it be as time goes on but peoples

Made free through France?

I take the good and ill,

Think over how he lounged, lay late in bed,

Spent long hours in the bath, counted the hours,

Pale, broken, wracked with pain, insulted, watched,

His child torn from him, Josephine and wife

Silent or separate, waiting long for death,

Looking with filmed eyes upon his wings

Broken, upon the rocks stretched out to gain

A little sun, and crying to the sea

With broken voice — I weep when I remember

Such things which you and I from day to day

Beheld, nor could not mitigate. But then

There is that night of thunder, and the dawning

And all that day of storm and toward the evening

He says: “Deploy the eagles!” “Onward!” Well,

I leave the room and say to Steward there:

“The Emperor is dead.” That very moment

A crash of thunder deafened us. You see

A great age boomed in thunder its renewal —

Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, friend.