ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{The Drama of Kings 1871}

                                                                                                                                                                 157

THE DRAMA OF KINGS.
_____

PART II.

NAPOLEON FALLEN.

                                                                                                                                                                   159

SPEAKERS.

_____

NAPOLEON III.

AN OFFICER OF THE IMPERIAL STAFF.

A ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP.

A PHYSICIAN.

MESSENGERS.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS.

_____

SCENE—The Château of Wilhelmshöhe, in Cassel.

TIME—1870, shortly after the surrender of Sedan.

                                                                                                                                                                 161

                                                                                                                                                               [note]

SCENE.—THE CHÂTEAU OF WILHELMSHÖHE, IN CASSEL.

CHORUS.

STRANGE are the bitter things
God wreaks on cruel Kings;
Sad is the cup drunk up
     By Kings accurst.
In secret ways and strong
God doth avenge man’s wrong.
The least, God saith, is Death,
     And Life the worst.

Sit under the sweet skies;
Think how Kings set and rise,
Think, wouldst thou know the woe
     In each proud breast?
Sit on the hearth and see                                                          162
Children look up to thee—
Think, wouldst thou own a throne,
     Or lowly rest?

Ah, to grow old, grow old,
Upon a throne of gold—
Ah, on a throne, so lone,
     To wear a crown;
To watch the clouds, the air,
Lest storm be breeding there—
Pale, lest some blast may cast
     Thy glory down.

He who with miser’s ken
Hides his red gold from men,
And wakes and grieves, lest thieves
     Be creeping nigh;
He who hath murder done,
And fears each rising sun,
Lest it say plain, “O Cain,
     Rise up and die!”

These and all underlings                                                           163
Are blesseder than Kings,
For ah! by weight of fate
     King’s hearts are riven;
With blood and gold they too
Reckon their sad days thro’—
They fear the plan of man,
     The wrath of heaven.

In the great lonely bed,
Hung round with gold and red,
While the dim light each night
     Burns in the room,
They lie alone and see
The rustling tapestry,
Lest Murther’s eyes may rise
     Out of the gloom.

Dost thou trust any man?
Thou dost what no King can.
Friend hast thou near and dear?
     A King hath none.
Hast thou true love to kiss?                                                       164
A King hath no such bliss,
On no true breast may rest
     Under the sun.

Ah, to sit cold, sit cold,
Upon a throne of gold,
Forcing the while a smile
     To hide thy care;
To taste no cup, to eat
No food, however sweet,
But with a drear dumb fear,
     Lest Death be there!

Ah, to rule men, and know
How many wish thee low—
That, ’neath the sun, scarce one
     Would keep thee high:
To watch in agony
The strife of all things free,
To dread the mirth of Earth
     When thou shalt die!

Hast thou a hard straw bed?                                                    165
Hast thou thy crust of bread?
And hast thou quaff’d thy draught
     Of water clear?
And canst thou dance and sing?—
O blesseder than a King!
O happy one whom none
     Doth hate or fear!

Wherefore, though from the strong
Thou sufferest deep wrong,
Tho’ Kings, with ire and fire,
     Have wrought thee woe:
Pray for them! for I swear
Deeply they need thy prayer—
Most in their hour of power,
     Least when cast low.

And when thou castest down
King, sceptre, throne, and crown,
Pause that same day, and pray
     For the accurst.
Ah, in strange ways and strong                                                 166
God doth avenge man’s wrong—
The least, God saith, is Death,
     And Life the worst.

NAPOLEON. A PHYSICIAN.

PHYSICIAN.

The sickness is no sickness of the flesh,
No ailment such as common mortals feel,
But spiritual; ’tis thy fiery thought
Drying the wholesome humour of the veins,
Consuming the brain’s substance, and from thence,
As flame spreads, thro’ each muscle, vein, and nerve,
Reaching the vital members. If your Highness
Could stoop from the tense strain of great affairs
To books and music, or such idle things
As wing the weary hours for lesser men!
Turn not thine eyes to France; receive no news;
Shut out the blinding gleam of battle; rest                                            167
From all fierce ache of thought; and for a time
Let the wild world go by.

NAPOLEON.

                                     Enough, old friend:
Thine is most wholesome counsel. I will seek
To make this feverish mass of nerve and thew,
This thing of fretful heart-beats,
Fulfil its functions more mechanically.
Farewell.

PHYSICIAN.

Farewell, Sire. Brighter waking thoughts,
And sweeter dreams, attend thee!         [Exit.

NAPOLEON.

                                           All things change
Their summer livery for the autumn tinge
Of wind-blown withering leaves. That man is faithful,—                       168
I have been fed from his cold palm for years,
And I believe, so strongly use and wont
Fetter such natures, he would die to serve me;
Yet do I see in his familiar eyes
The fatal pain of pity. I have lain
At Death’s door divers times, and he hath slowly,
With subtle cunning and most confident skill,
Woo’d back my breath, but never even then,
Tho’ God’s hand held me down, did he regard me
With so intense a gaze as now, when smitten
By the mail’d hand of Man. I am not dead!
Not dying! only sick,—as all are sick
Who feel the mortal prison-house too weak
For the free play of Soul! I eat and drink—
I laugh—I weep, perchance—I feel—I think—                                  169
I still preserve all functions of a man—
Yet doth the free wind of the fickle world
Blow on me with as chilly a respect
As on a nameless grave. Is there so sad
A sunset on my face, that all beholding
Think only of the morrow?—other minds,
Other hearts, other hands? Almighty God,
If I dare pray Thee by that name of God,
Strengthen me! blow upon me with Thy breath!
Let one last memorable flash of fire
Burst from the blackening brand!—

                                   Yes, sick—sick—sick;
Sick of the world; sick of the fitful fools
That I have played with; sick, forsooth, of breath,
Of thought, of hope, of Time. I staked my Soul
Against a Crown, and won. I wore the Crown,
And ’twas of burning fire. I staked my Crown
Against a Continent, and lost. I am here;                                            170
Fallen, unking’d, the shadow of a power,
Yet not heart-broken—no, not heart-broken—
But surely with more equable a pulse
Than when I sat on yonder lonely Seat
Fishing for wretched souls, and for my sport,
Although the bait was dainty to the taste,
Hooking the basest only. I am nearer
To the world’s heart than then; ’tis bitter bread,
Most bitter, yea, most bitter; yet I eat
More freely, and sleep safer. I could die now:
And yet I dare not die.
                                       Maker of men!
Thou Wind before whose strange breath we are clouds
Driving and changing!—Thou who dost abide
While all the laurels on the brows of Kings
Wither as wreaths of snow!—Thou Voice that dwellest
In the high sleeping chambers of the great,                                          171
When council and the feverish pomp are hush’d,
And the dim lamp burns low, and at its side
The sleeping potion in a cup of gold:—
Hear me, O God, in this my travail hour!
From first to last, Thou knowest—yea, Thou knowest—
I have been a man of peace: a silent man,
Thought-loving, most ambitious to appease
Self-chiding fears of mental littleness,
A planner of delights for simple men—                                              [l.x]
In all, a man of peace. I struck one blow,
And saw my hands were bloody; from that hour
I knew myself too delicately wrought
For crimson pageants; yea, the sight of pain
Sicken’d me like a woman. Day and night
I felt that stain on my immortal soul,
And gloved it from the world, and diligently
Wrought the red sword of empire to a scythe
For the swart hands of husbandmen to reap                                        172
Abundant harvest.—Nay, but hear me swear,
I never dreamed such human harvests blest
As spring from that red rain which pours this day
On the fair fields I sowed. Never, O God,
Was I a butcher or a thing of blood;
Always a man of peace:—in mine ambition
Peace-seeking, peace-engendering;—till that day
I saw the half-unloosen’d hounds of War
Yelp on the chain and gnash their bloody teeth,
Ready to rend mine unoffending Child,
In whose weak hand the mimic toy of empire
Trembled to fall. Then feverishly I wrought
A weapon in the dark to smite those hounds
From mine imperial seat; and as I wrought
One of the fiends that came of old to Cain
Found me, and since I thirsted gave to me
A philtre, and in idiocy I drank:
When suddenly I heard as in a dream
Trumpets around me silver-tongued, and saw
The many-colour’d banners gleam in the sun
Above the crying legions, and I rode                                                   173
Royal before them, drunk with light and power,
My boy beside me blooming like a rose
To see the glorious show. Yet God, my God,
Even then I swear the hideous lust of life
Was far from me and mine; nay, I rode forth,
As to a gay review at break of day,
A student dazzled with the golden glare,
Half conscious of the cries of those he ruled,
Half brooding o’er the book that he had left
Open within his chamber. “Blood may flow,”
I thought, “a little blood—a few poor drops,—
A few poor drops of blood: but they shall prove
Pearls of great price to buy my people peace;
The hounds of War shall turn from our fair fields,
And on my son a robe like this I wear
Shall fall, and make him royal for all time!”
O fool, fool, fool! What was I but a child,
Pleased beyond understanding with a toy,                                           174
Till in mine ears the scream of murther’d France
Rang like a knell. I had slain my best beloved!
The curse of blood was on mine hands again!
My gentle boy, with wild affrighted gaze,
Turn’d from his sire, and moaned; the hounds of War
Scream’d round me, glaring with their pitiless eyes
Innumerable as the eyes of heaven;
I felt the sob of the world’s woe; I saw
The fiery rain fill all the innocent air;
And, feeble as a maid who hides her face
In terror at a sword-flash, conscience-struck,
Sick, stupefied, appalled, and all alone,
I totter’d, grasped the empty air,—and fell!

                                                                                                                                                                 [note]

CHORUS.

Vast Sea of Life that, ’neath the arc
     Of yonder glistening sky,
Rollest thy waters deep and dark,
     While windy years blow by:
On thy pale shore this night we stand,                                                 175
And hear thy wash upon the sand.

Calm is thy sheet and wanly bright,
     Low is thy voice and deep;
There is no child on earth this night
     Wrapt in a gentler sleep;
Crouch’d like a hound thou liest now,
With eye upcast and dreadful brow.

O Sea, thy breast is deep and blest
     After a dreadful day;
And yet thou listenest in thy rest
     For some sign far away;
Watching with fascinated eyes
The uplifted Finger in the skies!

Who broods beside thee, with dark shade
     Upon the moonlit sands,
Who looks on thee with eyes afraid,
     And supplicating hands?—
Creep closer, lap his feet, O Sea!
’Tis the sad Man of Destiny.

He says a word, he names a name,                                                     176
     He cries to the Most High,
Half kneeling, torn with sudden shame,
     He utters his lone cry.
Thou watchest the blue heaven; but he,
Praying to heaven, watches thee.

He pleads to God, yet dares not lift
     His eyes to find the Face;
But, rather, where the waters drift,
     Stands in a shadowy place,
And looking downward sees at last
Fragments of wreck thy waves upcast.

A hundred years thy still tides go
     And touch the self-same mark—
Thus far, no farther, may they flow
     And fall in light and dark;
The mystic water-line is drawn
By moonlit night and glimmering dawn.

Sure as a heart-beat year by year,
     Though winds and thunders call,
Be it storm or calm, the tides appear,
     Touch the long line and fall,
Liquid and luminously dim;                                                                 177
And men build dwellings on their brim.

O well may this man wring his hands,
     And utter a wild prayer.
He built above thy lonely sands
     A Feast-house passing fair;
It rose above thy sands, O Sea,
     In a fair nook of greenery.

For he had watched thee many days,
     And mark’d thy weedy line,
And far above the same did raise
     His Temple undivine.
Throng’d with fair shapes of sin and guilt
It rose most magically built.

Not to the one eternal Light,
     Lamp of both quick and dead,
Did he uprear it in thy sight,
     But with a smile he said:
“To the unvarying laws of Fate,
This Temple fair I dedicate.

“To that sure law by which the Sea                                                     178
     Is driven to come and go
Within one mystic boundary,
     And can no further flow;
So that who knoweth destiny
May safely build, nor fear the Sea!”

O fool! O miserable clod!
     O creature made to die!
Who thought to mark the might of God
     And mete it with his eye;
Who measured God’s mysterious ways
By laws of common nights and days.

O worm, that sought to pass God by,
     Nor feared that God’s revenge:
The law within the law, whereby
     All things work on to change;
Who guessed not how the still law’s course
Accumulates superfluous force;—

How for long intervals and vast
     Strange secrets hide from day,
Till Nature’s womb upheaves to cast
     The gather’d load away;
How deep the very laws of life                                                           179
Deposit elements of strife.

O many a year in sun and shower
     The quiet waters creep!—
But suddenly on some dark hour
     Strange trouble shakes the deep:
Silent and monstrous thro’ the gloom
Rises the Tidal Wave for doom.

Then woe for all who, like this Man,
     Have built so near the Sea,
For what avails the human plan
     When the new force flows free?
Over their bonds the waters stream,
And Empires crash and despots scream.

O, is it earthquake far below
     Where the still forces sleep?
Doth the volcano shriek and glow,
     Unseen beneath the deep?
We know not; suddenly as death
Comes the great Wave with fatal breath.

God works his ends for ever thus,                                                      180
     And lets the great plan roll.
He wrought all things miraculous,
     The Sea, the Earth, the Soul;
And nature from dark springs doth draw
Her fatal miracles of law.

O well may this Man wring his hands,
     And utter a wild prayer;
He built above the shifting sands
     A Feast-house passing fair.
Long years it stood, a thing of shame:
At last the mighty moment came.

Crashing like grass into its grave,
     Fell down the fair abode;
The despot struggled in the wave,
     And swimming screamed to God.
And lo, the waters with deep roar
Cast the black weed upon the shore.

Then with no warning, as they rose,
     Shrunk back to their old bounds:
Tho’ still with deep volcanic throes
     And sad mysterious sounds
They quake. The Man upon their brim                                                181
Sees wreck of Empire washed to him.

Vast Sea of life, that ’neath the arc
     Of yonder glistening sky,
Spreadest thy waters strange and dark
     While windy years blow by,
Creep closer, kiss his feet, O Sea,
Poor baffled worm of Destiny!

Fain would he read with those dull eyes
     What never man hath known,
The secret that within thee lies
     Seen by God’s sight alone;
Thou watchest Heaven all hours; but he,
Praying to Heaven, watches thee.

So will he watch with weary breath
     Musing beside the deep,
Till on thy shore he sinks in death,
     And thy still tides upcreep,
Raise him with cold forgiving kiss,
And wash his dust to the Abyss.

                                                                                                                                                                 182

NAPOLEON. A BISHOP.

NAPOLEON.

Speak out thy tidings quickly,
How fares it with the Empress and my son?

BISHOP.

Well, Sire. They bid thee look thy fate in the face,
And be of cheer.

NAPOLEON.

               Where didst thou part with them?

BISHOP.

In England, Sire, where they have found a home
Among the frozen-blooded islanders
Who yesterday called blessings on thy brow,
And now rejoice in thy calamity.
Thus much thy mighty lady bade me say,
If I should find thee private in thy woe:—
With thy great name the streets are garrulous;                                     183
Mart, theatre, and church, palace and prison,
Down to the very commons by the road
Where Egypt’s bastard children pitch their tents,
Murmur “Napoleon;” but, alas! the sound
Is as an echo that with no refrain,
No loving echo in a living voice,
Dies a cold death among the mountain snow.

NAPOLEON.

Old man, I never looked for friendship there,
I never loved that England in my heart;
Tho’ twas by such a sampler I believed
To weave our France’s fortunes thriftily
With the gold tissues of prosperity.

BISHOP.

Ah, Sire, if I dare speak—

NAPOLEON.

                                         Speak on.

                                                                                                                                                                 184

BISHOP.

                                             Too much
Thine eyes to that cold isle of heretics
Turn’d from thy throne for use and precedent;
Too little did they look, and that too late,
On that strong rock whereon the Lord thy God
Hath built His Holy Church.

NAPOLEON.

                                         Something of this
I have heard in happier seasons.

BISHOP.

                                                 Hear it now
In the dark day of thine adversity.
O Sire, by him who holds the blessed Keys,
Christ’s Vicar on the earth for blinded men,
I do conjure thee, hearken—with my mouth,
Tho’ I am weak and low, the Holy Church
Cries to her erring son!

NAPOLEON.

                                 Well, well, he hears.

                                                                                                                                                                 185

BISHOP.

Thou smilest, Sire. With such a smile, so grim,
So bitter, didst thou mock our blessed cause
In thy prosperity.

NAPOLEON.

                               False, Bishop, false!
I made a bloody circle with my sword
Round the old Father’s head, and so secured him
Safe on his tottering Seat against the world,
When all the world cried that his time was come.
What then? He totter’d on. I could not prop
His Seat up with my sword, that Seat being built,
Not on a rock, but sand.

BISHOP.

                                     The world is sick
And old indeed, when lips like thine blaspheme.
Whisper such words out on the common air,                                      186
And, as a child,
Blow thy last hopes away.

NAPOLEON.

                       Hopes, hopes! What hopes?
What knowest thou of hopes?

BISHOP.

                                   Thy throne was rear’d
(Nay hear me, Sire, in patience to the end)
Not on the vulgar, unsubstantial air
Which men call Freedom, not on half consent
Of unbelievers—tho’, alas! thou hast stoop’d
To smile on unbelievers—not on lives
That saw in thee one of the good and wise,
Not wholly on the watchword of thy name;
But first on this—the swords thy gold could buy,
And most and last, upon the help of those
Who to remotest corners of our land
Watch o’er the souls of men, sit at their hearths,
Lend their solemnity to birth and death,                                               187
Guide as they list the motions of the mind,
And as they list with darkness or with light
Appease the spiritual hunger. Where
Had France been, and thou, boasted Sun of France,
For nineteen harvests, save for those who crept
Thine agents into every cottage-door,
Slowly diffusing thro’ each vein of France
The sleepy wine of empire? Like to slaves 
These served thee, used thy glory for a charm,
Hung up thine image in a peasant’s room
Beside our blessed Saints, and cunningly,
As shepherds drive their sheep unto the fold,
Gather’d thy crying people where thy hand
Might choose them out for very butchery.
Nay, more; as fearful men may stamp out fire,
They in the spirits of thy people killed
The sparks of peril left from those dark days,
When France, being drunk with blood and mad with pain,
Sprang on the burning pyre, and with her raiment                               188
Burning and streaming crimson in the wind,
Curst and denied her God. They made men see,
Yea in the very name of Liberty,
A net of Satan’s set to snare the soul
From Christ and Christ’s salvation: in their palms
They welded the soft clay of popular thought
To this wish’d semblance yet more cunningly;
Till not a peasant heir of his own fields,
And not a citizen that own’d a house,
And not a man or woman who had saved,
But when some wild voice shriek’d out “Liberty!”
Trembled as if the robber’s foot were set
Already on his threshold, and in fear
Clutch’d at his little store. These things did they,
Christ’s servants serving thee; they were as veins
Bearing the blood through France from thee its heart
Throbbing full glorious in the capital.                                                  189
And thou, O Sire, in thine own secret mind
Knowest what meed thou hast accorded them,
Who, thy sworn liegemen in thy triumph-hour,
Are still thy props in thy calamity.

NAPOLEON.

Well; have you done?

BISHOP.

               Not yet.

NAPOLEON.

                                 What more?

BISHOP.

                                                     Look round
This day on Europe, look upon the World,
Which like a dark tree o’er the river of Time,
Hangeth with fruit of races, goodly some,
Some rotten to the core. Out of the heart                                            190
Of what had seem’d the sunset of the west,
Rises the Teuton, silent, subtle, and sure,
Gathering his venom slowly like a snake,
Wrapping the sleepy lands in fold by fold;
Then springing up to stab his prey with fangs
Numerous as spears of wheat in harvest time.
O, he is wise, the Teuton, he is deep
As Satan’s self in perilous human lore,
Such as the purblind deem philosophy!
But, be he cunning as the Tempter was,
Christ yet shall bruise his head; for in himself
He bears, as serpents use,
A brood of lesser snakes, cunning things too
But lesser, and of these many prepare
Such peril as in his most glorious hour
May strike him feebler than the wretched worms
That crawl this day on the dead lambs of France.
Meantime, he to his purpose moves most slow,
And overcomes. Note how, upon her rock,
The sea-beast Albion, swollen with idle years
Of basking in the prosperous sunshine, rolls                                       191
Her fearful eyes, and murmurs. See how wildly
The merciless Russian paceth like a bear
His lonely steppes of snow, and with deep moan
Calling his hideous young, casts famished eyes
On that worn Paralytic in the East,
Whom thou of old didst save. Call thou to these
For succour; shall they stir? Will the sea-beast
Budge from her rock? Will the bear leave his wilds?
Then mark how feebly in the wintry cold
Old Austria ruffles up her plumage, Sire,
Covering the half-heal’d wound upon her neck;
See how on Spain her home-bred vermin feed,
As did the worms on Herod; Italy
Is as a dove-cote by a battle-field,
Abandoned to the kites of infamy;
Belgium, Denmark, and Helvetia,                                                        192
Like plovers watching while the wind-hover
Strikes down one of their miserable kind,
Wheeling upon the wind, cry to each other;
And far away the Eagle of the West,
Poised in the lull of her own hurricane,
Sits watching thee with eyes as blank of love
As those grey seas that break beneath her feet.

NAPOLEON.

This is cold comfort, yet I am patient. Well?
To the issue! Dost thou keep behind the salve
Whose touch shall heal my wounds? or dost thou only,
As any raven on occasion can,
Croak out the stale truth, that the day is lost,
And that the world’s slaves knee the conqueror?

BISHOP.

Look not on these, thy crownéd peers, for aid,
But inward. Read thy heart.

                                                                                                                                                                 193

NAPOLEON.

                                         It is a book
I have studied somewhat deeply.

BISHOP.

                                               In thine heart,
Tho’ the cold lips might sneer, the dark brow frown,
Wert thou not ever one believing God?

NAPOLEON.

I have believed, and do believe, in God.

BISHOP.

For that, give thanks to God. He shall uplift thee.

NAPOLEON.

How?

BISHOP.

     By the secret hands of His great Church.
Even now in darkness and in tilths remote                                          [l.x]
They labour in thy service; one by one                                               194
They gather up the fallen reins of power
And keep them for thy grasp; so be thou sure,
When thou hast woven round about thy soul
The robe of holiness, and from the hands
Of Holy Church demandest thy lost throne,
It shall be hers to give thee.

NAPOLEON.

                                               In good truth,
I scarce conceive thee. What, degenerate Rome,
With scarce the power in this strong wind of war
To hold her ragged gauds about her limbs;
Rome, reft of the deep thunder in her voice,
The dark curse in her eye; Rome, old, dumb, blind,—
Shall Rome give Kingdoms?—Why, she hath already
Transferred her own to Heaven.

                                                                                                                                                                 195

BISHOP.

                                         Canst thou follow
The coming and the going of the wind,
Fathom the green abysses of the sea?
For such as these, is Rome:—the voice of God
Sounding in darkness and a silent place;
The morning dew scarce seen upon the flowers,
Yet drawn to heaven and grown the thunder-bolt
That shakes the earth at noon. When man’s wild soul
Clutches no more at the white feet of Christ;
When death is not, nor spiritual disease;
When atheists can on the black mountain tops
Walk solitary in the light of stars,
And cry, “God is not;” when no mothers kneel
Moaning on graves of children; when no flashes
Trouble the melancholy dark of dream;
When prayer is hush’d, when the Wise Book is shut—
Then Rome shall fall indeed: meantime she is based                             196
Invulnerable on the soul of man,
Its darkest needs and fears; she doth dispense
What soon or late is better prized than gold,—
Comfort and intercession; for all sin
She hath the swiftest shrift, wherefore her clients
Are those that have sinned deeply, and of such
Is half the dreadful world; all these she holds
By that cold eyeball which hath read their souls,
So that they look upon her secretly
And tremble,—while in her dark book of Fate
E’en now she dooms the Teuton.

                                                                                                                                 [Enter a MESSENGER.

NAPOLEON.

                                         Well, what news?

MESSENGER.

’Tis brief and sad. The mighty Prussian chiefs,
Gathering their fiery van in silence, close
Toward the imperial City—in whose walls                                          197
Treason and Rage and Fear contend together
Like hunger-stricken wolves; and at their cry,
Echoed from Paris to the Vosges, France,
Calling her famish’d children round her knees,
Looks at the trembling nations. All is still,
Like to that silence which precedes the storm,
And shakes the forest leaves without a breath;
But surely as the vaporous storm is woven,
The German closes round the heart of France
His hurricane of lives.

NAPOLEON (to BISHOP).

                               The Teuton thrives
Under the doom we spake of.
     (To MESSENGER)    Well, speak on!

MESSENGER.

Meantime, like kine that see the gathering clouds,
And shelter ’neath the shade of rocks and trees,
Thy timorous people fly before the sound                                           198
Of the approaching footsteps, seeking woods
For shelter, snaring conies for their food,
And sleeping like the beasts; some fare in caves,
Fearing the wholesome air, hushing the cries
Of infants lest the murderous foe should hear;
Some scatter west and south, their frighted eyes
Cast backward, with their wretched household goods;
And where these dwelt, most blest beneath thy rule,
The German legions thrive, let loose like swine
Amid the fields of harvest, in their track
Leaving the smoking ruin, and the church
Most desecrated to a sleeping-sty;—
So that the plenteous lands that rolled in gold
Round thy voluptuous City, lie full bare
To shame, to rapine, to calamity.

                                                                                                                                                                 199

NAPOLEON.

O for one hour of empire, that with life
I might consume this sorrow! ’Tis a spell
By which we are subdued!

MESSENGER.

                                 Strasbourg still stands,
Stubborn as granite, but the citadel
Is falling. Within, Famine and Horror nest,
And rear their young on ruin.          [Exit.

                                                                                                                                 [Enter a MESSENGER.

NAPOLEON.

                                       How, peal on peal!
Like the agonizing clash of bells, when flame
Hath seized on some fair city. News, more news?
Dost thou too catch the common trick o’ the time,
And ring a melancholy peal?

                                                                                                                                                                 200

MESSENGER.

                                           My liege,
Strasbourg still stands.

NAPOLEON.

                             And then?

MESSENGER.

                                           Pent up in Metz,
Encircled by a river of strong lives,
Bazaine is faithful to the cause and thee,
And from his prison doth proclaim himself,
And all the host of Frenchmen at his back,
Thy liegemen to the death.

NAPOLEON.

                               Why, that last peal
Sounds somewhat blither. Well?

MESSENGER.

                                         From his lone isle,
The old Italian Red-shirt in his age
Hath crawl’d, tho’ sickly and infirm, to France,
And slowly there his leonine features breed                                        201
Hope in the timid people, who——

NAPOLEON.

                     Enough!          [Exit MESSENGER.
That tune is flat and tame.

                                       [Enter a MESSENGER.

                                       What man art thou,
On whose swart face the frenzied lightning plays,                              [l.vi]
Prophetic of the thunder on the tongue?                                            [l.vii]
Speak!

MESSENGER.

               Better I had died at Weissenburg,
Where on the bloody field I lay for dead,
Than live to bring this woe. Ungenerous France,
Forgetful of thy gracious years of reign,
Pitiless as a sated harlot is
When ruin overtaketh him whose hand
Hath loaded her with gems, shameless and mad,
France, like Delilah, now betrays her lord.                                          202
The streets are drunken—from thy palace-gate
They pluck the imperial eagles, trampling them
Into the bloody mire; thy flags and pennons,
Torn from their vantage in the wind, are wrapt
In mockery round the beggar’s ragged limbs;
And thine imperial images in stone,
Dash’d from their lofty places, strew the ground
In shameful ruin. All the ragged shout,
While Trochu from the presidential seat,
Proclaims the empire dead, and calleth up
A new Republic, in whose chairs of office
Thine enemies, scribblers and demagogues,
Simon, Gambetta, Favre, and link’d with these
The miserable Rochefort, trembling grasp
The reins of power, unconscious of the scorn
That doth already doom them. To their feet
Come humming back, vain-drunken, all the wasps
Whom in thine hour of glory thou didst brush                                     203
With careless arm-sweep from thy festal cup:
Shoulder’d by mobs the pigmy Blanc declaims,
The hare-brain’d Hugo shrieks a maniac song
In concert, and the scribblers, brandishing
Their pens like valiant lilliputians
Against the Teuton giant, frantically
Scream chorus. Coming with mock-humble eyes
To the Republic, this sham shape of straw,
This stuff’d thing of a harlot’s carnival,
The dilettante sons of Orleans, kneeling,
Proffer forsooth their swords, which, being disdain’d,
They sheathe chapfallen and with bows withdraw
Back to their pictures and perfumery.

NAPOLEON.

Why, thine is news indeed. Nor do I weep
For mine own wrong, but for the woes of France,
Whose knell thou soundest. With a tongue of fire                               204
Our enemy shall like the ant-eater
Devour these insect rulers suddenly.
(Aside) Now, may the foul fiend blacken all the air
Above these Frenchmen, with revolt and fear
Darken alike the wits of friends and foes,
With swift confusion and with anarchy
Disturb their fretful councils, till at last,                                              [l.viii]
Many-tongued, wild-hair’d, mad, and horrible,
With fiery eyes and naked crimson limbs,
Upriseth the old Spectre of the Red,
And as of yore uplifts the shameful knife                                            [l.xii]
To stab unhappy France; then, in her need,
Fearful and terror-stricken, France shall call
On him who gave her nineteen plenteous years— 
And he may rise again.         [Exeunt.

[Notes:
Napoleon Fallen was revised for inclusion as Part II of The Drama of Kings. In January, 1874 The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan was published by Henry S. King and the third volume contained a revision of Napoleon Fallen under the title, ‘The Fool of Destiny’ in the section, ‘Political Mystics’. This revised version was then reprinted by Chatto & Windus in The Poetical Works of 1884 and 1901. The differences between the first and final versions are noted in the copy of Napoleon Fallen on this site. Since the first revision for The Drama of Kings was largely adopted for ‘The Fool of Destiny’ the following notes refer to the specific changes made in The Drama of Kings, and various lines which were not changed in this first revision.

The title, ‘Napoleon Fallen’ is retained.
Page 161: The first scene with the German Citizens is omitted and replaced by the opening Chorus.
This Chorus is not included in the 1874 version of ‘The Fool of Destiny’, but is included as ‘A Dirge For Kings’ in the ‘Songs of the Terrible Year’ section in Volume II of the 1874 H. S. King version of The Poetical Works, and the subsequent 1884 Chatto & Windus edition.
Page 171, l. x: Although the previous two lines have been omitted as in the later revisions, this line has not been altered. In ‘The Fool of Destiny’, ‘simple men’ is changed to ‘foolish men’.
Page 174: The Chorus section which originally followed Napoleon’s soliloquy is replaced by this simplified Chorus. In the later ‘Fool of Destiny’ versions, verses 4-6 are omitted.
Page 193, l. x: This line is a revision of the original, but in ‘The Fool of Destiny’ there is a further revision: ‘in tilths’ is changed to ‘on’tilths’.
Page 201, lines vi and vii are omitted in ‘The Fool of Destiny’.
Page 204, l. viii: In the 1884 version of ‘The Fool of Destiny’ ‘councils’ is changed to ‘counsels’.~
Page 204, l. xii: In ‘The Fool of Destiny’ ‘uplifts’ is changed to ‘lifts up’. ]

_____

The Drama of Kings continued

or back to The Drama of Kings - Contents