on my feet fall vain tears
As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears.
As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears.
Victor Hugo - Poems
]
Ho, warriors! I was reared in the land of the Gauls;
O'er the Rhine my ancestors came bounding like balls
Of the snow at the Pole, where, a babe, I was bathed
Ere in bear and in walrus-skin I was enswathed.
Then my father was strong, whom the years lowly bow,--
A bison could wallow in the grooves of his brow.
He is weak, very old--he can scarcely uptear
A young pine-tree for staff since his legs cease to bear;
But here's to replace him! --I can toy with his axe;
As I sit on the hill my feet swing in the flax,
And my knee caps the boulders and troubles the trees.
How they shiver, yea, quake if I happen to sneeze!
I was still but a springald when, cleaving the Alps,
I brushed snowy periwigs off granitic scalps,
And my head, o'er the pinnacles, stopped the fleet clouds,
Where I captured the eagles and caged them by crowds.
There were tempests! I blew them back into their source!
And put out their lightnings! More than once in a course,
Through the ocean I went wading after the whale,
And stirred up the bottom as did never a gale.
Fond of rambling, I hunted the shark 'long the beach,
And no osprey in ether soared out of my reach;
And the bear that I pinched 'twixt my finger and thumb,
Like the lynx and the wolf, perished harmless and dumb.
But these pleasures of childhood have lost all their zest;
It is warfare and carnage that now I love best:
The sounds that I wish to awaken and hear
Are the cheers raised by courage, the shrieks due to fear;
When the riot of flames, ruin, smoke, steel and blood,
Announces an army rolls along as a flood,
Which I follow, to harry the clamorous ranks,
Sharp-goading the laggards and pressing the flanks,
Till, a thresher 'mid ripest of corn, up I stand
With an oak for a flail in my unflagging hand.
Rise the groans! rise the screams!
on my feet fall vain tears
As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears.
I am naked. At armor of steel I should joke--
True, I'm helmed--a brass pot you could draw with ten yoke.
I look for no ladder to invade the king's hall--
I stride o'er the ramparts, and down the walls fall,
Till choked are the ditches with the stones, dead and quick,
Whilst the flagstaff I use 'midst my teeth as a pick.
Oh, when cometh my turn to succumb like my prey,
May brave men my body snatch away from th' array
Of the crows--may they heap on the rocks till they loom
Like a mountain, befitting a colossus' tomb!
_Foreign Quarterly Review (adapted)_
THE CYMBALEER'S BRIDE.
_("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne. ")_
[VI. , October, 1825. ]
My lord the Duke of Brittany
Has summoned his barons bold--
Their names make a fearful litany!
Among them you will not meet any
But men of giant mould.
Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep,
And steel-clad knight and peer,
Whose forts are girt with a moat cut deep--
But none excel in soldiership
My own loved cymbaleer.
Clashing his cymbals, forth he went,
With a bold and gallant bearing;
Sure for a captain he was meant,
To judge his pride with courage blent,
And the cloth of gold he's wearing.
But in my soul since then I feel
A fear in secret creeping;
And to my patron saint I kneel,
That she may recommend his weal
To his guardian-angel's keeping.
I've begged our abbot Bernardine
His prayers not to relax;
And to procure him aid divine
I've burnt upon Saint Gilda's shrine
Three pounds of virgin wax.
Our Lady of Loretto knows
The pilgrimage I've vowed:
"To wear the scallop I propose,
If health and safety from the foes
My lover be allowed.
Ho, warriors! I was reared in the land of the Gauls;
O'er the Rhine my ancestors came bounding like balls
Of the snow at the Pole, where, a babe, I was bathed
Ere in bear and in walrus-skin I was enswathed.
Then my father was strong, whom the years lowly bow,--
A bison could wallow in the grooves of his brow.
He is weak, very old--he can scarcely uptear
A young pine-tree for staff since his legs cease to bear;
But here's to replace him! --I can toy with his axe;
As I sit on the hill my feet swing in the flax,
And my knee caps the boulders and troubles the trees.
How they shiver, yea, quake if I happen to sneeze!
I was still but a springald when, cleaving the Alps,
I brushed snowy periwigs off granitic scalps,
And my head, o'er the pinnacles, stopped the fleet clouds,
Where I captured the eagles and caged them by crowds.
There were tempests! I blew them back into their source!
And put out their lightnings! More than once in a course,
Through the ocean I went wading after the whale,
And stirred up the bottom as did never a gale.
Fond of rambling, I hunted the shark 'long the beach,
And no osprey in ether soared out of my reach;
And the bear that I pinched 'twixt my finger and thumb,
Like the lynx and the wolf, perished harmless and dumb.
But these pleasures of childhood have lost all their zest;
It is warfare and carnage that now I love best:
The sounds that I wish to awaken and hear
Are the cheers raised by courage, the shrieks due to fear;
When the riot of flames, ruin, smoke, steel and blood,
Announces an army rolls along as a flood,
Which I follow, to harry the clamorous ranks,
Sharp-goading the laggards and pressing the flanks,
Till, a thresher 'mid ripest of corn, up I stand
With an oak for a flail in my unflagging hand.
Rise the groans! rise the screams!
on my feet fall vain tears
As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears.
I am naked. At armor of steel I should joke--
True, I'm helmed--a brass pot you could draw with ten yoke.
I look for no ladder to invade the king's hall--
I stride o'er the ramparts, and down the walls fall,
Till choked are the ditches with the stones, dead and quick,
Whilst the flagstaff I use 'midst my teeth as a pick.
Oh, when cometh my turn to succumb like my prey,
May brave men my body snatch away from th' array
Of the crows--may they heap on the rocks till they loom
Like a mountain, befitting a colossus' tomb!
_Foreign Quarterly Review (adapted)_
THE CYMBALEER'S BRIDE.
_("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne. ")_
[VI. , October, 1825. ]
My lord the Duke of Brittany
Has summoned his barons bold--
Their names make a fearful litany!
Among them you will not meet any
But men of giant mould.
Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep,
And steel-clad knight and peer,
Whose forts are girt with a moat cut deep--
But none excel in soldiership
My own loved cymbaleer.
Clashing his cymbals, forth he went,
With a bold and gallant bearing;
Sure for a captain he was meant,
To judge his pride with courage blent,
And the cloth of gold he's wearing.
But in my soul since then I feel
A fear in secret creeping;
And to my patron saint I kneel,
That she may recommend his weal
To his guardian-angel's keeping.
I've begged our abbot Bernardine
His prayers not to relax;
And to procure him aid divine
I've burnt upon Saint Gilda's shrine
Three pounds of virgin wax.
Our Lady of Loretto knows
The pilgrimage I've vowed:
"To wear the scallop I propose,
If health and safety from the foes
My lover be allowed.
