The Poetical Works of the Rev. George Croly :: :: University of Virginia Library

Is it not curst? has not the smell of blood
Struck it for ever into solitude?
No! To the past as to the future cold,
Self and the moment all his heart can hold,
The deep damnation of the deed forgot
Before the blood was stiffen'd on the spot;
Gay in the sight, the shadow of the pile,
The meagre native plays his gambol vile;
The crack'd horn rings, the rival mimes engage,
Punch in imperial tatters sweeps the stage;
The jostling mob dance, laugh, sing, shout the rhyme,
And die in ecstacies the thousandth time.
And look! around, above, what ghastly row
Through bar and grating struggle for the show,
Down darting, head o'er head, the haggard eye,
Felons! the scarcely scaped,—the sure to die!
The dungeon'd murderer startles from his trance,
Uplist'ning hears the din, the monkey-dance,
Growls at the fate that fix'd his cell below,
And longs, before he dies,—to see the show!

Yes, 'twas the spot!—where yonder slow gendarme
Sweeps from his round the loitering pauper-swarm;
Where up the mould'ring wall that starveling vine
Drags on from nail to nail its yellow twine;
For ornament! Still something for the eye;
Prisons, nay graves, have here their foppery:—
There, primed for blood, Danton drew up his band,
The Marseillois, the Fauxbourg's black brigand.
The gate roll'd back,—as out to liberty
One bounding came,—the murderers met his eye,
He heard their laugh,—he dropp'd in desperate prayer
For life—for life!—His brain was spattered there;—
Another came—recoil'd—gave one wild wail,
And sank in gore,—the bullet stopp'd his tale.
The work went hotly on. Dark place of crime!
What hideous guilt, what suffering sublime
Were in thee,—emblem of the ruin'd land!
Frequent, amid the shoutings of the band,

Rose from within prayer, laughter!—Pass that wall
A crowd were gather'd in a lofty hall,
An ancient chapel, lingering each till came
The harrowing, certain summons of his name.
A man stood in its pulpit; one strong ray
That through the grating struggled down its way,
Fell on his upturn'd brow, and tonsure bare.
His hands were clasp'd, he prayed with mighty pray'r,—
Then bent him where the failing light below
Just glanced on shapes and visages of woe.
And there were those who felt, yet scorn'd to feel,
And smiled in ghastliness to see his zeal,
And knowing they had reach'd their dying day,
Resolv'd to think no more, and turn'd away!—
And those, who weary of the cell and chain,
Saw the last day of life the last of pain,
And, sadly flung upon the chilling floor,
Listen'd lethargic to the outward roar—
But there were those, who on him fix'd the eye,
In the deep gaze of utter agony;

Kneeling without a heave, without a groan,—
As if that hour had struck them into stone.

The shouts had died,—'twas silence,—sudden rang
A shriek throughout the prison!—All upsprang;—
Each fixing on his fellow wretch the eye,
In the broad glare of desperate sympathy;
Another miserable hour, and they
Who shudder'd there might be—but gore and clay!
The preacher bow'd his head; his hands were prest
A moment with his Bible on his breast;—
His voice a moment stopp'd:—the pang was past,
'Twas nature's terror, painful,—but her last.
His voice awoke; his spirit in him burn'd;
All eyes instinctive on the martyr turn'd.
He told them of the things that man's dull ear,
Fill'd with life's flatteries, so hates to hear;
He told them of the Christian's cross and crown,
And raised his hands to bless them;—all sank down,—
All humbly bow'd their heads to earth, all felt
At his ascending prayer their bosoms melt;

All trembled,—and strange thoughts upon them stole,
That look'd like heavenly dawnings in the soul;
And tears began down wither'd cheeks to flow,
Nor tears of joy, but far too soft for woe!
They rose;—and they who knelt upon that floor,
Were naked spirits ere that day was o'er.

Behind that chapel's altar oped a room—
Gloomy—the deeds done there were fit for gloom.
A torch, that languish'd in the heavy air,
Feebly made up the daylight's sullen glare;
It shew'd a table, soil'd with wine, and strew'd
With plunder in still deeper stains embrued;
Around it on the platform benches lay
Dark, muffled shapes that slept their drench away.
A few, in whom the past debauchery
Was squalid still, hung loose and lowering by,
And judged!—For this was a tribunal;—these,
Judges!—The basest rabble's basest lees,
These slaves of vulgar folly, guilt, and rage,
These mountebanks upon a bloody stage;

Wretches! whose aspects told of hell begun;
Their joyless joy, to see mankind undone!
And they were speedy too; no ancient saws
Check'd the bold current of the rabble's laws;
A glance—a taunt upon the victim cast,
A sign,—he pass'd away—to slaughter pass'd.

And now, a prisoner stood before them, wan
With dungeon damps and woe—an ancient man,
But stately;—there was in his hoary hair
A reverend grace that Murder's self might spare.
Two of the mob, half naked, freshly dyed
In crimson clots, waved sabres at his side.
He told his tale,—a brief, plain, prison tale,—
Well vouch'd by those faint limbs and features pale:
His words were strong, the manly energy
Of one not unprepared to live or die.
His judges wavered, whispered, seemed to feel
Some human touches at his firm appeal.—
He named his king!—a burst of scoff and sneer
Pour'd down, that even the slumberers sprang to hear;

Startled, to every grating round the room
Sprang visages already seal'd for doom;
Red from their work without, in rush'd a crowd,
Like wolves that heard the wonted cry of blood.
He gazed above,—the torch's downward flame
Flash'd o'er his cheek;—'twas red,—it might be shame,
Shame for his country, sorrow for her throne;—
'Twas pale,—the hectic of the heart was gone.
His guards were flung aside;—he tore his vest,
A ribbon'd cross was on his knightly breast,—
It covered scars;—he deigned no more reply;
None, but the scorn that lighten'd from his eye.
His huddled, hurried judges dropp'd their gaze;
The villain soul's involuntary praise!
He kiss'd his cross, and turn'd him to the door
An instant,—and they heard his murderers' roar!
'Twas shapeless carnage now; in meek despair,
Gazing on heaven, the pastor died in prayer;
The soldier met the sabre's whirl unmoved;
The matron perish'd on the corse she loved;

Yet there were dying bursts; with rush and reel,
Some 'mid the assassin ranks made desperate wheel,
Down-stricken, rising, bleeding, tottering round,
Till the ball stretch'd the struggler on the ground;
Others, the red knee clasping, sank and wept;
Alike o'er faint and bold the havoc swept.
The evening fell,—in bloody mists the sun
Rush'd glaring down; nor yet the work was done.
'Twas night; and still upon the Bandit's eye
Came from their cavern those who came to die;
A long, weak, wavering, melancholy wave,
As from the grave, returning to the grave.
'Twas midnight;—still the gusty torches blazed
On shapes of woe, dim gestures, faces glazed;
And still, as through the dusk the ghastly file
Moved onward, it was added to the pile!

Ruler of Heaven! did not the righteous groan
Rise from this spot in vengeance to thy throne!
Or did the torrent that so redly ran
Round those heaped remnants of what once was man,

That mass of cloven bone, and shatter'd limb,
And spouting brain, and visage strain'd and dim,
And horrid life still quivering in the eye,
As, choked in blood, the victim toil'd to die—
Did it sink voiceless in the thirsty ground?—
No! from that hour the iron band was bound,
No! from that hour was fixed the mighty seal
To the long woes that France was doomed to feel;
Plague, famine, in God's sterner wrath untried—
Her deeper sentence, man, the homicide!

“Elargissez, Monsieur!” was the signal for assassination by the mob in the massacres of September, 1792.

1 Chronicles, chap. 21. verse 13.