Chronicles and Characters By Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith): In Two Volumes |
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THE DAUPHIN. |
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 | Chronicles and Characters |  |
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THE DAUPHIN.
A Palace here, a People there,
Face to face, i' the rainy air:
For the rain is raining heavily,
And the sick day shutting a bloodshot eye.
The People, nowhere a while ago,
Now here, now there, now everywhere.
And, of all in the Palace, none doth know
Where the People may be, ere is done
This last of two disastrous days,
Now waning fast, with watery rays.
Quick, Fancy! ere its light be gone,
From out of the many 'tis darkening on
Save me a single face. This one.
Face to face, i' the rainy air:
For the rain is raining heavily,
And the sick day shutting a bloodshot eye.
The People, nowhere a while ago,
Now here, now there, now everywhere.
And, of all in the Palace, none doth know
Where the People may be, ere is done
This last of two disastrous days,
Now waning fast, with watery rays.
Quick, Fancy! ere its light be gone,
From out of the many 'tis darkening on
Save me a single face. This one.
Broider'd of satin, as best befits,
Is the gilded chair where the urchin sits,
Whose grandsires all earth's greatest were
In grandeur, when the grand were great.
For the childhood of this child is heir
To monarchy's old age.
Is the gilded chair where the urchin sits,
Whose grandsires all earth's greatest were
In grandeur, when the grand were great.
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To monarchy's old age.
The late
Sunbeam, now sinking in his hair
(Weary of strife with a rainy sky)
Faintly, solemnly, lingers there
With a sorrowful glory, soon to die:
As all things must, some day, whene'er
Time disavows them: Time knows why.
Sunbeam, now sinking in his hair
(Weary of strife with a rainy sky)
Faintly, solemnly, lingers there
With a sorrowful glory, soon to die:
As all things must, some day, whene'er
Time disavows them: Time knows why.
O'er kingdoms twain thou wert born to reign,
Bourbon child of the Hapsburg mother!
Life's fairest, one: and earth's, the other:
France, and Youth. Of all the train
Of those the wondering world admires,
Lords and Ladies, Knights and Squires,
Long-robed Senator severe,
Royal Duke, and Princely Peer,
—They whose heads be Heads of France,
To whom, with a sullen countenance,
Hungry hundreds crook the knee,
None but boweth the head to thee,
Little child! Whose face is one
Of a group that all are gone.
Bourbon child of the Hapsburg mother!
Life's fairest, one: and earth's, the other:
France, and Youth. Of all the train
Of those the wondering world admires,
Lords and Ladies, Knights and Squires,
Long-robed Senator severe,
Royal Duke, and Princely Peer,
—They whose heads be Heads of France,
To whom, with a sullen countenance,
Hungry hundreds crook the knee,
None but boweth the head to thee,
Little child! Whose face is one
Of a group that all are gone.
For, since thou, O child, didst flee,
Who knows where? from human sight;
Never child, kingborn, like thee,
Hath been born to absolute right:
Sons of kings no more can be
Guaranteed, as thou wert then,
Of the servitude of men.
Who knows where? from human sight;
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Hath been born to absolute right:
Sons of kings no more can be
Guaranteed, as thou wert then,
Of the servitude of men.
Hearest thou the sounds outside?
Hearest thou the sounds within?
In the neighbouring chamber Pride
Stoops, in colloquy with Fear:
Mounier's loyal cares begin:
Prudence plucks at Lafayette:
Orleans with sulky stride
Is philosophising yet:
Chartres has Louis by the ear:
Necker rubs a ruminant chin.
Outside in the twilight drear
Swells the ominous surly din.
Hearest thou the sounds within?
In the neighbouring chamber Pride
Stoops, in colloquy with Fear:
Mounier's loyal cares begin:
Prudence plucks at Lafayette:
Orleans with sulky stride
Is philosophising yet:
Chartres has Louis by the ear:
Necker rubs a ruminant chin.
Outside in the twilight drear
Swells the ominous surly din.
See! the child is playing now
With his sister's silky tresses:
To whose infantine white brow
Lips as white a mother presses.
Are not children safe from harm,
Circled by a mother's arm?
With his sister's silky tresses:
To whose infantine white brow
Lips as white a mother presses.
Are not children safe from harm,
Circled by a mother's arm?
In the chair where sits the child
Smiling, long since sat and smiled
Him men named the ‘Grand Monarque.’
Ah, the light is fading dark!
Thro' the palace windows wide
What is still so dim descried
In the pale persistent rain?
Smiling, long since sat and smiled
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Ah, the light is fading dark!
Thro' the palace windows wide
What is still so dim descried
In the pale persistent rain?
Is the deluge back again?
And what wreckt world's groaning ark
There emits its monstrous train
To new-people earth with pain?
Men or beasts? What are they? Mark!
Seest thou? hear'st thou, little child?
Haggard faces: women wild:
Men red-handed, blood-defiled:
Heroism, and Hope, and Hate,
Hunger, Horror, Wrath, and Crime,
Mingling in the march of Fate,
Life's grotesque with Love's sublime:
Ragged wretches grim and stark,
Smiling as they never smiled
Till this moment: jaw of shark
Gaping at a drowning ship:
Eye of tiger: lion's grip:
Stormy starvelings, smutcht and soil'd,
Thick thro' garden, court, and park,
Round that palace terrace-piled,
Teeming, tossing, trampling . . . Hark!
First a growl, and then a howl,
Voice of a vast tormented soul,
And then a shrill heart-breaking bark,
And now an immense murtherous roar,
Nearer, drearer, more and more,—
The famisht wild beast's roar for bread!
Suddenly the child's hand ceased
Its sport among the tiny tresses
Of the little golden head
Backward bent to its caresses;
All those tumbled curls released;
While the pouting child-lips said
‘Mother, I am hungry!’
And what wreckt world's groaning ark
There emits its monstrous train
To new-people earth with pain?
Men or beasts? What are they? Mark!
Seest thou? hear'st thou, little child?
Haggard faces: women wild:
Men red-handed, blood-defiled:
Heroism, and Hope, and Hate,
Hunger, Horror, Wrath, and Crime,
Mingling in the march of Fate,
Life's grotesque with Love's sublime:
Ragged wretches grim and stark,
Smiling as they never smiled
Till this moment: jaw of shark
Gaping at a drowning ship:
Eye of tiger: lion's grip:
Stormy starvelings, smutcht and soil'd,
Thick thro' garden, court, and park,
Round that palace terrace-piled,
Teeming, tossing, trampling . . . Hark!
First a growl, and then a howl,
254
And then a shrill heart-breaking bark,
And now an immense murtherous roar,
Nearer, drearer, more and more,—
The famisht wild beast's roar for bread!
Suddenly the child's hand ceased
Its sport among the tiny tresses
Of the little golden head
Backward bent to its caresses;
All those tumbled curls released;
While the pouting child-lips said
‘Mother, I am hungry!’
Cry
Of the Poor man's child, supprest
In a People's starving breast,
For so many wicked years!
Cry, no law could longer smother
In the lawless lifeless past!
By what strange revenge of chance
Didst thou thus ascend so high,
From what depths of woe upcast,
As to smite the heart of a mother,
Heard in the unwilling ears
Of a listening Queen of France,
From a Dauphin's lips at last?
Of the Poor man's child, supprest
In a People's starving breast,
For so many wicked years!
Cry, no law could longer smother
In the lawless lifeless past!
By what strange revenge of chance
Didst thou thus ascend so high,
From what depths of woe upcast,
As to smite the heart of a mother,
Heard in the unwilling ears
Of a listening Queen of France,
From a Dauphin's lips at last?
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