No More Learning

She kicked Jules the last time she was here,
He's been lame ever since, poor chap. "
Rap! Tap!
Tap-a-tap-a-tap! Tap! Tap!
"I'd rather be lame than dead at Waterloo, M'sieu Charles. "
"Sacre Bleu! Don't mention Waterloo, and the damned grinning British.
We didn't run in the old days.
There wasn't any running at Jena.
Those were decent days,
And decent men, who stood up and fought.
We never got beaten, because we wouldn't be.
See! "
"You would have taught them, wouldn't you, Sergeant Boignet?
But to-day it's everyone for himself,
And the Emperor isn't what he was. "
"How the Devil do you know that?
If he was beaten, the cause
Is the green geese in his army, led by traitors.
Oh, I say no names, Monsieur Charles,
You needn't hammer so loud.
If there are any spies lurking behind the bellows,
I beg they come out. Dirty fellows! "
The old Sergeant seizes a red-hot poker
And advances, brandishing it, into the shadows.
The rows of horses flick
Placid tails.
Victorine gives a savage kick
As the nails
Go in. Tap! Tap!
Jules draws a horseshoe from the fire
And beats it from red to peacock-blue and black,
Purpling darker at each whack.
Ding! Dang! Dong!
Ding-a-ding-dong!
It is a long time since any one spoke.
Then the blacksmith brushes his hand over his eyes,
"Well," he sighs,
"He's broke. "
The Sergeant charges out from behind the bellows.
"It's the green geese, I tell you,
Their hearts are all whites and yellows,
There's no red in them. Red!
That's what we want. Fouche should be fed
To the guillotine, and all Paris dance the carmagnole.
That would breed jolly fine lick-bloods
To lead his armies to victory. "
"Ancient history, Sergeant.
He's done. "
"Say that again, Monsieur Charles, and I'll stun
You where you stand for a dung-eating Royalist. "
The Sergeant gives the poker a savage twist;
He is as purple as the cooling horseshoes.
The air from the bellows creaks through the flues.
Tap! Tap! The blacksmith shoes Victorine,
And through the doorway a fine sheen
Of leaves flutters, with the sun between.
By a spurt of fire from the forge
You can see the Sergeant, with swollen gorge,
Puffing, and gurgling, and choking;
The bellows keep on croaking.
They wheeze,
And sneeze,
Creak! Bang! Squeeze!
And the hammer strokes fall like buzzing bees
Or pattering rain,
Or faster than these,
Like the hum of a waterfall struck by a breeze.
Clank! from the bellows-chain pulled up and down.
Clank!
And sunshine twinkles on Victorine's flank,
Starting it to blue,
Dropping it to black.
Clack! Clack!
Tap-a-tap! Tap!
Lord! What galloping! Some mishap
Is making that man ride so furiously.
"Francois, you!
Victorine won't be through
For another quarter of an hour. " "As you hope to die,
Work faster, man, the order has come. "
"What order? Speak out. Are you dumb? "
"A chaise, without arms on the panels, at the gate
In the far side-wall, and just to wait.
We must be there in half an hour with swift cattle.
You're a stupid fool if you don't hear that rattle.
Those are German guns. Can't you guess the rest?
Nantes, Rochefort, possibly Brest. "
Tap! Tap! as though the hammers were mad.
Dang! Ding! Creak! The farrier's lad
Jerks the bellows till he cracks their bones,
And the stifled air hiccoughs and groans.
The Sergeant is lying on the floor
Stone dead, and his hat with the tricolore
Cockade has rolled off into the cinders. Victorine snorts and lays back
her ears.
What glistens on the anvil? Sweat or tears?


V

St. Helena, May, 1821

Tap! Tap! Tap!
Through the white tropic night.
Tap! Tap!
Beat the hammers,
Unwearied, indefatigable.
They are hanging dull black cloth about the dead.
Lustreless black cloth
Which chokes the radiance of the moonlight
And puts out the little moving shadows of leaves.
Tap! Tap!
The knocking makes the candles quaver,
And the long black hangings waver
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Tap! Tap!
In the ears which do not heed.
Tap! Tap!
Above the eyelids which do not flicker.
Tap! Tap!
Over the hands which do not stir.
Chiselled like a cameo of white agate against the hangings,
Struck to brilliance by the falling moonlight,
A face!
Sharp as a frozen flame,
Beautiful as an altar lamp of silver,
And still. Perfectly still.
In the next room, the men chatter
As they eat their midnight lunches.
A knife hits against a platter.
But the figure on the bed
Between the stifling black hangings
Is cold and motionless,
Played over by the moonlight from the windows
And the indistinct shadows of leaves.

Tap! Tap!
Upholsterer Darling has a fine shop in Jamestown.
Tap! Tap!
Andrew Darling has ridden hard from Longwood to see to the work in his shop
in Jamestown.
He has a corps of men in it, toiling and swearing,
Knocking, and measuring, and planing, and squaring,
Working from a chart with figures,
Comparing with their rules,
Setting this and that part together with their tools.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Haste indeed!
So great is the need
That carpenters have been taken from the new church,
Joiners have been called from shaping pews and lecterns
To work of greater urgency.
Coffins!
Coffins is what they are making this bright Summer morning.
Coffins--and all to measurement.
There is a tin coffin,
A deal coffin,
A lead coffin,
And Captain Bennett's best mahogany dining-table
Has been sawed up for the grand outer coffin.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Sunshine outside in the square,
But inside, only hollow coffins and the tapping upon them.
The men whistle,
And the coffins grow under their hammers
In the darkness of the shop.
Tap! Tap! Tap!

Tramp of men.
Steady tramp of men.
Slit-eyed Chinese with long pigtails
Bearing oblong things upon their shoulders
March slowly along the road to Longwood.
Their feet fall softly in the dust of the road;
Sometimes they call gutturally to each other and stop to shift shoulders.
Four coffins for the little dead man,
Four fine coffins,
And one of them Captain Bennett's dining-table!
And sixteen splendid Chinamen, all strong and able
And of assured neutrality.
Ah! George of England, Lord Bathhurst & Co.
Your princely munificence makes one's heart glow.
Huzza! Huzza! For the Lion of England!

Tap! Tap! Tap!
Marble likeness of an Emperor,
Dead man, who burst your heart against a world too narrow,
The hammers drum you to your last throne
Which always you shall hold alone.
Tap! Tap!
The glory of your past is faded as a sunset fire,
Your day lingers only like the tones of a wind-lyre
In a twilit room.
Here is the emptiness of your dream
Scattered about you.
Coins of yesterday,
Double napoleons stamped with Consul or Emperor,
Strange as those of Herculaneum--
And you just dead!
Not one spool of thread
Will these buy in any market-place.
Lay them over him,
They are the baubles of a crown of mist
Worn in a vision and melted away at waking.
Tap! Tap!
His heart strained at kingdoms
And now it is content with a silver dish.
Strange World! Strange Wayfarer!
Strange Destiny!
Lower it gently beside him and let it lie.
Tap! Tap! Tap!




Two Travellers in the Place Vendome

Reign of Louis Philippe



A great tall column spearing at the sky
With a little man on top. Goodness! Tell me why?
He looks a silly thing enough to stand up there so high.

What a strange fellow, like a soldier in a play,
Tight-fitting coat with the tails cut away,
High-crowned hat which the brims overlay.

Two-horned hat makes an outline like a bow.
Must have a sword, I can see the light glow
Between a dark line and his leg. Vertigo

I get gazing up at him, a pygmy flashed with sun.
A weathercock or scarecrow or both things in one?
As bright as a jewelled crown hung above a throne.

Say, what is the use of him if he doesn't turn?
Just put up to glitter there, like a torch to burn,
A sort of sacrificial show in a lofty urn?

But why a little soldier in an obsolete dress?
I'd rather see a Goddess with a spear, I confess.
Something allegorical and fine. Why, yes--

I cannot take my eyes from him. I don't know why at all.
I've looked so long the whole thing swims. I feel he ought to fall.
Foreshortened there among the clouds he's pitifully small.

What do you say? There used to be an Emperor standing there,
With flowing robes and laurel crown. Really? Yet I declare
Those spiral battles round the shaft don't seem just his affair.

A togaed, laurelled man's I mean. Now this chap seems to feel
As though he owned those soldiers. Whew!
How he makes one reel,
Swinging round above his circling armies in a wheel.

Sweeping round the sky in an orbit like the sun's,
Flashing sparks like cannon-balls from his own long guns.
Perhaps my sight is tired, but that figure simply stuns.

How low the houses seem, and all the people are mere flies.
That fellow pokes his hat up till it scratches on the skies.
Impudent! Audacious! But, by Jove, he blinds the eyes!





WAR PICTURES




The Allies

August 14th, 1914



Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The zigzagging
cry of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the
head of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching
men. Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war.
The cry jars and splits against the brazen, burnished sky.

This is the war of wars, and the cause? Has this writhing worm of men a
cause?

Crackling against the polished sky is an eagle with a sword. The eagle
is red and its head is flame.


In the shoulder of the worm is a teacher.

His tongue laps the war-sucked air in drought, but he yells defiance at
the red-eyed eagle, and in his ears are the bells of new philosophies,
and their tinkling drowns the sputter of the burning sword. He shrieks,
"God damn you! When you are broken, the word will strike out new
shoots. "

His boots are tight, the sun is hot, and he may be shot, but he is in
the shoulder of the worm.


A dust speck in the worm's belly is a poet.

He laughs at the flaring eagle and makes a long nose with his fingers.
He will fight for smooth, white sheets of paper, and uncurdled ink. The
sputtering sword cannot make him blink, and his thoughts are wet and
rippling. They cool his heart.

He will tear the eagle out of the sky and give the earth tranquillity,
and loveliness printed on white paper.


The eye of the serpent is an owner of mills.

He looks at the glaring sword which has snapped his machinery and struck
away his men.

But it will all come again, when the sword is broken to a million dying
stars, and there are no more wars.


Bankers, butchers, shop-keepers, painters, farmers--men, sway and
sweat. They will fight for the earth, for the increase of the slow, sure
roots of peace, for the release of hidden forces. They jibe at the
eagle and his scorching sword.

One! Two! --One! Two! --clump the heavy boots. The cry hurtles
against the sky.

Each man pulls his belt a little tighter, and shifts his gun to make it
lighter. Each man thinks of a woman, and slaps out a curse at the
eagle. The sword jumps in the hot sky, and the worm crawls on to the
battle, stubbornly.

This is the war of wars, from eye to tail the serpent has one cause:
PEACE!




The Bombardment



Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and
trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a
gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral
square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep
about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom,
again! After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil
from the spout of the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!


The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the
firelight. The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of
rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the 'etagere'. Her hands are
restless, but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will
it never cease to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration
shatters a glass on the 'etagere'. It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red,
blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A door creaks.
The old lady speaks: "Victor, clear away that broken glass. " "Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass! " "Yes, Victor, one hundred years ago my
father brought it--" Boom! The room shakes, the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!


It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is
shut within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his
ink, his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced
with beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses
itself up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin
he can see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp
in a cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain,
bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and
higher. Boom! The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The
fountain rears up in long broken spears of dishevelled water and
flattens into the earth. Boom! And there is only the room, the table,
the candle, and the sliding rain. Again, Boom! --Boom! --Boom! He
stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees corpses, and cries out in
fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling the city! Boom!
Boom!


A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made
the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake. " "Hush, my
Darling, I am here. " "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the
room shook. " Boom! "Oh! What is it? What is the matter? " Boom!
"Where is Father? I am so afraid. " Boom! The child sobs and shrieks.
The house trembles and creaks. Boom!


Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing
across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent,
goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that is
his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime.
Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window, he can see
the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and
the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the
lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms
the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round
the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the
night and hisses against the rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on
the white, wet night.


Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to
scorch. Boom! The bohemian glass on the 'etagere' is no longer there.
Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old
lady cannot walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts.
Boom! --Boom! --Boom!


The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of
silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads.
The city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run
the flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its
gold on the sky, the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and
lisps and chuckles along the floors.


The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the
ceiling beams.


The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning
Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter
and crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly
and without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple
crashes down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes
along the gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom!




Lead Soldiers



The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney. Miniature rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala flamed a
night of victorious wars.

The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his head forward and back,
slowly, and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes. He stares into
the air and nods--forward and back. The red rose in his hand is a
crimson splash on his yellow coat. Forward and back, and his blue-green
eyes stare into the air, and he nods--nods.


Tommy's soldiers march to battle,
Trumpets flare and snare-drums rattle.
Bayonets flash, and sabres glance--
How the horses snort and prance!
Cannon drawn up in a line
Glitter in the dizzy shine
Of the morning sunlight. Flags
Ripple colours in great jags.
Red blows out, then blue, then green,
Then all three--a weaving sheen
Of prismed patriotism. March
Tommy's soldiers, stiff and starch,
Boldly stepping to the rattle
Of the drums, they go to battle.


Tommy lies on his stomach on the floor and directs his columns. He puts
his infantry in front, and before them ambles a mounted band. Their
instruments make a strand of gold before the scarlet-tunicked soldiers,
and they take very long steps on their little green platforms, and from
the ranks bursts the song of Tommy's soldiers marching to battle. The
song jolts a little as the green platforms stick on the thick carpet.
Tommy wheels his guns round the edge of a box of blocks, and places a
squad of cavalry on the commanding eminence of a footstool.


The fire snaps pleasantly, and the old Chinaman nods--nods. The fire
makes the red rose in his hand glow and twist. Hist! That is a bold
song Tommy's soldiers sing as they march along to battle.

Crack! Rattle! The sparks fly up the chimney.


Tommy's army's off to war--
Not a soldier knows what for.
But he knows about his rifle,
How to shoot it, and a trifle
Of the proper thing to do
When it's he who is shot through.
Like a cleverly trained flea,
He can follow instantly
Orders, and some quick commands
Really make severe demands
On a mind that's none too rapid,
Leaden brains tend to the vapid.
But how beautifully dressed
Is this army! How impressed
Tommy is when at his heel
All his baggage wagons wheel
About the patterned carpet, and
Moving up his heavy guns
He sees them glow with diamond suns
Flashing all along each barrel.
And the gold and blue apparel
Of his gunners is a joy.
Tommy is a lucky boy.
Boom! Boom! Ta-ra!

The old mandarin nods under his purple umbrella. The rose in his hand
shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson. Then they collapse and
shrivel like red embers. The fire sizzles.


Tommy is galloping his cavalry, two by two, over the floor. They must
pass the open terror of the door and gain the enemy encamped under the
wash-stand. The mounted band is very grand, playing allegro and leading
the infantry on at the double quick. The tassel of the hearth-rug has
flung down the bass-drum, and he and his dapple-grey horse lie
overtripped, slipped out of line, with the little lead drumsticks
glistening to the fire's shine.

The fire burns and crackles, and tickles the tripped bass-drum with its
sparkles.

The marching army hitches its little green platforms valiantly, and
steadily approaches the door. The overturned bass-drummer, lying on the
hearth-rug, melting in the heat, softens and sheds tears. The song
jeers at his impotence, and flaunts the glory of the martial and still
upstanding, vaunting the deeds it will do. For are not Tommy's soldiers
all bright and new?


Tommy's leaden soldiers we,
Glittering with efficiency.
Not a button's out of place,
Tons and tons of golden lace
Wind about our officers.