The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Other Poems

THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR

 
As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our Tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried,
As I ride, as I ride.
 
 
As I ride, as I ride
To our Chief and his Allied,
Who dares chide my heart’s pride
As I ride, as I ride?
Or are witnesses denied —
Through the desert waste and wide
Do I glide unespied
As I ride, as I ride?
 
 
As I ride, as I ride,
When an inner voice has cried,
The sands slide, nor abide
(As I ride, as I ride)
O’er each visioned homicide
That came vaunting (has he lied?)
To reside – where he died,
As I ride, as I ride.
 
 
As I ride, as I ride,
Ne’er has spur my swift horse plied,
Yet his hide, streaked and pied,
As I ride, as I ride,
Shows where sweat has sprung and dried,
– Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed —
How has vied stride with stride
As I ride, as I ride!
 
 
As I ride, as I ride,
Could I loose what Fate has tied,
Ere I pried, she should hide
(As I ride, as I ride)
All that’s meant me – satisfied
When the Prophet and the Bride
Stop veins I’d have subside
As I ride, as I ride!
 

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

 
You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow,
Oppressive with its mind.
 
 
Just as perhaps he mused “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader, Lannes,
Waver at yonder wall, – ”
Out ’twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.
 
 
Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse’s mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect —
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.
 
 
“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace
We’ve got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal’s in the market-place,
And you’ll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart’s desire,
Perched him!” The chief’s eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.
 
 
The chief’s eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother-eagle’s eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes;
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” the soldier’s pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
“I’m killed, Sire!” and his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.
 

CLIVE

 
I and Clive were friends – and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad.
Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives – egad,
England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak —
“Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades – ” with a tongue thrust in your cheek!
Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world’s eyes, Clive was man,
I was, am, and ever shall be – mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan
Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen’s estimate for fame;
While the man Clive – he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,
Conquered and annexed and Englished!
 
 
Never mind! As o’er my punch
(You away) I sit of evenings, – silence, save for biscuit crunch,
Black, unbroken, – thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years,
Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long past life appears
Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood,
Once, and well remembered still, – I’m startled in my solitude
Ever and anon by – what’s the sudden mocking light that breaks
On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes
While I ask – aloud, I do believe, God help me! – “Was it thus?
Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us – ”
(Us, – you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be)
“ – One bold step had gained a province” (figurative talk, you see)
“Got no end of wealth and honour, – yet I stood stock-still no less?”
– “For I was not Clive,” you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess
Wealth were handy, honour ticklish, did no writing on the wall
Warn me “Trespasser, ’ware man-traps!” Him who braves that notice – call
Hero! None of such heroics suit myself who read plain words,
Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says, the land’s the Lord’s:
Louts then – what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring,
All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king?
Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before
T’other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore
Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By and by
Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I.
Don’t object “Why call him friend, then?” Power is power, my boy, and still
Marks a man, – God’s gift magnific, exercised for good or ill.
You’ve your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger’s skin;
Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in!
True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass;
Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage – ah, the brute he was!
Why, that Clive, – that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine, —
He sustained a siege in Arcot … But the world knows! Pass the wine.
 
 
Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned “fear!”
Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.
 
 
We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb
Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely threaten to absorb
Ray by ray its noontide brilliance, – friendship might, with steadier eye
Drawing near, hear what had burned else, now no blaze – all majesty.
Too much bee’s-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle’s new:
None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe
’Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile
As his scale-mail’s warty iron cuirasses a crocodile.
Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without
Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about
Towers – the heap he kicks now! Turrets – just the measure of his cane!
Will that do? Observe moreover – (same similitude again) —
Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade:
’Tis when foes are foiled, and fighting’s finished that vile rains invade,
Grass o’ergrows, o’ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes
Fit to build like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles.
So Clive crumbled slow in London, crashed at last.
 
 
A week before,
Dining with him, – after trying churchyard chat of days of yore, —
Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece, when they lean
Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o’er a coffined Past between.
As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul’s extinguishment
By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went
Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor, – “One more throw
Try for Clive!” thought I: “Let’s venture some good rattling question!” So —
“Come Clive, tell us” – out I blurted – “what to tell in turn, years hence,
When my boy – suppose I have one – asks me on what evidence
I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit
Worth your Alexanders, Cæsars, Marlboroughs, and – what said Pitt? —
Frederick the Fierce himself! Clive told me once” – I want to say —
“Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away
– In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob’s rough guess —
Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness!
Come! What moment of the minute, what speck-centre in the wide
Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified?
(Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!)
If a friend has leave to question, – when were you most brave, in short?”
 
 
Up he arched his brows o’ the instant – formidably Clive again.
“When was I most brave? I’d answer, were the instance half as plain
As another instance that’s a brain-lodged crystal – curse it! – here
Freezing when my memory touches – ugh! – the time I felt most fear.
Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear – anyhow,
Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now.”
 
 
“Fear!” smiled I. “Well, that’s the rarer: that’s a specimen to seek,
Ticket up in one’s museum, Mind-Freaks, Lord Clive’s Fear, Unique!”
 
 
Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though
Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago.
When he spoke ’twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will,
Some blind jungle of a statement, – beating on and on until
Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.
 
 
“This fell in my factor-days.
Desk-drudge, slaving at Saint David’s, one must game, or drink, or craze.
I chose gaming: and, – because your high-flown gamesters hardly take
Umbrage at a factor’s elbow, if the factor pays his stake, —
I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,
Captain This and Major That, men high of colour, loud of voice,
Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile
Who not merely risked, but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.
 
 
“Down I sat to cards, one evening, – had for my antagonist
Homebody whose name’s a secret – you’ll know why – so, if you list,
Call him Cock o’ the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel!
Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel
Quite sufficient honour came of bending over one green baize,
I the scribe with him the warrior, guessed no penman dared to raise
Shadow of objection should the honour stay but playing end
More or less abruptly, – whether disinclined he grew to spend
Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare
At – not ask of – lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair, —
Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me ‘Cut!’
 
 
“I rose.
‘Such the new manœuvre, Captain? I’m a novice: knowledge grows.
What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?’
 
 
“Never did a thunder-clap
Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap,
As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack)
Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.
 
 
“When he found his voice, he stammered ‘That expression once again!’
 
 
“‘Well, you forced a card and cheated!’
“‘Possibly a factor’s brain,
Busied with his all important balance of accounts, may deem
Weighing words superfluous trouble: cheat to clerkly ears may seem
Just the joke for friends to venture: but we are not friends, you see!
When a gentleman is joked with, – if he’s good at repartee,
He rejoins, as do I – Sirrah, on your knees, withdraw in full!
Beg my pardon, or be sure a kindly bullet through your skull
Lets in light and teaches manner to what brain it finds! Choose quick —
Have your life snuffed out or, kneeling, pray me trim yon candle-wick!’
 
 
“‘Well, you cheated!’
“Then outbroke a howl from all the friends around.
To his feet sprang each in fury, fists were clenched and teeth were ground.
‘End it! no time like the present! Captain, yours were our disgrace!
No delay, begin and finish! Stand back, leave the pair a space!
Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen,
Fly the sword! This clerk’s no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol, then!
Even odds! A dozen paces ’twixt the most and least expert
Make a dwarf a giant’s equal: nay, the dwarf, if he’s alert,
Likelier hits the broader target!’
 
 
“Up we stood accordingly.
As they handed me the weapon, such was my soul’s thirst to try
Then and there conclusions with this bully, tread on and stamp out
Every spark of his existence, that, – crept close to, curled about
By that toying, tempting, teasing, fool-forefinger’s middle joint, —
Don’t you guess? – the trigger yielded. Gone my chance! and at the point
Of such prime success moreover: scarce an inch above his head
Went my ball to hit the wainscot. He was living, I was dead.
 
 
“Up he marched in flaming triumph – ’twas his right, mind! – up, within
Just an arm’s length. ‘Now, my clerkling,’ chuckled Cocky, with a grin
As the levelled piece quite touched me, ‘Now, Sir Counting-House, repeat
That expression which I told you proved bad manners! Did I cheat?’
 
 
“‘Cheat you did, you knew you cheated, and, this moment, know as well.
As for me, my homely breeding bids you – fire and go to Hell!’
 
 
“Twice the muzzle touched my forehead. Heavy barrel, flurried wrist.
Either spoils a steady lifting. Thrice: then, ‘Laugh at Hell who list,
I can’t! God’s no fable either. Did this boy’s eye wink once? No!
There’s no standing him and Hell and God all three against me, – so,
I did cheat!’
 
 
“And down he threw the pistol, out rushed – by the door
Possibly, but, as for knowledge if by chimney, roof or floor,
He effected disappearance – I’ll engage no glance was sent
That way by a single starer, such a blank astonishment
Swallowed up their senses: as for speaking – mute they stood as mice.
 
 
“Mute not long, though! Such reaction, such a hubbub in a trice!
‘Rogue and rascal! Who’d have thought it? What’s to be expected next,
When His Majesty’s Commission serves a sharper as pretext
For … But where’s the need of wasting time now? Naught requires delay:
Punishment the Service cries for: let disgrace be wiped away
Publicly, in good broad daylight! Resignation? No, indeed!
Drum and fife must play the Rogue’s-March, rank and file be free to speed
Tardy marching on the rogue’s part by appliance in the rear
– Kicks administered shall right this wronged civilian, –  never fear,
Mister Clive, for – though a clerk – you bore yourself – suppose we say —
Just as would beseem a soldier?
 
 
“‘Gentlemen, attention – pray!
First, one word!’
 
 
“I passed each speaker severally in review.
When I had precise their number, names, and styles, and fully knew
Over whom my supervision thenceforth must extend, – why, then —
 
 
“Some five minutes since, my life lay – as you all saw, gentlemen —
At the mercy of your friend there. Not a single voice was raised
In arrest of judgment, not one tongue – before my powder blazed —
Ventured “Can it be the youngster plundered, really seemed to mark