Classic Poem

EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
Have done, Jean de Fiennes: loosen her arms!
Leave go, you wench! Do you want him blubbering?
Death! if there 's any good thing to be done
The women put their meddling in and spoil it.
JEAN DE FIENNES
She 's my sweetheart.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
You should have thought of that:
We can't go snivelling to the English camp. —
Stand back, you folks! And hold your howling, do!
No need for you to tell the grinning English
We're on the road. — Now form up, two and two:
I will go first with old Andrieu d'Andres,
Then the two brothers, Jacques and Pierre de Wissant,
Last the two Jeans, d'Aire and de Fiennes.
So: here 's some kind of order. Now, sirs, tramp,
Tramp and look steady: and hold your halters up,
Else if you trip on them you'll jerk your necks
Before the time. — The devil bite these people!
Gangway, there, for the Lord's sake! My bare feet
Ache on the stones and my legs are shuddering
In this cold wind. — Step along briskly, now:
Let 's get outside this caterwauling town;
I'ld liefer far be hanged than cried upon.
JACQUES DE WISSANT
You'll be hanged soon enough: the scaffold's ready
I watcht them from my window framing it.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
Much to be said for a formal mind, Saint-Peter
Here am I now, chanting over and over
Inside my head like a child with a nursery rhym
" This can't be me, and by God, it is, it's me!"
And wondering what a hanging may be like:
And all the trouble for you is, how to make
Six chilly men with only shirts to wear
Walk like a procession.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
You're out of step.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
Ay, we must keep in step! That 's the great thing
For men who are mightily afraid they'll feel
The swooping fear of death land on their shoulders.
PIERRE DE WISSANT
Speak for yourself: I think nothing of death.
JACQUES DE WISSANT
No; you're too busy play-acting to think.
PIERRE DE WISSANT
Is it play-acting that this halter makes me
A prouder man than a king's jewel could?
JACQUES DE WISSANT
O keep all that for your speech to the king of England.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
His speech? I'm spokesman here, mind; I'm the Mayor.
PIERRE DE WISSANT
Citizens of Calais, weep not for us.
Enough for us we save you; you shall see,
Once we are past this little cloud of death,
Our names are launcht on such a towering flight
The sun goes not so high.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
Come on, come on.
What death is I don't know; but a cold wind
Lifting my shirt and trifling round my belly
I'm knowing now too well.
JEAN D'AIRE
To have us come
Half-naked, with halter'd necks! These barbarous English!
JACQUES DE WISSANT
Good hangmen, though.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
Yes, queer how sharp a score
Small things will make on the mind of a dying man.
This creeping of the wind along my skin,
Like icy moths pushing the hairs aside —
It might be diamond cutting a mark on glass,
I note it so: and vastly more somehow
It means to note this now, even than to be
Marvelling how I got my mind made up —
Or why — to let an English hangman choke me.
JEAN D'AIRE
Half-naked, with halter'd necks! Barbarous people!
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
Look out, behind! The street 's a patch of muck.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
Ah, you remind me: they are still mine down there,
Those feet — and what a long way down they are,
Picking their steps so gingerly! I'm sure
That 's not my doing: myself, I should not bother
To go so nicely on my way to be hanged,
But barefoot stamp ahead as if I were shod.
JACQUES DE WISSANT
Old Andrieu will be talking. The wise man
Is Fiennes: he knows there 's nothing to be said,
And keeps his mouth shut.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
Ay, there was a girl;
I had to pull him from her.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
O let him go!
Nothing should ever get the better of love!
Saint-Pierre, can you not let him go?
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
Too late.
JEAN DE FIENNES
Too late? — Ay, too late I knew she was mine.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
The worst thing yet! — Pierre 's gone very quiet.
JACQUES DE WISSANT
Yes, the play-actor finding the play real.
PIERRE DE WISSANT
I am ashamed.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
What 's that? Ashamed? And cheek
Grey as my beard! — Now dear God send we have
No trouble with the fellow!
PIERRE DE WISSANT
I'm going to spew.
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
Good lad! Why not?
JACQUES DE WISSANT
For God's sake mind my legs
He has no business here! It was all wrong
To take the young fool!
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
Nonsense: he's as hearty
As any of us now. — But you know, Pierre,
That was a nobler stuff than all your speeches.
JACQUES DE WISSANT
Who's splashing now? — Why, look at the Mayor
Trampling the puddles dry like a man blindfolded!
ANDRIEU D'ANDRES
There's some remarkable study going on
Behind that frown, Saint-Pierre: what are you lost in?
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
Trying to make out what the deuce to say
To the English king! I talk like a simpleton
Unless I have my speech square in my head.
JACQUES DE WISSANT
No pleading with the beast! I'll give you all
The speech you want: tell him to go to hell.
EUSTACHE SAINT-PIERRE
I'll sting him, if you'll hold your tongue a little.
JEAN D'AIRE
To have us come half-naked, with halter'd necks!
Barbarous! These barbarious English!