Classic Poem

PART I.

A T Paris, hard by the Maine barriers,
Whoever will choose to repair,
'Midst a dozen of wooden-legged warriors
May haply fall in with old Pierre
On the sunshiny bench of a tavern
He sits and he prates of old wars,
And moistens his pipe of tobacco
With a drink that is named after Mars:

The beer makes his tongue run the quicker,
And as long as his tap never fails,
Thus over his favourite liquor
Old Peter will tell his old tales.
Says he, " In my life's ninety summers
Strange changes and chances I've seen, —
So here's to all gentlemen drummers
That ever have thumped on a skin!

" Brought up in the art military
For four generations we are;
My ancestors drummed for King Harry,
The Huguenot lad of Navarre.
And as each man in life has his station
According as Fortune may fix,
While Conde was waving the bâton,
My grandsire was trolling the sticks.

" Ah! those were the days for commanders!
What glories my grandfather won,
Ere bigots, and lacqueys, and panders
The fortunes of France had undone!
In Germany, Flanders, and Holland, —
What foeman resisted us then?
No; my grandsire was ever victorious,
My grandsire and Monsieur Turenne.

" He died: and our noble battalions
The jade fickle Fortune forsook;
And at Blenheim, in spite of our valiance,
The victory lay with Malbrook.
The news it was brought to King Louis;
Corbleu! how His Majesty swore
When he heard they had taken my grandsire
And twelve thousand gentlemen more.

" At Namur, Ramillies, and Malplaquet
Were we posted, on plain or in trench:
Malbrook only need to attack it,
And away from him scamper'd we French
Cheer up! 'tis no use to be glum, boys, —
'Tis written, since fighting begun,
That sometimes we fight and we conquer,
And sometimes we fight and we run.

" To fight and to run was our fate:
Our fortune and fame had departed
And so perish'd Louis the Great, —
Old, lonely, and half broken-hearted
His coffin they pelted with mud,
His body they tried to lay hands on;
And so having buried King Louis,
They loyally served his great-grandson.

" God save the beloved King Louis!
(For so he was nicknamed by some),
And now came my father to do his
King's orders and beat on the drum
My grandsire was dead, but his bones
Must have shaken, I'm certain, for joy,
To hear daddy drumming the English
From the meadows of famed Fontenoy.

" So well did he drum in that battle
That the enemy show'd us their backs;
Corbleu! it was pleasant to rattle
The sticks and to follow old Saxe!
We next had Soubise as a leader,
And as luck hath its changes and fits,
At Rossbach, in spite of dad's drumming,
'Tis said we were beaten by Fritz.

" And now daddy cross'd the Atlantic,
To drum for Montcalm and his men;
Morbleu! but it makes a man frantic
To think we were beaten again!
My daddy he cross'd the wide ocean,
My mother brought me on her neck,
And we came in the year 'fifty-seven
To guard the good town of Quebec.

" In the year 'fifty-nine came the Britons —
Full well I remember the day, —
They knocked at our gates for admittance,
Their vessels were moor'd in our bay.
Says our general, " Drive me yon red-coats
Away to the sea whence they come!"
So we march'd against Wolfe and his bulldogs,
We marched at the sound of the drum.

" I think I can see my poor mammy
With me in her hand as she waits,
And our regiment, slowly retreating,
Pours back through the citadel gates.
Dear mammy she looks in their faces,
And asks if her husband has come? —
He is lying all cold on the glacis,
And will never more beat on the drum.

" Come, drink, 'tis no use to be glum, boys!
He died like a soldier in glory;
Here's a glass to the health of all drum-boys,
And now I'll commence my own story!

Once more did we cross the salt ocean,
We came in the year 'eighty-one;
And the wrongs of my father the drummer
Were avenged by the drummer his son.

" In Chesapeak Bay we were landed.
In vain strove the British to pass:
Rochambeau our armies commanded,
Our ships they were led by De Grasse.
Morbleu! how I rattled the drumsticks
The day we march'd into Yorktown;
Ten thousand of beef-eating British
Their weapons we caused to lay down.

" Then homewards returning victorious,
In peace to our country we came,
And were thanked for our actions glorious
By Louis, Sixteenth of the name.
What drummer on earth could be prouder
Than I, while I drumm'd at Versailles
To the lovely Court ladies in powder,
And lappets, and long satin-tails?

" The princes that day pass'd before us
Our countrymen's glory and hope;
Monsieur, who was learned in Horace,
D'Artois, who could dance the tight-rope.
One night we kept guard for the Queen
At Her Majesty's opera-box,
While the King, that majestical monarch,
Sat filing at home at his locks.

" Yes, I drumm'd for the fair Antoinette,
And so smiling she look'd and so tender,
That our officers, privates, and drummers,
All vow'd they would die to defend her
But she cared not for us honest fellows,
Who fought and who bled in her wars,
She sneer'd at our gallant Rochambeau,
And turned Lafayette out of doors.

" Ventrebleu! then I swore a great oath,
No more to such tyrants to kneel;
And so just to keep up my drumming,
One day I drumm'd down the Bastille.
Ho, landlord! a stoup of fresh wine.
Come, comrades, a bumper we'll try,
And drink to the year 'eighty-nine
And the glorious fourth of July!

" Then bravely our cannon it thunder'd
As onwards our patriots bore.
Our enemies were but a hundred,
And we twenty thousand or more.
They carried the news to King Louis.
He l eard it as calm as you please,
And, like a majestical monarch,
Kept filing his locks and his keys.

" We show'd our republican courage,
We storm'd and we broke the great gate in,
And we murder'd the insolent governor
For daring to keep us a-waiting
Lambesc and his squadrons stood by:
They never stirr'd finger or thumb
The saucy aristocrats trembled
As they heard the republican drum.

" Hurrah! what a storm was a-brewing!
The day of our vengeance was come!
Through scenes of what carnage and ruin
Did I beat on the patriot drum!
Let's drink to the famed tenth of August:
At midnight I beat the tattoo,
And woke up the pikemen of Paris
To follow the bold Barbaroux.

" With pikes, and with shouts, and with torches
March'd onwards our dusty battalions,
And we girt the tall castle of Louis,
A million of tatterdemalions
We storm'd the fair gardens where tower'd
The walls of his heritage splendid
Ah, shame on him, craven and coward,
That had not the heart to defend it!

" With the crown of his sires on his head,
His nobles and knights by his side,
At the foot of his ancestors' palace
'Twere easy, methinks, to have died
But no: when we burst through his barriers,
'Mid heaps of the dying and dead,
In vain through the chambers we sought him —
He had turn'd like a craven and fled.

*****


" You all know the Place de la Concorde?
'Tis bard by the Tuileries wall
'Mid terraces, fountains, and statues,
There rises an obelisk tall
There rises an obelisk tall,
All garnish'd and gilded the base is:
'Tis surely the gayest of all
Our beautiful city's gay places.

" Around it are gardens and flowers
And the Cities of France on their thrones,
Each crown'd with his circlet of flowers,
Sits watching this biggest of stones!
I love to go sit in the sun there,
The flowers and fountains to see,
And to think of the deeds that were done there
In the glorious year 'ninety-three.

" 'Twas here stood the Altar of Freedom;
And though neither marble nor gilding
Was used in those days to adorn
Our simple republican building,
Corbleu! but the mere guillotine
Cared little for splendour or show,
So you gave her an axe and a beam,
And a plank and a basket or so.

" Awful, and proud, and erect,
Here sat our republican goddess.
Each morning her table we deck'd
With dainty aristocrats' bodies.
The people each day flocked around
As she sat at her meat and her wine:
'Twas always the use of our nation
To witness the sovereign dine.

" Young virgins with fair golden tresses,
Old silver-hair'd prelates and priests,
Dukes, marquises, barons, princesses,
Were splendidly served at her feasts.
Ventrebleu! but we pamper'd our ogress
With the best that our nation could bring,
And dainty she grew in her progress,
And called for the head of a King!

" She called for the blood of our King,
And straight from his prison we drew him;
And to her with shouting we led him,
And took him, and bound him, and slew him
" The monarchs of Europe against me
Have plotted a godless alliance!
I'll fling them the head of King Louis."
She said, " as my gage of defiance."

" I see him as now, for a moment,
Away from his gaolers he broke;
And stood at the foot of the scaffold,
And linger'd, and fain would have spoke.
" Ho, drummer! quick, silence yon Capet,"
Says Santerre, " with a beat of your drum."
Lustily then did I tap it,
And the son of Saint Louis was dumb. "