FROM the school-porch at Vannes
Weaponed, the children ran;
One little voice began,
Lark-like ascended:
‘Treason is on the wing,
Black vows, and menacing:
March, boys! God save the King!’
Allio ended.
Singing, with sunny head,
Battleward straight he led,
Stones for his captain’s bed,
Herbs for his diet:
He and his legion brave,
Trouble enough they gave!
Ere the Blues’ bullets drave
Them into quiet.
Spared, with a few as bold,
Once the storm over-rolled,
Allio, twelve years old,
Crept from the clamor;
Came, when the days were brief,
To the old desk in grief,
Thumbing anew the leaf
Of the old grammar.
Kings out!... rang the chime,
Kings in!... answered Time.
In his ignoring clime,
Silent, he studied;
Till, ere his youth was done,
For him, the chosen one,
Shepherd disclaimed of none,
Aaron’s rod budded.
Long, in unbroken round,
Peace on his paths he found;
Saw the glad Breton ground
Husbanded, quarried:
Blessed it, the record saith,
All the years he had breath,
Till the dim eightieth
Snowed on his forehead.
President!... Emperor!...
President!... On the floor
Spake a sharp Senator
Widening his ranges:
‘From Paris I impeach
Vannes for disloyal speech;
Send thither troops to teach,
How the world changes!’
Down on the peasants then
Rode the Republic’s men,
Trampling the corn again,
Miring the flowers;
Hewed thro’ the rebels nigh,
Scoffed at the women’s cry,
Set the tricolor high
On the church towers.
Pale in his cot that day,
Dying, the pastor lay,
Where still his eye could stray
Up valleys gleaming;
Watchers were at his side;
Prayer unto prayer replied:
Hush! what was that he spied,
Pinnacle-streaming?
(Nothing was he aware
In his deaf Breton air,—
So gray traditions there
Throve unforgotten,—
That, by a final chance,
Kings all were led a dance;
Long since, in fickle France,
Sceptres were rotten!)
Sprang the old lion, still
Live with prodigious will,
To his stone casement-sill;
Foolish and true one!
Snatched up the blade he bore,
Rough with its rust of yore,
Kissed it, a saint no more—
Only a Chouan!
Barred from the charging mass
In the choked market-pass,
All he could do, alas!
Now, was to clang it:
Nay, more:—‘God save the King!’
With a last clarion ring,
Shot ere he ceased to sing,
Allio sang it.