Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Narrative Poems: VII. FranceLouis XV.
John Sterling (1806–1844)T
Had left his Pompadour behind,
And forth he rode in Senart’s wood
The royal beasts of chase to find.
That day by chance the Monarch mused,
And turning suddenly away,
He struck alone into a path
That far from crowds and courtiers lay.
Upon the brown untrodden earth;
He saw the birds around him flit
As if he were of peasant birth;
He saw the trees that know no king
But him who bears a woodland axe;
He thought not, but he looked about
Like one who skill in thinking lacks.
And glad of human sound was he,
For truth to say he found himself
A weight from which he fain would flee.
But that which he would ne’er have guessed
Before him now most plainly came;
The man upon his weary back
A coffin bore of rudest frame.
“And what is that I see thee bear?”
“I am a laborer in the wood,
And ’t is a coffin for Pierre.
Close by the royal hunting-lodge
You may have often seen him toil;
But he will never work again,
And I for him must dig the soil.”
And this he thought was but a man,
Who made at first a moment’s pause,
And then anew his talk began:
“I think I do remember now,—
He had a dark and glancing eye,
And I have seen his slender arm
With wondrous blows the pick-axe ply.
Can thus have killed our good Pierre?”
“Oh! nothing more than usual, sir,
He died of living upon air.
’T was hunger killed the poor good man,
Who long on empty hopes relied;
He could not pay gabell and tax,
And feed his children, so he died.”
“It is, you know, a common thing;
Our children’s bread is eaten up
By Courtiers, Mistresses, and King.”
The King looked hard upon the man
And afterwards the coffin eyed,
Then spurred to ask of Pompadour,
How came it that the peasants died.