Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOUNDS OF BELLS AND OF PRECIOUS STONES, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOUNDS OF BELLS AND OF PRECIOUS STONES, by                    
First Line: The old duke philip died one night in the arms of his jesters three
Last Line: Their ire, charles, duke of burgundy, went forth from his chateau.
Subject(s): Bells; Death; Love; Dead, The


The old duke Philip died one night in the arms of his jesters three. A thousand
follies did he recite of Charles the Seventh's court, then, in full cry, stopped
short, -- and paling suddenly.

-- "If you love me, gentle sirs, ring all your bells," said he. "To man's
eternal home I think God summons me. My life's iniquity to you I now confess and
my latest words as well, a web of groundless lies. Good Jehanne of Lorraine
'mongst men loved Charles the most but, of this be well advised, mistress she
ne'er has been save to King Jesus Christ."
Then bowed his head and rendered up the ghost.

Tinkling their bells most mournfully (glide, glide, pointed shoe), through many
a vacant corridor filed the jesters three, straining on tiptoe, one finger in
air.
They stopped at every open door. "Monsieur de Commines! Monsieur de Commines!"
they whispered. Never a voice replied. "No buffoon can with Death compare," one
of the three fools sighed.
From attic to cellar their way they wended, from cellar to attic reascended. All
was deserted. No. The moon followed their search from room to room. From window
to window they saw her glide. "She mocks us with that steady stare," one of the
three fools sighed.
On the towers to the East, to the West, to the South, one tom-cat, two tom-cats,
three tom-cats screech. Miaou-oo! Miaou-oo! Long live lean tom-cats and lean
fools, too! -- "Nothing can make the moon digress," one of the three fools
sighed.

On the tiles of the tower that is toward the North since that night no tom-cat
ventures forth. There the good duke defunct doth too often rove to shine the
moon with his golden glove, -- scrip! scrap! the better to light his drinking,
much having striven, the storms in his casque -- scrip! scrap! the better to
light his drinking. . . .
-- "Do our wits begin to craze?" muttered that trio of fools. All the world is
at Liege, and monseigneur Charles.

But thinking this they erred.
For a chronicler, 'tis plain, that in fools to put belief is to take the
flooding rain for a pocket-handkerchief.
In truth, monseigneur Charles, adroitly insinuated into a cabinet's black
recess, since dawn had watched and waited, hid from the heaven's clear gaze to
pry through the key-hole's chink with his great blue eye. Curled in that snug
and secret nook he had seen the last grimace at the world on the face of the
aged duke.
And when our trio of fools, as dawn made bright the east (poor bumpkins that
they were), after all this futile pother, reclimbed the spiral stair to the room
of the late deceased, what sight confronts them there? . . . monseigneur Charles
tenderly weeping before the duke his father.
Low in the dust he kneeled, with frantic pantomime pardon for his misdeeds
imploring. He besought a parting benediction, alas! from that good aged duke so
rigidly congealed, his breast still arrogant with store of jewels rare, gems
that he left to sing 'neath the fingers of his heir.
But never a word replied the good old gaffer, and for cause.
In costly velvet clad, cuirassed with a scintillating Alladin's treasure, for
three days now he had tasted scarcely a morsel of food, starved to death like a
beggar, perishing of hunger, in a happy vision of angels, of bells and precious
stones.

So, while grim tocsins through belfried Bruges clanged the hoarse fanfare that
calls to war and, in the morning's cloudy air an armed host wakened, their souls
on fire with the gentle hope that they soon might go to sack Liege with savage
glee, ravage and loot to their hearts' desire till the very walls should know
their ire, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, went forth from his chateau.





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