Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MY SWEET LITTLE LOUIS XI, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MY SWEET LITTLE LOUIS XI, by                    
First Line: By easy stages, my sweet little louis xi from nantes to his little
Last Line: To tickle the dame.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; France; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens


By easy stages, my sweet little Louis XI from Nantes to his little Plessis-le-
Tour jaunted contentedly; fine and dark, supple and sweet, perched on his orange
mare, oftentimes little Louis XI in the first gray dawn of day sniffing the odor
of hay in the dewy breeze;
oftentimes on the white road and whistling to the lark, at the edge of the
nodding wheat that chimes 'neath the southern sky;
skirting the hawthorn hedge, all armoured with snowy sheets that wave and dry in
an ocean wind, surcharged with the salt of the sea;
oftentimes little Louis Eleventh slumbering peacefully, lulled by the drowsy
motion of his mare;
little Louis XI shaded by azure forests deep (do you hear the voice of the
cuckoo? -- no, I am asleep).
by the brink of the fountains where young virgins laugh between slim reeds with
arrowy rain agleam, little Louis XI one eye uncloses, amply sufficient it would
seem.
by the reach of the stream where the curlews skim one drowzes, one rouses, one
lives in a dream, a vision vague and dim;
in front of the wind-mills that signal each to each, little Louis XI raised his
hand in salute;
not far from isolated granges where freely the fattened porker ranges, where the
pigeon, beside the embastilled hare, in the quiet coos so sad an air that the
heart is like to drown with sorrow, where at times a band of ducks and geese
with gilded beaks in panic flees from the coming of a King of France who, in the
farm-yard court perchance, from two sunburned women, who smile beneath their
sheaves, a bowl of fresh milk would borrow;
or on a wherry crossing o'er the waters of the lovely Loire, his fingers
clutching the nostrils of his mare, his eyes on the rower of the ferry, a
specimen extremely hairy, uncompromisingly hirsute;
or under the rosy favors a friendly tempest waves while crackling thunders surge
the tufted cloud-wrack through; little Louis XI, without more ado, crosses
himself with both hands yet saves the reins that he may more certainly be kept
from hurtling earthward to crush some clump of spurge beneath his somewhat
thinly cushioned rear: yet lets his frightened mare, in headlong flight, tear
through the meadows, rush through flowering broom, plash under-foot the innocent
marguerite, crush with her hoof the cowslips' petals five; -- in the midst of
the storm's mad strife, quite calm upon his beast, he waits the rainbow to raise
his head again, then emerges from the proof muddied from head to feet; clever
little Louis XI had never the least complaint to urge;
near great chateaux, perched on hillsides olive-gray that skies blue-of-France
surround with fleecy mist, little Louis XI rapidly steered his way; and if to
relieve his boredom, a country count appeared, whistle in teeth and bird on
wrist, little Louis XI, one finger pressed to lips that a secret smile caressed,
in his servitor's ear would whisper low this single word "Incognito . . .";
near villages, grouped together like flotsam, on the plain behind the heather's
gently heaving swell;
infinitely rocking billows of the plain! O all those shining villages by waves
of herbage lulled! . . . (someone nods on his mare);
when at evening he passed through the back-streets of the towns, a strain of
martial music often accompanied him: a troop of gamins beating on pots in the
sunset-crimsoned dust; little Louis XI marked the measure with his chin;
the hood pulled low o'er his brow he travelled tranquilly and though now and
then a cow stared at him curiously, though an occasional cur or thistle-cropping
ass with meditative gaze beheld their monarch pass, yet in truth the King on his
tawny mare passed unrecognized everywhere:
oftentimes little Louis XI listening to the angelus in a wind that is laden with
clustered memories;
oftentimes little Louis XI gnawing a crusty loaf (the white bread of our Lord,
but with golden cheese above), for little Louis XI with never-failing zeal
sought for his little oesophagus a palatable meal;
oftentimes little Louis XI in the twilight's dusky deeps: it seems that he
advances, one would say that he retreats;
or Louis XI, fine and dark, against a background of stars, lulled in a ray from
the moon, little Louis XI his face upraised to heaven, his little bottom cradled
on his mare, fine Valois head envisaging in dream force universal, little Louis
XI probing the provinces of the firmament, slyly in search of his accomplice,
God.

Plessis-les-Tours! -- one crept in quietly . . . Charlotte slept. King Louis of
France soon after did the same, -- not without having seized the chance a little
to tickle the dame.





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