Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONGS TO CONSOLE ME FOR BEING HAPPY: RICHARD CAEUR-DE-LION, by PAUL FORT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONGS TO CONSOLE ME FOR BEING HAPPY: RICHARD CAEUR-DE-LION, by                    
First Line: Beneath the ruddy plume of the carnation wild that the ruin doth
Last Line: Since in your chateau all the world abandons me.
Subject(s): Happiness; Passion; Singing & Singers; Joy; Delight; Songs


I

Beneath the ruddy plume of the carnation wild that the ruin doth perfume in
evenings of July, plunged in unfathomed gloom to never be beguiled, what did you
think of me that evening green with storm, thoughts of my heart astray, --
'neath the carnations wild o'er the donjon-keep that sway in evenings of July.

Towards the tempest's lowering mass I know you reasoned thus, that I've a heart,
alas! flawed and adventurous, a heart that grumbles, soon turned silent utterly,
like the tempestuous sky o'er yonder nodding plume; in the air, beneath the
flower, I know you reasoned thus that I've a heart for dower, flawed and
adventurous,

like him, that luckless slave of fortunes varying, the evil-starred and brave
Richard, crusader-king. To-night the tempest's blur parts to reveal the moon at
the rampart's verge. -- The croon of the wind was my Blondel, 'mid the flowers,
with music's swell, Fortune to importune, chateau of Richard Coeur-de-Lion
'neath the moon.

II.

it happened yesterday where a hundred roses grow, intruding through the hedge a
donkey came to bray precisely o'er my brow, and with petals rosy-hued bedecked
me, as the sky zigzagging lightnings flecked, that rent the cloud's black edge,
dragging the thunder loud, so that, 'mid the roses fair, it happened yesterday -
-

that never till that time to these ruins drawing near (for I climbed to your
chateau, King Richard) did the car of chance on me bestow such fairy vistas gay,
a music more sublime, so that Paul Fort you spied, O white chateau Gaillard --
who by the lightning saw what happened yesterday --

the donkey's back bestride, to the crackling thunder-peal, and, strewed with
petalled rain, in either hand a rose, give himself, in high disdain of the bolts
that rent the air, as a new proprietor to the lonely castle there, Richard
restored again, lyric but freed from pose -- then from the donkey slide, as
yesterday befell.

III.

Thus for uncounted days -- sans donkey as a rule -- I come to chant the praise
of grim Chateau Gaillard, of the silver Seine flowing at its feet, of the donjon
with its scar, inflicted by a king unused to dallying, and, in particular, of
its blossoms sweet, whereof my art was fain, and a stream of silver cool,
flowing at its feet.

and often, even when fierce tempests shake the trees, I sing the flowers, the
Seine, the castle, to the breeze that afar my voice doth bear, and laugh to feel
the squall through my hair unhindered sweep, for I've no hat: till all is merged
to form an air that ne'er was heard till then, the flowers, the donjon-keep, the
silver of the Seine.

'tis not up to the sky that, inebriate, I sing its chateaux of dream, unmortised
reared on high, crumbling above my head, in shadows wandering, and o'er this
ancient wall in ghostly grandeur spread, then falling to obscure the barges
drifting by with dusky coverture, and to shroud the murmuring stream whose tide
beneath them flows.

IV.

While from each flowery spray before these crumbling walls, siskin and goldfinch
gay whistle their cheery calls, soft-couched upon the ling of the sands, I fain
would sing of ancient combats rude. 'Tis good to hear the lays blithe birds are
carolling, but better still to sing the assaults of other days.

Strong towers the foe besets! Walls that go crashing down enduring toil to
crown! Tottering parapets! And when the battle hot, hither and thither slips,
little and great at grips in the waters of the moat! Leaping the barriers high
of pointed stakes arow from either side they cry: "At them! at them! at them
now!"

It makes my heart rejoice, even to its depths, to dream -- ranged in the open
plain -- of the haughty cavaliers; it pleases me to see pavilions dot the
ground, to hear the screaming voice of horses riderless, as hosts of knightly
peers the battle's din prolong: the song within my heart to that sound is close
akin.

V.

To dream, to sing -- these are, poets, the selfsame thing! -- Ah! the knights
press on amain! I see them in my dream. Towards the drawbridge now they fly,
straight, and with reeking spur. They are there! The drawbridge sly raises
itself. They gain a charming interval while on their plumes doth fall a rain of
boiling oil.

God! -- how the battle shout sonorous echo swells! "God with us! Mother of God!
Well befall the right!" -- Pest! the pioneers must go the chateau to gird about
with storming towers of wood, balistas, mangonels, while from the belfry's
height on the moat's embattled marge hordes of cross-bowmen stout have trebled
their discharge.

Varlets, tumble in the moats, with unrelenting toil, faggots and ponderous rocks
and chunks of grassy soil! Pass! -- Swift the mine prepare! With picks and axes
smite! The perilous gauntlet dare and set the fuse alight! A tower is wrecked
and blocks a moat with its debris. Ladders! . . . the standard fair wrought with
the fleur-de-lys!

VI.

My heart beats -- I hear it pound. -- Ye visions great, good-bye! There is no
other sound save my heart's and a cricket's cry, and the yellow sun towards its
setting goes. -- How much my dream is one with the days that near their close! -
- Let us rise, in twilight's gloom I will botanise forsooth, seeking the herb of
youth, the simple of the moon.

Ah, do I know what pain on my poor heart doth weight? Am I thinking of the love
who left me yesterday? . . . The same ill circumstance hither despairing drove
thee, Lion-Heart, full fain for that Alix of France whom thy father traitorous
loved to insanity: thy rising had for cause a father's felony.

If I could kill my sire through disappointment's rage in order to assuage by
cold ambition's quest my amorous disgrace, O Coeur-de-Lion dire! and in my
rigorous breast fraternal love efface, like you when you suppressed the Court-
Mantel, to reign -- if I but could and then, when firm upon the throne, to
Jerusalem deliver Lusignan!

VII.

No, I'm doomed to love, in truth. My passion I must trail to weep against a
stone, here, in this place apart where I inscribe her name between a rock-rose
bloom and a pink the hue of a heart. -- My senses fail, benumbed! -- I go to
botanise in moonlight's shimmering gloss seeking beneath the moss the herb of
deathless youth.

Alas! This frustrate love, must it for aye endure? I needs must wait for day to
sing the donjon-keep, the towers, the clouds above, the river's silver deep, and
the shocks of ancient war. Alas, a lover's woes must they forever cling? The
morning's crimson rose alone can make me sing.

No sound the night discloses. A single ghost doth move still at my side to
brood: the image of my love. Her floating veil I see that drifts an ell behind.
'Tis but a gleaming ray from the rising moon inclined. In this calm solitude
shall I awaken, pray, couched in the heart of the roses, the gardener's donkey
grey?

VIII.

But in morning's roseate glow what thing do I forget? 'Mid the blossom-sweetened
air, I forget my amorous pain. And I sing, and sing again, the Seine with silver
set and its isles and its strong chateau. "A tower is wrecked and blocks a moat
with its debris. Ladders! -- the standard fair, wrought with the fleur-de-lys!"

Richard with one black arm has seized the standard now. On the lilies shall be
laid thy blushing cheeks, Alix, Flower of France, when the King implants a kiss
on thy charming brow. -- May this little winged song, with form indefinite, in
the selfsame guise have power to my false love to fare; although, in truth,
'twas made that she might slumber there.

Three verses shouted high are by Bertrand de Born. The others are by me: few
merits these adorn. Would you have one's judgment cold when love has said good-
bye? Is a broken heart the sphere of subtle reasoning? Did you do better here,
Coeur-de-Lion bold, Richard, O my King? If so -- O troubadour -- my inspiration
be

since in your chateau all the world abandons me.





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