Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A NIGHT AT ST. HELENA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It wants three hours to midnight. Do you hear
Last Line: Ninette, ninette, remember the old guard.
Subject(s): Exiles; Napoleon I (1769-1821)


"IT wants three hours to midnight. Do you hear
The sentries drawing closer? At this time
A ghost could scarce evade their vigilance:
I am so precious! Why, no ship can pass
This island, even twenty leagues away,
Without discovery from some signal-post;
Whereat one of your pleasant ships of war
That cruise and crouch around me day and night
Immediately sets out and shadows her
To what is deemed a safer distance. Now,
Would it not seem much easier if you dropped
A little poison in my medicine, doctor?
Or do you take me for the Devil, eh?
You see those floating guards are not enough;
But, after sunset, every fishing boat
Is under watch and ward; and there will stand
Two sentries at each entrance of my house;
A subaltern's guard six hundred paces off;
A cordon of picquets round the limits, too;
A picquet at every possible landing-place;
And shadowy sentinels upon the cliffs
At quite impossible exits; for you know
That I am somewhat bulky nowadays;
Why, they have even placed a sentinel
On every goat-path leading to the sea!

This is the kind of dream that harasses
One's nerves, and gives one cancer in the stomach.

I hardly think that you can help me much
Now; you had better leave me. I may sleep.
Good night."
And the physician sadly left
The doomed Napoleon, lying with clenched hands,
Pallid and still upon his bleak white couch
Like some great sculptured king upon a tomb.
But all night long the charge and recoil of thought
Beneath that aching marble brow denied
Sleep to the dark indomitable soul.
All night behind the quiet sullen face,
Through which as through a clay-cold mask of death
Gazed the unconquered proud eternal eyes,
Vain memory maddening into hopeless hope
Fought all his battles over once again,
With all he might have done, the great man's last
Inheritance of helpless power. No sound
Escaped the hard relentless chiselled lips.
His heart was far too far away for words
Of grief or scorn to bring its passion back
To that chill chamber of death; yet, as it chanced,
First in the dawn of dreams a careless cloud
Of trivial recollection lightly rose,
And almost made him smile, as a spoilt child
Smiles in remembrance of some angry spite
Done to a wooden puppet's battered face.
"Sir Hudson Lowe," began the silent voice
That threshed his bitter dreams out all night long,
"Sir Hudson Lowe, who is Sir Hudson Lowe?
Ah, yes, the poor apologetic man
Who thinks that he annoys me, or that I
Am much incensed with him; well, we must wear
A name for our vexation, let it be
Sir Hudson Lowe, the name is well enough.
I am incensed with you, Sir Hudson Lowe;
Well, no; I do not need apologies;
I am so insolent, you think; but you
Will need apologies when you are dead,
And bald professors pick your bones in grim
Historical research, Sir Hudson Lowe.
Yes; they will be so angry, they will come
Some to defend you, some to bid you stand
On your defence, for nothing more than this --
That I was much perturbed and never liked
Your name at all: indeed, I almost fear
That I have crumpled it up as I might crumple
A scrap of paper at Austerlitz, and quite
Unconsciously; ah me, Sir Hudson Lowe,
Will you disturb your country in your grave?
My God, I think that all I need is rest;
The rest these doctors cannot give me; rest;
An hour or so of sleep; I cannot sleep.
The sea sobs round the island! What a night!
And through the darker night within me now
The wandering seas of memory rise and cry:
And there is nought, within me or without,
But flying clouds and ghostly waves that rise
In wailing crowds out of the deep sea-gloom,
And toss their wild white arms and fling themselves
Prone on the pitiless reefs and shudder back
Shrivelling into the deep sea-gloom and rise
And toss their arms and wail and fling themselves
Down on the reefs once more for leagues and leagues
Of bitter broken coast and wet black night.
My hopes are cast upon the shoals of time
Like driftwood; like poor painted figure-heads
That once were pointed to a crimson East
Of unimagined Empires; and are now
Relics of splendid wrecks, tossed in the pools
Of yellow spume among the barren rocks.

I must not think: God, do not let me think:
I came so near: I should go mad with thought:
God, do not let me think: I must not think.

See; I am like a little child to-night!
I know how vain such thoughts are; yet I think;
Even as a child who wanders down a street
And touches every door-post as he goes,
If at the end he should remember one
That he has missed, thinks and is gnawed with mute
Sense of defeat, till he returns at last,
Begins from the beginning once again
And touches all. Victory, oh my God,
I also came so near that I could see
Its emptiness; but what if in this hour
I also am become as one of these;
A little child, Father, a little child?

Ah no; I must not think! Sleep, sleep, oh sleep,
Come down; let me forget a little while;
Come down; confuse and muffle me with dreams.
Now let the old hopes and fears and schemes of state,
The policies and purposes of war,
The plans and charts and lying bulletins,
The flying marches and the subtle flights,
The plumed and hissing hurricane of the charge
And all the red roar of the hidden guns
Mix with the mere mortality that dreams
Of human suffering in the unburied past;
The passions and ambitions and desires
That ride like waves in furious regiments;
The glory and the cruelty and the love
That clamour with the legions of the storm,
Now let them mix with this wide hungry sea
Of hopeless memory, weltering in the dark;
Though all beneath the gracious influence
Of sleep must seem so pitiful; helpless, too,
Within its human prison. The sea sobs
Hopeless and helpless, wide and blind as fate,
And darkly swayed and swung, hither and thither
In terrible impotent agony, seeking still
The meaning of its own intense desire
So vainly and for ever. What a night!

There was a meaning once! It seemed as near
As the sky seems to children. Yet, I think
It could not be so near: youth is too young
To feel the worth of the glory that it wears,
The splendour of the unattainable height,
The light that shines upon the unknown way,
The chivalry, the beauty, and the truth,
Which none can see till afterwards; and you
Still come in dreams, Ninette, still come in dreams,
Across that cherry orchard in the dawn --
My God, how red the dawn is, red as blood! --
And yet you trip so lightly down the path,
You trip so lightly down the path, Ninette,
To meet the little sunburnt lad you knew.

I wonder if you still remember this,
And how from the low ladder, with one hand
Upon his happy shoulder, you leaned down
With that red cherry parting your red lips
And kissed it softly and sweetly through his own
Red parting lips, until the four lips met.

Ninette, Ninette, remember the Old Guard
Before you kiss me. Ah, no, no; defeat
May pass; but you will come again, Ninette;
Do not forget the little lad you loved.
The sea sobs! How the sea sobs! Let it pass.

Ah, yes; there was a meaning. Once, it seemed
To elude me by a hair's breadth as I searched
Through volume after volume by the light
Of guttering candles in the garret there
At Paris, ere the barricadoed streets
Ran red and ere the crash of the Bastille
Shook Europe and my soul and bid them wake;
And the great crimson furnace that was France
Kept all the world at bay, just as a fire
Lit in a forest camp with none to guard
Keeps all the ravenous eyes of the wild beasts
Back, burning in the gloom of utter doubt:
And once I seemed to approach it as men heard
Beyond the nightmares of the expectant world
That sea of sick white faces whispering death;
And then along the stunned and blinded streets
The roar that rolled with Danton to his doom.

Ninette, Ninette, remember the Old Guard.

I think that he is most a king whose mind
Is likest God's in power and in desire
Both to create and order; and this thought
Seemed like a clue in those old days. My God,
The secret, the great secret, seemed so near
When with a gay young friend of mine I ran
To see the mob insult the king's own courts,
A rabble of some six thousand wretched swine
Possessed with evil spirits; we saw them there
Swarming in dirt and ugliness through all
The gates and corridors until at last
They found the king; and oh, my friend and I,
We saw him, the poor royal nincompoop,
Louis the Weakling, Louis the Locksmith, there,
Having a red cap clapped upon his brows,
Pushed to a window by their dirty hands
And made to bow and scrape and twiddle thumbs
And smile and smirk until the crew below
Was graciously inclined to belch a jest
In answer. Oh, I knew what I would do:
And afterwards the secret seemed my own
When I, too, stood above that seething mob
With the divine sense of the supreme power
Of death and judgment, till the moment came;
And as I stood there in the palace gates
My lips had but to move, once, with one word,
Fire! And the sudden apocalypse of my guns
Beginning their evangel to the world
Had hurled the chaos back into the gloom.

And you; oh, poor pale face of Josephine,
Why do you come to mock me with your tears?
Ah, smile, smile at me; do not weep; I'll bear
Everything, but not that! Do you hear me? Hate,
Mockery, -- do you hear me? -- everything;
But not those tears. I cannot bear your love;
No; nor your pity; let both die, I say!
Will Love not die, my God, will Love not die?

Ah yes; God knows; for we are parting now;
And I can strangle it. Can a woman kill
The child she suckled, the child whose little feet
She warmed against her heart, whose little fingers
Clung softly round her breasts imprinting them
With blind dimpled caresses, and whose body
Grew like a blossom crumpled for the bliss
Of little laughs and kisses; can she kill
Her child, I say; and I not kill my love?
Oh, you may plead and plead and plead and plead;
But you shall never move me: I must go
Upward and onward now: I loved you once:
God knows I loved you once; but Love can die;
And here see I kill Love for purposes
Of state. Oh, Love turns up a ghastly face
When he lies dying; and he lingers, lingers;
And I must crush him underfoot and yet
His life seems rooted in an evil dream
That lives for ever; though I burst his heart
And trample it underfoot he lingers and clings
And each of all his pangs is mine, mine, mine!
Oh God, will Love not die, will Love not die?

But they are wiser than they know who say
To fight with ghosts is but to wound the wind;
For the sword passes through them and they laugh!
I might as easily trample down the sea!
The sea sobs; how the sea sobs; what a night!
Oh now, I see us as we stood that day,
At parting, face to face; I hear you crying
On God and Love and begging me to take
You in my arms, you that I loved so, you
Pleading with me; for we are parting now
For ever; ah, to take you in my arms
Against my heart once, for the last, last time;
To feel your mouth crushed on my mouth again
For one swift moment, while we both forgot
That when the moment ended all must end.

Love, love, you plead with such a tortured face;
But mine, I see, is calm as marble still.

You should have known I loved you, oh my queen,
You must have known I loved you! Christ, what tears!

Peace! Peace! You knew it from the very first,
Or should have known it, had your eyes the power
To bear the light, or had your heart been true
As I now swear before the face of God
My heart was true to you: we might have risen
Above this world of battles then; but now
I rise alone: it is too late for love;
But, ere I go, remember I have loved
You only; loved you with what heart I had;
And I could stand before the eternal throne
And boast -- my heart is great as any man's.
But you could never love. I did not ask
Love from a heart like yours. Had you been true
No more, but only true -- oh, I am cruel,
And shall be crueller yet -- I should not thus
Cast you aside as I cast off a cloak
To don the purple. Ah, my queen, you thought
That I was blind; and you must think me blind,
Blind, blind and hard as brutal nature now,
Blind as I seemed, once, wrapt in my vague dreams,
Dreams vague as the horizons of the world.
Ah, could you dream they ringed no seas, no shores,
No cities? No; not even a little hut
For Love to hide his head in? All was blank.
I tell you that before ten years have passed
All Europe shall be crouching like a hound
Before this blind man's feet. You poor blind eyes
That I have loved so long and kissed so often,
I love you still and kiss you for the last
Last time; but all the love I had to give
I keep henceforward as a flaming sword
In my own heart. No scruple, no remorse,
Can check my course at any wayside plea:
The end, the end is all. I never cared
If those whose sight was barred by walls and roofs,
Gossipers in the streets, could fail to see
My hope on the horizon; but you stood
With all those chatterers; and you think me blind
Because I see my battle rising black
As thunder in the distance, and I pass
Unheeding all the things that claim your eyes
To my own kingdom. Now let those that cross
My path take heed; for when I come alone,
The forces of the world are on my side,
The pitiless powers that feed the sun with fire,
Direct the wheeling planets and control
The invincible countermarching of the stars:
And it shall seem, to those that hear my battle
Rolling afar the great psalm of my guns,
As if the old energies of time and space
From chaos recreated and reformed
To my own order and new purposes
Were passing o'er the borders of this earth,
Chanting, like pilgrims on a pilgrimage
Through the deep gloom of sorrow and sin and death,
The dark funereal progress of the world
To the vast triumphs of Eternity;
A chant that sounds as if the seas of doom
Were slowly breaking on an iron shore
Remote and inappellable as God.
Nations shall call me Christ and Anti-Christ;
And in all ages to the end of years
My spirit shall brood upon the seas of war;
And in the dawn of battle, when great kings
Take council, they shall think and dream of me
And speak my name with bated breath; nor dare
To call me their exemplar; lest the world
Should mock their mad assumption of my throne;
And when another conqueror comes and goes
His fame shall be a jewel in my crown;
His sword shall only serve to write my name
More deeply in the memory of mankind.
It is engraved upon the Pyramids
To which I pointed on that golden day
In Egypt. There, before the silent army
I rode and said, "My soldiers, forty ages
Look down upon you." Why, I saw men weep,
Great bearded men; and I have heard my name
"The little Corporal," sobbed out as they died
From throats that choked with love and blood and love
And, though I never loved these men at all, --
Yet I shall be remembered when the God
Of battles is forgotten.
Poor pale face,
Upturned to that cold marble countenance,
Why do you plead: I see you, hear you, still.
"No, no; you must not leave me, I should die
With shame. Come back, come back; ah, feel my heart,
Put your arms round me. Oh, you did not mean
Those bitter bitter words: come back, come back."
No; do not hold your arms out; do not lift
Your poor beseeching face to me again.
If shame could kill you or if love had once
Wounded your heart, then pity might kill me.
But since you never loved, never were true
To God or man; why, when the hour is come,
I say that there are forces in this world
Greater than love or pity: not so great,
Perhaps, in heaven; but greater far on earth:
And I have all these forces in my heart.
In one thing, only one, I did you wrong;
I never should have loved you, that was all.
Such men as I should never breathe our love
To women: we should stand or fall alone;
And claim for friends the lonely sun, the dark
Desolate night and give our visions room
To grow in: the blind world is on our side
With all its grey old cruelties of fate;
And there is no appeal to us. Your tears?
A few more drops in that eternal sea
Of sorrow we hear sighing in our sleep,
What are they to a soul that sees the world
Crimsoned with God's own anguish every hour,
While obscure Christs are crucified in dark
Unnoted Calvaries? Nature drinks their blood
And thrives and blossoms on their agony.
Marble were far more pitiful than those
Who cannot share the lesser griefs and pains,
Because they comprehend them and the laws
That keep the calm blind universe at peace,
At perfect peace, I say, in spite of all
Its wild particular wars, consummate peace;
Even as the heavens eternally comprehend
This little grain of dust we call our earth,
And myriads like it, which with all their woes,
Are in the larger view such quiet stars.
No; no; you must not plead; you must not plead,
Your thoughts and words and dreams wither away
Like waves against a cliff: I cannot hear
Or understand you more than as a voice
Crying from some far world I used to know
Before my birth; a thin unhappy voice,
Meaningless as the stirring of a child
Within its mother's womb: there is a gulf,
A great gulf fixed between us, and we move
On different planes. No word of yours can reach
Me; and you will but hurt your own poor pride
If you should try: no; no; you must not plead:
Child, child, you must not plead: there is no dream
So foolish in this weakling world of ours
As that you call "forgiveness."
There are laws
Of action and reaction; and no force
Can ever be destroyed. Ah yes; I know
That heat may be transfigured into light;
As also I know this -- that God forgives
And he that has been injured may forgive;
But, he that injures, never. It would mean
Remorse, you understand, and that is more
Than any man can bear; once let the past,
The might-have-beens and pities flesh their fangs
And they will never leave you. Curse me now;
And I could greet your curses with a smile,
But do not cry for pity to the stars,
Or seek forgiveness from the implacable earth
Or from the soul that sinned so bitterly
And strayed so far from its appointed path
As here on earth to dare to love you, child.
Oh, there are reasons deep as heaven and hell
Why sins like this can never be forgiven.
What can you say to tortured souls like mine
Who hold a world within them, whose blind struggle
Is one with all the conflict of the ages,
God's paradox, God's universal war?
Why, all men know that war is but a crude
And savage way of ending the dispute
Of nations: not a statesman in this world
But knows this better than the petty fools
Who rave against his ugly thirst for blood;
And yet so mighty and so broadly bound
By the great primal laws of ebb and flow,
The laws that rule the winds, the waves, the stars,
Are all these larger motions of the deep
We call humanity, that not the power
Of all earth's loftiest individual souls
Can more than take advantage of a tide
Or ride the tempest out, when once the sun
Summons the winds together and with a shout
Sets red for battle o'er the roaring sea.

One with the larger motions of the deep,
The laws that rule my life are not as yours;
Ah, do not hold your arms out; do not lift
Your poor beseeching face to me again.
Ah, still you plead, my love and queen, you plead.
"I dare not let you leave me," Christ, what tears,
As the poor words rise trembling, "Listen now!
For now I know that all you say is true:
I never loved you; but I never loved
Any on earth: come back to me, come back!
You know that there are moments in the lives
Of women, when they reach the utmost height,
Moments when all their dreams of heaven are flashed
As quintessential blood along their veins
Inspiring them with such divinity
That they outstrip the swiftest thoughts of man
And overrule the laws of time and fate.
Then, with that flash, they see the living truth
And love it, as I stand up now and say
I never loved you till this hour; but now
I love you as I never loved my pride,
I love you as I never loved my life,
I love you as I never loved my God;
Husband, I dare not let you go! My God!
My God, be pitiful. I did not know
That love would be like this: my heart is breaking,
Breaking; ah, feel my heart: give me your hands.
How cold they are, how cold, how cold they are:
Feel, feel my heart; ah, let me warm them there.
You will not leave me; no; God is too good;
Thank God! Thank God! Your tears run down like rain!
You cannot leave me now! Thank God! Thank God!"

I only loved one woman in my life
And you are she, the first and last. Farewell.

There was a meaning once; and still it seems
To elude me by a hair's breadth; yet I think
That I should never have attained: my quest
Was infinite: those eastern empires faded,
Horizon after golden glad horizon,
Into another wider than the world.
The secret never seemed so near as now,
Save once when, sailing o'er a bitter sea
My atheists disproved the eternal God
And I confuted them by lifting up
One hand and pointing to the unfathomed night
Sprinkled with its innumerable stars.
Why, there I conquered and I conquer still;
There, dumb and blind as I, my kingdom lay.
For I must think that all these vast desires
Were leading me to cast aside this weight
Of earth, its limitations and its laws,
In wars that spelt my discontent with less
Than heaven; for which I blindly, bloodily ploughed
My way across the reeling world to God.

Austerlitz, Wagram, Moscow in my hands;
And I in thine, oh God, and I in thine;
The illimitable white wilderness around
The burning city and the long road home;
The white way of the innumerable dead
Horses and men that dotted it for leagues
With little specks of black all stiff and still
Like frozen flies upon a great white wall.

Now all the bands are breaking and I see
All: I am blinded; for I see the Face,
The Face that none can look upon and live;
And I am one with all and God is all;
Nothing but God, I say, nothing but God,
On every side, without me and within.
I triumph, triumph; here, where all is lost,
I say I triumph, here, at Waterloo.
See, as they break, through every gap it streams
Whiter than light, the blinding death of God;
Nothing but God, I say, nothing but God.

I only loved one country in my life,
And that was France: I saw her break her heart
Against the cruel squares: then the last order
Broke from my lips as coldly as a smile.
God! How they rode! All France was in that last
Charge; and France broke her heart for me; I saw
France break her heart: her blood was red
As the long British lines: then some one took
My rein and turned my horse away.

Ninette, Ninette, remember the Old Guard.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net