1792.
And the two in the twilight spurred fiercely again,
While behind them went trooping the trees,
And the darkening rutty cross-roads of Champagne,
With their patches of wood and their patches of grain,
Grew more solemn and lone by degrees.
Like the hurrying ghosts of two riders they rode,--
For the few whom they met, indistinct;
And the lights that sprang up few and far away showed
Where, to right or to left, lay a human abode;
And more stars overhead came and winked.
Through the maze of cross-roads they went ever more fast,
As if he who led on never doubted;
Till the other by dint of hard spurring at last
Brought his horse alongside, and between them there passed
Hurried words that were broken and shouted.
“Slacken pace! slacken pace!” “Spur him on without stay!
What’s a horse to the saving of France?”
“Art thou sure of the place where they change the relay?”
“At Varennes, nigh on twelve. Trust to me for the way!
France is saved if we get in advance!”
And the postmaster Drouet once more shot ahead,
Closely followed by Guillaume his friend;
Never seeming to waver or doubt as he led,
Or to see less distinct the invisible thread
Of short-cut on short-cut without end.
But the roads and the fields and the low hedges grew
Every minute more lonely and dark,
While his horse, nearly merged in the darkness, now drew
From the flint of the road with its thundering shoe
Every minute more brilliant a spark.
But he thought in his heart: “If the moon does not rise
When we get to the woods, I shall doubt;
And he’ll get to the army and German allies,
And the land, unprepared, will be caught by surprise,
And the great revolution stamped out.”
But a glow, faint at first, and then brighter, was spread
In the sky, and the moon showed her face,
And the plain and the hills were lit up far and wide;
And a galloping shadow appeared at his side,
And took part all at once in the race.
Oh the moon that plays tricks with the shadows she throws
Might have given that shadow the shape
Of the Rider who rides us all down, friends and foes,
And was now ere their time coming down upon those
Who had trusted to God for escape.
Hurry on, ye postillions, so royally paid,
That suspect not a King and a Queen!
Though ye never have heard in the course of your trade
Of a thing that the doctors of Paris have made,
Of a thing that they call Guillotine!
Hurry on to the chopper-shaped square of Varennes
Where your fellow-postillions await!
Hurry on! hurry on, ye dull whip-cracking men!
For each stride that ye take, there is one who takes ten,
And who gallops like Death and like Fate!
He caught sight of a face in the dark carriage-hood
As ye rolled from his door and were gone,
And he looked with a closeness that boded no good
At the crumpled bank-note where that face graven stood--
Hurry on! hurry on! hurry on!
There were clouds near the moon, and they girt her about
As if trying to screen and to save,
And the darkness one moment filled Drouet with doubt;
But she baffled them all and shone brilliantly out
To abet with the light that she gave.
And the stems of the corn flashed metallic and bright
And like bayonets distantly blue,
And the breeze-rippled patches of grain in the light
Looked like distant battalions restrained from the fight
That a thrill of impatience runs through.
But the patches of grain grew more scanty anon,
And the road grew more hard to discern;
And they entered the lonely dark woods of Argonne
Where the moon through the branches could ill help them on,
And they trampled on brushwood and fern.
As they galloped each oak with its black knotty arm
Seemed to grab at the two like a claw;
While the air seemed all full of destruction and harm,
And the one who rode second felt vaguely alarm
At each shadow and shape that he saw.
But the other dashed on, as with hounds on the scent
In his thundering, thundering speed;
Giving neither a thought to his horse nearly spent
Nor a look to his comrade, but solely intent
On a prey that was royal indeed.
Did no angel of life, as he spurred yet more fast,
Cry, “O God, for a slip or a stumble
That shall save from the block the heads sinking at last
Into sleep, now that fear of pursuers is past,
And the heads of a many more humble!
“O Thou God for a doubt that shall bring to a stop,
For a stone in the shoe to retard,
Or more heads in the basket of sawdust will drop
Than the bunches of grapes that the vintagers lop
On a day that their labour is hard;
“And the fields will be lashed not by tempests of rain,
But by tempests of iron and lead;
And manured year by year with fresh blood all in vain,
And each summer will bring not a harvest of grain,
But a harvest of cripples and dead;
“And the nations in carnage will ceaselessly strive
With a roar that disperses the clouds;
Where the trains of artillery furiously drive
And the gun-wheels make ruts through the dead and the live,
And the balls make long lanes through the crowd.
“Let his horse break a vein or his saddle a girth,
Trip him up on the rough, hardened mud!
For each drop from the rowel that falls to the earth
If he reaches Varennes, O Thou God, will give birth
To an ocean of innocent blood!”
Or did spirits invisible fly by his side
And in whispers excite him and goad
And exulting foretell him the end of his ride,
As his spur-mangled horse with his long fatal stride
One by one killed the miles of the road.
Did they cry: “Lash him on, as in lightness of heart
They have ridden the people to death;
Lash him on, as the Saviour of France that thou art;
Lash him on, till the blood from his nostrils shall start;
Lash him on! never think of his breath!”
Did they cry: “Lash him on without mercy or stay!”
As his arm, numb with lashing, desisted;
“Lash him on, as the quarterers lashed on the day
When their horses ’mid clapping of hands tugged away,
And the live limbs of Damiens resisted!
“Lash him on, for the freedom of nations depends
On the flag which at last is unfurled!
Lash him on, lash him on, till his very life ends!
Lash him on, lash him on, for the breath that he spends
Is for Freedom, and France, and the World!
“So shall Kellermann’s steed at Marengo be spurred
When the earth by his squadrons is shaken,
And the thunder of man o’er God’s thunder is heard,
And there runs from the Alps to the Tiber one word,
And the lands from their torpor awaken!
“So the couriers shall spur and the miles disappear
From the Oder, the Elbe, and the Po,
When the victories follow each other so near
That the bearers of tidings are filled with a fear
Lest another their tidings outdo!
“Lash him on, lash him on! and the three-coloured flag
That has sprung from the black Paris gutter
Shall be carried by plain and by valley and crag
And, all riddled by bullets, a mere tattered rag,
From Alhambra to Kremlin shall flutter!”
And he lashed, and he left his companion behind
And sped furiously on all alone,
With the sinister shadow the moon had designed
Flitting on just in front of him, vaguely defined,
At a pace that was wild as his own.
And as midnight was nearing, at last there appeared
The faint lights of Varennes far ahead,
And then only it was, as he finally cleared
The last miles of the road, that he suddenly feared
That his horse might fall suddenly dead.
But his horse did not drop; and with thundering feet
He dashed on to the inn of the Post;
While he shouted to all that his eye chanced to meet,
“Sound the tocsin! the tocsin! all up the long street!
Bar the Bridge! bar the Bridge! or all’s lost!”
And the patriots crouched in the shade of the old
Narrow archway, all holding their breath;
Till a carriage and four was heard coming, and rolled
Slowly, heavily, in; while the tocsin still tolled
Like a knell that anticipates death.