Chapter II

Franciscan friar John de RochetailladeWith gentle gesture lifted up his handAnd poised it high above the steady eyesOf a great crowd that thronged the market-placeIn fair Clermont to hear him prophesy.Midst of the crowd old Gris Grillon, the maimed,-- A wretched wreck that fate had floated outFrom the drear storm of battle at Poictiers.A living man whose larger moietyWas dead and buried on the battle-field --A grisly trunk, without or arms or legs,And scarred with hoof-cuts over cheek and brow,Lay in his wicker-cradle, smiling."Jacques,"Quoth he, "My son, I would behold this priestThat is not fat, and loves not wine, and fasts,And stills the folk with waving of his hand,And threats the knights and thunders at the Pope.Make way for Gris, ye who are whole of limb!Set me on yonder ledge, that I may see."Forthwith a dozen horny hands reached outAnd lifted Gris Grillon upon the ledge,Whereon he lay and overlooked the crowd,And from the gray-grown hedges of his browsShot forth a glance against the friar's eyeThat struck him like an arrow.Then the friar,With voice as low as if a maiden hummedLove-songs of Provence in a mild day-dream:"And when he broke the second seal, I heardThe second beast say, Come and see.And thenWent out another horse, and he was red.And unto him that sat thereon was givenTo take the peace of earth away, and setMen killing one another: and they gaveTo him a mighty sword."The friar pausedAnd pointed round the circle of sad eyes."There is no face of man or woman hereBut showeth print of the hard hoof of war.Ah, yonder leaneth limbless Gris Grillon.Friends, Gris Grillon is France.Good France; my France,Wilt never walk on glory's hills again?Wilt never work among thy vines again?Art footless and art handless evermore?-- Thou felon, War, I do arraign thee nowOf mayhem of the four main limbs of France!Thou old red criminal, stand forth; I charge-- But O, I am too utter sorrowfulTo urge large accusation now.Nathless,My work to-day, is still more grievous. Hear!The stains that war hath wrought upon the landShow but as faint white flecks, if seen o' the sideOf those blood-covered images that stalkThrough yon cold chambers of the future, asThe prophet-mood, now stealing on my soul,Reveals them, marching, marching, marching. See!There go the kings of France, in piteous file.The deadly diamonds shining in their crownsDo wound the foreheads of their MajestiesAnd glitter through a setting of blood-goutsAs if they smiled to think how men are slainBy the sharp facets of the gem of power,And how the kings of men are slaves of stones.But look! The long procession of the kingsWavers and stops; the world is full of noise,The ragged peoples storm the palaces,They rave, they laugh, they thirst, they lap the streamThat trickles from the regal vestments down,And, lapping, smack their heated chaps for more,And ply their daggers for it, till the kingsAll die and lie in a crooked sprawl of death,Ungainly, foul, and stiff as any heapOf villeins rotting on a battle-field.'Tis true, that when these things have come to passThen never a king shall rule again in France,For every villein shall be king in France:And who hath lordship in him, whether bornIn hedge or silken bed, shall be a lord:And queens shall be as thick i' the land as wives,And all the maids shall maids of honor be:And high and low shall commune solemnly:And stars and stones shall have free interview.But woe is me, 'tis also piteous trueThat ere this gracious time shall visit France,Your graves, Beloved, shall be some centuries old,And so your children's, and their children's gravesAnd many generations'.Ye, O yeShall grieve, and ye shall grieve, and ye shall grieve.Your Life shall bend and o'er his shuttle toil,A weaver weaving at the loom of grief.Your Life shall sweat 'twixt anvil and hot forge,An armorer working at the sword of grief.Your Life shall moil i' the ground, and plant his seed,A farmer foisoning a huge crop of grief.Your Life shall chaffer in the market-place,A merchant trading in the goods of grief.Your Life shall go to battle with his bow,A soldier fighting in defence of grief.By every rudder that divides the seas,Tall Grief shall stand, the helmsman of the ship.By every wain that jolts along the roads,Stout Grief shall walk, the driver of the team.Midst every herd of cattle on the hills,Dull Grief shall lie, the herdsman of the drove.Oh Grief shall grind your bread and play your lutesAnd marry you and bury you.-- How else?Who's here in France, can win her people's faithAnd stand in front and lead the people on?Where is the Church?The Church is far too fat.Not, mark, by robust swelling of the thews,But puffed and flabby large with gross increaseOf wine-fat, plague-fat, dropsy-fat.O shame,Thou Pope that cheatest God at Avignon,Thou that shouldst be the Father of the worldAnd Regent of it whilst our God is gone;Thou that shouldst blaze with conferred majestyAnd smite old Lust-o'-the-Flesh so as by flame;Thou that canst turn thy key and lock Grief upOr turn thy key and unlock Heaven's Gate,Thou that shouldst be the veritable handThat Christ down-stretcheth out of heaven yetTo draw up him that fainteth to His heart,Thou that shouldst bear thy fruit, yet virgin live,As she that bore a man yet sinned not,Thou that shouldst challenge the most special eyesOf Heaven and Earth and Hell to mark thee, sinceThou shouldst be Heaven's best captain, Earth's best friend,And Hell's best enemy -- false Pope, false Pope,The world, thy child, is sick and like to die,But thou art dinner-drowsy and cannot come:And Life is sore beset and crieth `help!'But thou brook'st not disturbance at thy wine:And France is wild for one to lead her souls;But thou art huge and fat and laggest backAmong the remnants of forsaken camps.Thou'rt not God's Pope, thou art the Devil's Pope.Thou art first Squire to that most puissant knight,Lord Satan, who thy faithful squireship longHath watched and well shall guerdon.Ye sad souls,So faint with work ye love not, so thin-wornWith miseries ye wrought not, so outragedBy strokes of ill that pass th' ill-doers' headsAnd cleave the innocent, so desperate tiredOf insult that doth day by day abuseThe humblest dignity of humblest men,Ye cannot call toward the Church for help.The Church already is o'erworked with careOf its dyspeptic stomach.Ha, the ChurchForgets about eternity.I hadA vision of forgetfulness.O DreamBorn of a dream, as yonder cloud is bornOf water which is born of cloud!I thoughtI saw the moonlight lying large and calmUpon the unthrobbing bosom of the earth,As a great diamond glittering on a shroud.A sense of breathlessness stilled all the world.Motion stood dreaming he was changed to Rest,And Life asleep did fancy he was Death.A quick small shadow spotted the white world;Then instantly 'twas huge, and huger grewBy instants till it did o'ergloom all space.I lifted up mine eyes -- O thou just God!I saw a spectre with a million headsCome frantic downward through the universe,And all the mouths of it were uttering cries,Wherein was a sharp agony, and yetThe cries were much like laughs: as if Pain laughed.Its myriad lips were blue, and sometimes theyClosed fast and only moaned dim sounds that shapedThemselves to one word, `Homeless', and the starsDid utter back the moan, and the great hillsDid bellow it, and then the stars and hillsBandied the grief o' the ghost 'twixt heaven and earth.The spectre sank, and lay upon the air,And brooded, level, close upon the earth,With all the myriad heads just over me.I glanced in all the eyes and marked that someDid glitter with a flame of lunacy,And some were soft and false as feigning love,And some were blinking with hypocrisy,And some were overfilmed by sense, and someBlazed with ambition's wild, unsteady fire,And some were burnt i' the sockets black, and someWere dead as embers when the fire is out.A curious zone circled the Spectre's waist,Which seemed with strange device to symbol Time.It was a silver-gleaming thread of daySpiral about a jet-black band of night.This zone seemed ever to contract and allThe frame with momentary spasms heavedIn the strangling traction which did never cease.I cried unto the spectre, `Time hath boundThy body with the fibre of his hours.'Then rose a multitude of mocking sounds,And some mouths spat at me and cried `thou fool',And some, `thou liest', and some, `he dreams': and thenSome hands uplifted certain bowls they boreTo lips that writhed but drank with eagerness.And some played curious viols, shaped like heartsAnd stringed with loves, to light and ribald tunes,And other hands slit throats with knives,And others patted all the painted cheeksIn reach, and others stole what others hadUnseen, or boldly snatched at alien rights,And some o' the heads did vie in a foolish gameOF WHICH COULD HOLD ITSELF THE HIGHEST, andAnd then the sea in silence wove a veilOf mist, and breathed it upward and about,And waved and wound it softly round the world,And meshed my dream i' the vague and endless folds,And a light wind arose and blew these off,And I awoke.The many heads are priestsThat have forgot eternity: and TimeHath caught and bound them with a witheInto a fagot huge, to burn in hell.-- Now if the priesthood put such shame uponYour cry for leadership, can better helpCome out of knighthood?Lo! you smile, you boors?You villeins smile at knighthood?Now, thou FranceThat wert the mother of fair chivalry,Unclose thine eyes, unclose thine eyes, here, see,Here stand a herd of knaves that laugh to scornThy gentlemen!O contumely hard,O bitterness of last disgrace, O stingThat stings the coward knights of lost Poictiers!I would --" but now a murmur rose i' the crowdOf angry voices, and the friar leaptFrom where he stood to preach and pressed a pathBetwixt the mass that way the voices came.