A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/Roland (Napoléon Peyrat)
Where our south lands exposed to the warm sun are lying,
You are going, dear friend, like the wind winged and flying,
Already the team seems to fret,
Impatient, unquiet, and with eyes wildly glancing,
Brown beauty Toulouse, in thy sight to be prancing,
On thy plains that none can forget.
God guard you, my friend, but when you have skimmed lightly,
O'er mountains, o'er vales, o'er blue streams that wind brightly,
Towns, hamlets and old citadels,
Vermilion Orleans, and Argenton's rocks hoary,
And Limoges of the three graceful steeples—her glory,
Abundant in swallows and bells;
And Brives and its Corrèze, and Cahors vine-crownèd,
Where Fénelon, swan in Homer's waters renowned,
Swam pleased in his long trails of light,
Stop, stop for a moment your car's course enchanted,
To see the fair plain where the Moslem has planted
Your birthplace—far seen—city white;
These plains of perfume, this clear horizon green rounded,
The murm'ring Aveyron, by swards sloping bounded,
The Tescoud with flat pensive shores,
The Tarn wild and fierce, the Garonne, whose wave dashes
Convulsive 'gainst islands green bannered, and flashes
Around the dark boats with long oars.
And then, down there, upon the horizon see yonder,
Mountains bathed in azure and sunlight, and ponder
If they are a whale's huge skeleton
Tost in wrath from the oceans, or rather some Babel,
Some ruin of giants or genii in fable,
On which thunder its work has done.
No. The granite wall girding this paradise peerless,
'Twas Charlemagne, 'twas Roland, the Paladin fearless
That notched it so deep and so far;
The last lopped the Valier, white and pyramidal,
In whirling his sword like the fire-sword of Michael
Against the proud Moors in the war.
The Moors have defeated the Goth kings at Xeres,
Their battalions mown down, like the ripe sheaves of Ceres,
Lie open on fields to the breeze.
The Arabs in the steps of Musa el Kevir
Have urged their white horses from the blue Guadalquivir
To the foot of the grey Pyrenees.
But one day that Musa el Kevir had followed
An old grisly bear to its cave that was hollowed
On their top, in the tumult and whirl
He gained the peak snowy of Valier. . . . Blinded,
He saw flowers heaped on flowers, and streamlets that winded
And Toulouse i' the midst like a pearl.
'Sons of Allah! Unsheathe your bright swords! Sons of Allah!
Mount your fleet steeds! Paradise, Eden, Valhalla,
Are nothing, are nothing to France.
The olive grows there by the grape and red cherry,
'Tis a garden in blossom, the abode of the peri,
A rose-bush in summer's warm glance.'
Arabia from the rocks on our fields all in slumber
Came down. . . . Less nightingales springs number,
The summers less sheaves and less blooms!
White were the horses, and the mountain winds courted
Their manes steeped in silver; and their slim feet disported
Rough hair like an eagle's thick plumes.
These miscreant Moors, these cursed sons of Mahound,
Drank up all our wells, ate or destroyed all around,
Our pomegranates, our grapes, and our figs;
They followed the virgins black-eyed, in our valleys,
Of love spake in moonlight, serenaded in alleys,
And danced Moorish dances and jigs.
For them were our beauties, for them their brown bosoms,
For them their long lashes, their mouths like red blossoms,
For them their fair oval faces,
And when they wept, crying out,—'Oh, sons of the demons!'
They were put on the croup and carried as lemans
Away at fabulous paces.
'Woe to the miscreants—Woe, woe to the faithless!
'Woe,'—said Charlemagne, 'and shall the villains pass scatheless?'
And he frowned with white lowering brows,
Flames burst from his eyes,—'No sire,—no cursed unbelievers,
Shall bear off your virgins, we'll hunt the bereavers,
If your Majesty but allows.'
Charlemagne, Roland, Renaud of Montauban,
Are mounted, stout Turpin calls out for his foeman,
They scud like the sleet o'er the plain,
They've touched humbly the bones of Saint Rocamadour,
But from Canigou white to the willows of Adour,
The Moors have departed to Spain.
No! They are on the heights, that menace denoteth!
Like a round tower, they deck each peak, and there floateth
Their banner from each, white and blue,
Bristles the granite with ramparts bright crested,
They cry—'Dogs, bite not the ears of leopards rough-breasted,
Nor trouble the lions, though few.'
And Roland roared fierce, and vultures gigantic,
And troops of brown eagles, like waves of th' Atlantic,
With cries piercing wheeled round and around.
'Wait a moment, my birds,'—said Roland the peerless,
'And the tongues shall be still that gibe us now fearless,
And your food shall bestrew the ground.'
A month hewed he, leaping from mountain to mountain,
Throwing corpses to eagles, and then to the fountain
Repairing at eve with wild laughter;
Souls filled the air like a black thunder-cloud scowling,
They went to the Demon, mewling, yelping and howling,
Who knows of their dark hereafter!
But thou fell'st at last, Roland: the hills keep—oh, wonder!—
Thy bones, thy steps, thy voice, thy horn's deepest thunder,
And on their summits always new,
They show with clouds turbaned a Saracen gory,
His belt the cascade, and the scarf of his glory,
In sunshine the streamlet bright blue.
Our fathers bronzed by suns, by dust and gunpowder,
Died sword in hand, as cannon louder and louder,
Rolled wild o'er these rocks of old Spain!
Tell me, thou who saw'st them when they died side by side,
Were they great? Was our Emperor great, and allied
In fame to thy great Charlemagne?
Ah, if towards Eber some day passed over the border,
Our soldiers, guns, drums and steeds marching in order,
With our songs loud thundering in space,
Thou must rise up, old lion,—now be it, or later.
Great was Napoleon and thine uncle, but greater
Is Freedom with fair open face.