A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/On the Barricade (L'Année Terrible, Victor Hugo)
'Twas upon a barricade in the street
With guilty blood polluted, but made clean
Again with pure blood, that a child of twelve
Was seized 'midst men with weapons in their hands.
'Art thou of these?'—The child said, 'Yes, I am.'
'Good!' said the officer, 'thou shalt be shot:
Await thy turn.' Then blinding flashes past,
And his companions fell beneath the wall,
While he looked on. 'Permit me that I go'—
Thus to the officer at last he said—
'And to my mother in our house, give back
This watch of hers.'—'Ah, thou wouldst fly?'—'Not so,
I shall return.'—'These children of the street
Are cowards, after all. Where lodgest thou?'—
'Down there beside the fountain. Let me go,
I shall come back, "Monsieur le capitaine."'—
'Be gone, thou rogue.'—And the child scampered off.
Clumsy deceit, gross cunning of a boy!
And all the soldiers with their captain laughed,
And with the laughter mixed the rattle hoarse
That issues from the throats of men that die;
But the laugh ceased, for sudden he returned
Proud as Viala; step firm, and forehead high,
He looked a trifle pale, as on the wall
He like the others leaned, and cried aloud—
'Lo, here I am.'
Death brass-browed blushed with shame,
And the stern chief of pardon gave the sign.
I know not, child, amidst the present storm,
This hurricane around us that confounds
The heroes and the bandits good and ill,
What urged thee to the combat, but I say,
And boldly say, that thy soul ignorant
Is a soul tender, lofty, and sublime.
As kind as brave, thou in the gulf's dark depths
Two steps couldst forward take instinctively—
One to thy mother, one as calm to death.
Childhood has candour, manhood has remorse;
And thou art not responsible for what
Thou wert induced to execute or try:
But true and brave the child is that prefers
To light, to life, to the bright dawn, to spring,
To sports permitted, and to all his hopes,
The sombre wall by which his friends have died.
Glory has kissed thy brow—and thou so young!
Boy-friend, Stesichorus in antique Greece
Would willingly have charged thee to defend
A port of Argos. Cynégirus would have said,
'We two are equals that each other love.'
Thou wouldst have been admitted to the rank
Of the pure-minded Grecian volunteers,
By Tyrtæus at Messina, and at Thebes
By Æschylus. On medals would thy name
Have been engraved—medals of brass or gold
To last for ages; and thou wouldst have been
Of those, who when they pass beside the wells
Shaded by weeping willows, under skies
Serenely blue, cause the young girl that bears
The urn upon her shoulders, that the herd
Of panting kine may drink therein by turns,
To look round pensive, and to stand and gaze,
And gaze again,—then sigh, and onwards move.