Veterans Of The Old Guard

(December 15)

Driven by ennui from my room, I walked along the Boulevard. 'Twas in December's mist and gloom. A bitter wind was blowing hard.

And there I saw--strange thing to see!-- In drizzle and in daylight drear, From out their dark abodes let free, Dim, spectral shadow-shapes appear.

Yet 't is by night's uncanny hours, By pallid German moonbeams cast On old dilapidated towers, That ghosts are wont to wander past.

It is by night's effulgent star In dripping robes that elves intrigue To bear beneath the nenuphar Their dancer dead of his fatigue.

At night's mysterious tide hath been The great review--of ballad writs-- Wherein the Emperor, dimly seen, Numbered the shades of Austerlitz.

But phantoms near the _Gymnase?--_yea, And wet and miry phantoms, too, And close to the _Variétés, _ And not a shroud to trick the view!

With yellow teeth and stained dress, And mossy skull and pierced shoon, Paris--Montmartre--behold it press,-- Death in the very light of noon!

Ah, 't is a picture to be seen! Three veteran ghosts in uniform Of the Old Guard, and, spare and lean, Two ghost-hussars in daylight's storm.

The lithograph, you would surmise, Wherein one ray shines down upon The dead, that Raffet deifies, That pass and shout "Napoleon!"

No dead are these, whom nightly drum May rouse to battle fires that burn, But stragglers of the Old Guard, come To celebrate the grand return!

Since fighting in the fight supreme, One has grown thin, another stout; The coats that fitted once now seem Too small, too loose, or draggled out.

O epic rags! O tatters light, Starred with a cross! Heroic things Of ridicule, ye gleam more bright, More beautiful than robes of kings!

Limp feathers fluttering adorn The tawny colbacks worn and grim. The bullet and the moth have torn And riddled well the dolmans dim.

Their leathern breeches loosely hang In furrows on their lank thigh-bones, Their rusty sabres drag and clang, As heavily they scrape the stones.

Or some round belly firm and fat, Squeezed tight in tether labour-donned, Makes mirth and jest to chuckle at-- Old hero quaint and cheveroned!

But do not mock and jeer, my lad. Salute him, rather, and, believe, Achilles he, of Iliad That Homer's self could not conceive.

Respect these men with battle signs That twenty skies have painted brown; Their scars that lengthen out the lines Of wrinkles age has written down;

Their skin whose colour deep and dun, Bared to the fronts of many foes, Tells us of Egypt's burning sun; Their locks that tell of Russia's snows.

And if they shake, no longer strong? Ah! Beresina's wind was cold. And if they limp? The way was long, From Cairo unto Vilna told.

If they be stiff? They'd but a flag For sheet to hold their bodies warm. And if a sleeve be loose, poor rag? 'T is that a bullet tore an arm.

Mock not these veteran shapes bizarre, At whom the urchin laughs and gapes. They were the day, of which we are The evening, and the night, perhaps,--

Remembering if we forget-- Red lancer, grenadier in blue, With faces to the Column set, As to their only altar true.

There, proud of pain each scar denotes, And of long miseries gone by, They feel beneath their shabby coats The heart of France beat mightily.

And so our smiles are steeped in tears, Seeing this holy carnival, This picture wan that reappears, Like morning after midnight's ball.

And, cleaving heaven its own to claim, Wide the Grand Army's eagle spreads Its golden wings, like glory's flame, Above their dear and hallowed heads.