Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Verses about Paris

As one who, groping in a narrow stair,
Hath a strong sound of bells upon his ears,
Which, being at a distance off, appears
Quite close to him because of the pent air:
So with this France. She stumbles file and square
Darkling and without space for breath: each one
Who hears the thunder says: “It shall anon
Be in among her ranks to scatter her.”
This may be; and it may be that the storm
Is spent in rain upon the unscathed seas,
Or wasteth other countries ere it die:
Till she,—having climbed always through the swarm
Of darkness and of hurtling sound,—from these
Shall step forth on the light in a still sky.

How dear the sky has been above this place!
Small treasures of this sky that we see here
Seen weak through prison-bars from year to year;
Eyed with a painful prayer upon God's grace
To save, and tears which stayed along the face
Lifted at sunset. Yea, how passing dear
Those nights when through the bars a wind left clear
The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid space!
So was it, till one night the secret kept
Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor
Was blown abroad on gospel-tongues of flame.
O ways of God, mysterious evermore!
How many on this spot have cursed and wept
That all might stand here now and own Thy Name.

In France (to baffle thieves and murderers)
A journey takes two days of passport work
At least. The plan's sometimes a tedious one,
But bears its fruit. Because, the other day,
In passing by the Morgue, we saw a man
(The thing is common, and we never should
Have known of it, only we passed that way)
Who had been stabbed and tumbled in the Seine,
Where he had stayed some days. The face was black,
And, like a negro's, swollen; all the flesh
Had furred, and broken into a green mould.
Now, very likely, he who did the job
Was standing among those who stood with us,
To look upon the corpse. You fancy him—
Smoking an early pipe, and watching, as
An artist, the effect of his last work.
This always if it had not struck him that
'Twere best to leave while yet the body took
Its crust of rot beneath the Seine. It may:
But, if it did not, he can now remain
Without much fear. Only, if he should want
To travel, and have not his passport yet,
(Deep dogs these French police!) he may be caught.
Therefore you see (lest, being murderers,
We should not have the sense to go before
The thing were known, or to stay afterwards)
There is good reason why—having resolved
To start for Belgium—we were kept three days
To learn about the passports first, then do
As we had learned. This notwithstanding, in
The fullness of the time 'tis come to pass.

I

Chins that might serve the new Jerusalem;
Streets footsore; minute whisking milliners,
Dubbed graceful, but at whom one's eye demurs,
Knowing of England; ladies, much the same;
Bland smiling dogs with manes—a few of them
At pains to look like sporting characters;
Vast humming tabbies smothered in their furs;
Groseille, orgeat, meringues à la crême—
Good things to study; ditto bad—the maps
Of sloshy colour in the Louvre; cinq-francs
The largest coin; and at the restaurants
Large Ibrahim Pachas in Turkish caps
To pocket them. Un million d'habitants:
Cast up, they'll make an Englishman—perhaps.


II

Tiled floors in bedrooms; trees (now run to seed—
Such seed as the wind takes) of Liberty;
Squares with new names that no one seems to see;
Scrambling Briarean passages, which lead
To the first place you came from; urgent need
Of unperturbed nasal philosophy;
Through Paris (what with church and gallery)
Some forty first-rate paintings,—or indeed
Fifty mayhap; fine churches; splendid inns;
Fierce sentinels (toy-size without the stands)
Who spit their oaths at you and grind their r's
If at a fountain you would wash your hands;
One Frenchman (this is fact) who thinks he spars:—
Can even good dinners cover all these sins?

III

Yet in the mighty French metropolis
Our time has not gone from us utterly
In waste. The wise man saith, “An ample fee
For toil, to work thine end.” Aye that it is.
Should England ask, “Was narrow prejudice
Stretched to its utmost point unflinchingly,
Even unto lying, at all times, by ye?”
We can say firmly: “Lord, thou knowest this,
Our soil may own us.” Having but small French,
Hunt passed for a stern Spartan all the while,
Uncompromising, of few words: for me—
I think I was accounted generally
A fool, and just a little cracked. Thy smile
May light on us, Britannia, healthy wench.

Strong extreme speed, that the brain hurries with,
Further than trees, and hedges, and green grass
Whitened by distance,—further than small pools
Held among fields and gardens,—further than
Haystacks and windmill-sails and roofs and herds,—
The sea's last margin ceases at the sun.
The sea has left us, but the sun remains.
Sometimes the country spreads aloof in tracts
Smooth from the harvest; sometimes sky and land
Are shut from the square space the window leaves
By a dense crowd of trees, stem behind stem
Passing across each other as we pass:
Sometimes tall poplar-wands stand white, their heads
Outmeasuring the distant hills. Sometimes
The ground has a deep greenness; sometimes brown
In stubble; and sometimes no ground at all,
For the close strength of crops that stand unreaped.
The water-plots are sometimes all the sun's,—
Sometimes quite green through shadows filling them,
Or islanded with growths of reeds,—or else
Masked in grey dust like the wide face o' the fields.
And still the swiftness lasts; that to our speed
The trees seem shaken like a press of spears.
There is some count of us:—folks travelling-capped,
Priesthood, and lank hard-featured soldiery,
Females (no women), blouses, Hunt, and I.
We are relayed at Amiens. The steam
Snorts, chafes, and bridles, like three-hundred horse,
And flings its dusky mane upon the air.
Our company is thinned, and lamps alight:
But still there are the folks in travelling-caps—
No priesthood now, but always soldiery,
And babies to make up for show in noise,
Females (no women), blouses, Hunt, and I.
Our windows at one side are shut for warmth;
Upon the other side, a leaden sky,
Hung in blank glare, makes all the country dim,
Which too seems bald and meagre,—be it truth,
Or of the waxing darkness. Here and there
The shade takes light, where in thin patches stand
The unstirred dregs of water.
Hunt can see
A moon, he says; but I am too far back.
Still the same speed and thunder. We are stopped
Again, and speech tells clearer than in day.
Hunt has just stretched to tell me that he fears
I and my note-book may be taken for
The stuff that goes to make an “émissaire
De la perfide.” Let me abate my zeal:
There is a stout gendarme within the coach.
This cursed pitching is too bad. My teeth
Jingle together in it; and my legs
(Which I got wet at Boulogne this good day
Wading for star-fish) are so chilled that I
Would don my coat, were not these seats too hard
To spare it from beneath me, and were not
The love of ease less than the love of sloth.
Hunt has just told me it is nearly eight:
We do not reach till half-past ten. Drat verse,
And steam, and Paris, and the fins of Time!
Marry, for me, look you, I will go sleep.
Most of them slept; I could not—held awake
By jolting clamour, with shut eyes; my head
Willing to nod and fancy itself vague.
Only at Stations I looked round me, when
Short silence paused among us, and I felt
A creeping in my feet from abrupt calm.
At such times Hunt would jerk himself, and then
Tumble uncouthly forward in his sleep.
This lasted near three hours. The darkness now
Stayeth behind us on the sullen road,
And all this light is Paris. Dieu merci.

PARIS. Saturday Night, 29.
Send me, dear William, by return of post,
As much as you can manage of that rhyme
Incurred at Ventnor. Bothers and delays
Have still prevented me from copying this
Till now; now that I do so, let it be
Anticipative compensation.
Numéro 4 Rue Geoffroy Marie,
Faubourg Montmartre, près des Boulevards.
Dear William, labelled thus the thing will reach.