A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/Lights (Louis Bouilhet)
LIGHTS.
The sage muses and ponders with feelings of sorrow
On this life and its sin,
By a vase with dim light that gleams, gleams till the morrow,
Fed with oil from within.
Crowned with the vervain, hopeful and joyous, and dancing
As if flushed with the wine,
Shakes Hymen his fire-showers, the night sombre entrancing
With a torch of the pine.
Hovers over the feast, oh, how gracious its motion!
The mild lamp of perfume,
Like a galley of gold that sweeps over the ocean,
Poop on fire in the gloom!
At the foot of the Quirinal, the tavern throws nightly
Its red rays on the lane,
Where cluster low women, brazenfaced and unsightly,
In the cold or in the rain.
The fires of the Atrium—sacred fires in a quiver,
Tremble under the gate,
And cause the Penates in the faint light to shiver
By the old antique grate.
The hardy bold sailor who on waters blue-breasted
Drives a furrow of foam,
Has the beacon far-streaming, like a warrior high-crested,
That aye points him his home.
Roman gods have their suns, their halls spacious to brighten,
Beyond hearing and ken;
But Cæsar the powerful, his dark night to enlighten,
Must have torches of men.
He orders, and sudden wrapt in black cerements sepulchral,
Steeped in pitch, on the scene
Come the victims, to light, torches ghastly and spectral,
The fair grove of Sabine.
'Mid songs erotic are heard, or is it a juggle,
A wild dream of the brain?
The howls of these torches that with flames fiercely struggle,
And that struggle in vain.
Sabine all the while drives a team foaming and rapid
Through the long avenue,
Or thrums on his lyre, thrums notes common and vapid,
While he smiles at the view.
Smile on, O great Cæsar, though those lights be infernal,
They may serve ends divine,
And when ashes thou art, as fire-banners eternal
They may shine and still shine.