The Eighth Sin/The Exile and the Rock Limpet
THE EXILE AND THE ROCK LIMPET.
(Suggested by Turner's painting at the Tate Gallery, thus described in the catalogue: Blood-red sunset reflected in a shallow tidal pool on the shore at St. Helena; Napoleon stands, with arms folded, looking at the limpet.)
The dying Day lies bleeding in the west,Stanching his ebbing anguish in the coolBlue bosom of the Night . . .And by the salty island shore a pool,A shallow tidal pool, his blood reflects,Mirrors the crimson . . .Alone and peaceful to her evening mealThe tiny limpet goes, perchance reviewingIn the chaste closets of her virgin mindThe unambitious current of her thoughts,Her calm desires; and from her fluted shellShe shyly looks about, bearing her eyesUpon retractile stalks; with sheepish joyObserves one of her kindred gastropods,Significantly beckon from afar.
O gentle cochlea! Unwitting thouThat on the rocky promont near at handThere stands with folded arms, with brow contort, The Emperor . . . Ah! does he meditateA vesper dish of plaintive homely snailsSeethed in the Corsican white wine he loves?No, harmless mollusc, no such carnal wish.For lo, he thinks with melancholy pangsHow much more pleasant is thy fate than his;No ferment of regrets, no shattered hopes,No griefs of exile (lo, thy modest homeIs ever with thee)—thus, in short, he broods.The Emperor would gladly interchangeHis lot with thine, O unambitious snail . . .(Cetera desunt).
Rudyard Kipling moralizes:— Fortune's coin is fickle: she spins both heads and tails. Even in your glory forbear to sneer at snails!