| |
| THE KING with all his kingly train | |
| Had left his Pompadour behind, | |
| And forth he rode in Senart’s wood | |
| The royal beasts of chase to find. | |
| That day by chance the Monarch mused, | 5 |
| And turning suddenly away, | |
| He struck alone into a path | |
| That far from crowds and courtiers lay. | |
| |
| He saw the pale green shadows play | |
| Upon the brown untrodden earth; | 10 |
| He saw the birds around him flit | |
| As if he were of peasant birth; | |
| He saw the trees that know no king | |
| But him who bears a woodland axe; | |
| He thought not, but he looked about | 15 |
| Like one who skill in thinking lacks. | |
| |
| Then close to him a footstep fell, | |
| And glad of human sound was he, | |
| For truth to say he found himself | |
| A weight from which he fain would flee. | 20 |
| But that which he would ne’er have guessed | |
| Before him now most plainly came; | |
| The man upon his weary back | |
| A coffin bore of rudest frame. | |
| |
| “Why, who art thou?” exclaimed the King, | 25 |
| “And what is that I see thee bear?” | |
| “I am a laborer in the wood, | |
| And ’t is a coffin for Pierre. | |
| Close by the royal hunting-lodge | |
| You may have often seen him toil; | 30 |
| But he will never work again, | |
| And I for him must dig the soil.” | |
| |
| The laborer ne’er had seen the King, | |
| And this he thought was but a man, | |
| Who made at first a moment’s pause, | 35 |
| And then anew his talk began: | |
| “I think I do remember now,— | |
| He had a dark and glancing eye, | |
| And I have seen his slender arm | |
| With wondrous blows the pick-axe ply. | 40 |
| |
| “Pray tell me, friend, what accident | |
| Can thus have killed our good Pierre?” | |
| “Oh! nothing more than usual, sir, | |
| He died of living upon air. | |
| ’T was hunger killed the poor good man, | 45 |
| Who long on empty hopes relied; | |
| He could not pay gabell and tax, | |
| And feed his children, so he died.” | |
| |
| The man stopped short, and then went on,— | |
| “It is, you know, a common thing; | 50 |
| Our children’s bread is eaten up | |
| By Courtiers, Mistresses, and King.” | |
| The King looked hard upon the man | |
| And afterwards the coffin eyed, | |
| Then spurred to ask of Pompadour, | 55 |
| How came it that the peasants died. | |
| |
