INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused 'My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,

Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,' -

Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound

Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect

By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect

(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

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THAT 'S my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive; I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's
hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said 5 'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10 And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps 15
Frà Pandolf chanced to say 'Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat'; such
stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

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For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart... how shall I say? . . . too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast, 25 The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace- all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, good; but thanked

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Somehow. . . I know not how . . . as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame

you call it a gum?

That in the mortar Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!

And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue, 15
Sure to taste sweetly, is that poison too?

Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree-basket! 20
Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes
to live!

But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head

And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

So much was theirs who so little allowed: How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

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PARTING AT MORNING

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews sons mine... ah God, I know not! Well

She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a
dream.

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask