Poem by John Sterling

Louis the Fifteenth

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,
  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;
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
  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.
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,
  “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;
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,
  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 pickaxe ply.

“Pray tell me, friend, what accident
  Can thus have killed our good Pierre?”
“O, nothing more than usual, sir,
  He died of living upon air.
’T was hunger killed the poor good man,
  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;
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
  How came it that the peasants died.

1. Daedalus
2. The Childless Sexton
3. Alfred the Harper
4. San Miniato

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