AmyLowell:TheHammers

I

Frindsbury, Kent, 1786

Bang!

Bang!

Tap!

Tap-a-tap! Rap!

All through the lead and silver Winter days,

All through the copper of Autumn hazes.

Tap to the red rising sun,

Tap to the purple setting sun.

Four years pass before the job is done.

Two thousand oak trees grown and felled,

Two thousand oaks from the hedgerows of the Weald,

Sussex had yielded two thousand oaks

With huge boles

Round which the tape rolls

Thirty mortal feet, say the village folks.

Two hundred loads of elm and Scottish fir;

Planking from Dantzig.

My! What timber goes into a ship!

Tap! Tap!

Two years they have seasoned her ribs on the ways,

Tapping, tapping.

You can hear, though theres nothing where you gaze.

Through the fog down the reaches of the river,

The tapping goes on like heart-beats in a fever.

The church-bells chime

Hours and hours,

Dropping days in showers.

Bang! Rap! Tap!

Go the hammers all the time.

They have planked up her timbers

And the nails are driven to the head;

They have decked her over,

And again, and again.

The shoring-up beams shudder at the strain.

Black and blue breeches,

Pigtails bound and shining:

Like ants crawling about,

The hull swarms with carpenters, running in and out.

Joiners, calkers,

And they are all terrible talkers.

Jem Wilson has been to sea and he tells some wonderful tales

Of whales, and spice islands,

And pirates off the Barbary coast.

He boasts magnificently, with his mouth full of nails.

Stephen Pibold has a tenor voice,

He shifts his quid of tobacco and sings:

The second in command was blear-eyed Ned:

While the surgeon his limb

was a-lopping,

A nine-pounder came and smack went his head,

Pull away, pull away, pull

away! I say;

Rare news for my Meg of Wapping!

Every Sunday

People come in crowds

(After church-time, of course)

In curricles, and gigs, and wagons,

And some have brought cold chicken and flagons

Of wine,

And beer in stoppered jugs.

Dear! Dear! But I tell ee twill be a fine

ship.

Theres none finer in any of the slips at Chatham.

The third Summers roses have started in to blow,

When the fine stern carving is begun.

Flutings, and twinings, and long slow swirls,

Bits of deal shaved away to thin spiral curls.

Tap! Tap! A cornucopia is nailed into place.

Rap-a-tap! They are putting up a railing filigreed like

Irish lace.

The Three Towns people never saw such grace.

And the paint on it! The richest gold leaf!

Why, the glitter when the sun is shining passes belief.

And that row of glass windows tipped toward the sky

Are rubies and carbuncles when the day is dry.

Oh, my! Oh, my!

They have coppered up the bottom,

And the copper nails

Stand about and sparkle in big wooden pails.

Bang! Clash! Bang!

And he swiggd, and Nick swiggd,

And Ben swiggd, and Dick swiggd,

And I swiggd, and all of us swiggd it,

And swore there was nothing

like grog.

It seems they sing,

Even though coppering is not an easy thing.

What a splendid specimen of humanity is a true British workman,

Say the people of the Three Towns,

As they walk about the dockyard

To the sound of the evening church-bells.

And so artistic, too, each one tells his neighbour.

What immense taste and labour!

Miss Jessie Prime, in a pink silk bonnet,

Titters with delight as her eyes fall upon it,

When she steps lightly down from Lawyer Greens whisky;

Such amazing beauty makes one feel frisky,

She explains.

Mr. Nichols says he is delighted

(He is the firm);

His work is all requited

If Miss Jessie can approve.

Miss Jessie answers that the ship is a love.

The sides are yellow as marigold,

The port-lids are red when the ports are up:

Blood-red squares like an even chequer

Of yellow asters and portulaca.

There is a wide black strake at the waterline

And above is a blue like the sky when the weather is fine.

The inner bulwarks are painted red.

Why? asks Miss Jessie. Tis a horrid note.

Mr. Nichols clears his throat,

And tells her the launching day is set.

He says, Be careful, the paint is wet.

But Miss Jessie has touched it, her sprigged muslin gown

Has a blood-red streak from the shoulder down.

It looks like blood, says Miss Jessie with a frown.

Tap! Tap! Rap!

An October day, with waves running in blue-white lines and a capful

of wind.

Three broad flags ripple out behind

Where the masts will be:

Royal Standard at the main,

Admiralty flag at the fore,

Union Jack at the mizzen.

The hammers tap harder, faster,

They must finish by noon.

The last nail is driven.

But the wind has increased to half a gale,

And the ship shakes and quivers upon the ways.

The Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard is coming

In his ten-oared barge from the Kings Stairs;

The Marines band will play God Save Great George Our King

And there is to be a dinner afterwards at the Crown, with speeches.

The wind screeches, and flaps the flags till they pound like hammers.

The wind hums over the ship,

And slips round the dog-shores,

Jostling them almost to falling.

There is no time now to wait for Commissioners and marine bands.

Mr. Nichols has a bottle of port in his hands.

He leans over, holding his hat, and shouts to the men below:

Let her go!

Bang! Bang! Pound!

The dog-shores fall to the ground,

And the ship slides down the greased planking.

A splintering of glass,

And port wine running all over the white and copper stem timbers.

Success to his Majestys ship, the Bellerophon!

And the red wine washes away in the waters of the Medway.

II

Paris, March, 1814

Fine yellow sunlight down the rue du Mont Thabor.

Ten oclock striking from all the clock-towers of Paris.

Over the door of a shop, in gilt letters:

Martin -- Parfumeur, and something more.

A large gilded wooden something.

Listen! What a ringing of hammers!

Tap!

Tap!

Squeak!

Tap! Squeak! Tap-a-tap!

Blaise.

Oui, Msieu.

Dont touch the letters. My name stays.

Bien, Msieu.

Just take down the eagle, and the shield with the bees.

As Msieu pleases.

Tap! Squeak! Tap!

The man on the ladder hammers steadily for a minute or two,

Then stops.

He! Patron!

They are fastened well, Nom dun Chien!

What if I break them?

Break away,

You and Paul must have them down to-day.

Bien.

And the hammers start again,

Drum-beating at the something of gilded wood.

Sunshine in a golden flood

Lighting up the yellow fronts of houses,

Glittering each window to a flash.

Squeak! Squeak! Tap!

The hammers beat and rap.

A Prussian hussar on a grey horse goes by at a dash.

From other shops, the noise of striking blows:

Pounds, thumps, and whacks;

Wooden sounds: splinters -- cracks.

Paris is full of the galloping of horses and the knocking of hammers.

Hullo! Friend Martin, is business slack

That you are in the street this morning? Dont turn your

back

And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole.

Ive just been taking a stroll.

The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs

Elysees.

I cant get the smell of them out of my nostrils.

Dirty fellows, who dont believe in frills

Like washing. Ah, mon vieux, youd have to go

Out of business if you lived in Russia. So!

Weve given up being perfumers to the Emperor, have we?

Blaise,

Be careful of the hen,

Maybe I can find a use for her one of these days.

That eagles rather well cut, Martin.

But Im sick of smelling Cossack,

Take me inside and let me put my head into a stack

Of orris-root and musk.

Within the shop, the light is dimmed to a pearl-and-green dusk

Out of which dreamily sparkle counters and shelves of glass,

Containing phials, and bowls, and jars, and dishes; a mass

Of aqueous transparence made solid by threads of gold.

Gold and glass,

And scents which whiff across the green twilight and pass.

The perfumer sits down and shakes his head:

Always the same, Monsieur Antoine,

You artists are wonderful folk indeed.

But Antoine Vernet does not heed.

He is reading the names on the bottles and bowls,

Done in fine gilt letters with wonderful scrolls.

What have we here? `Eau Imperial Odontalgique.

I must say, mon cher, your names are chic.

But it wont do, positively it will not do.

Elba doesnt count. Ah, here is another:

`Baume du Commandeur. Thats better. He needs

something to smother

Regrets. A little lubricant, too,

Might be useful. I have it,

`Sage Oil, perhaps hell be good now; with it well submit

This fine German rouge. I fear he is pale.

Monsieur Antoine, dont rail

At misfortune. He treated me well and fairly.

And you prefer him to Bourbons, admit it squarely.

Heaven forbid! Bang! Whack!

Squeak! Squeak! Crack!

CRASH!

Oh, Lord, Martin! That shield is hash.

The whole street is covered with golden bees.

They look like so many yellow peas,

Lying there in the mud. Id like to paint it.

`Plum pudding of Empire. Thats rather quaint, it

Might take with the Kings. Shall I try? Oh,

Sir,

You distress me, you do. Poor old Martins purr!

But he hasnt a scratch in him, I know.

Now let us get back to the powders and patches.

Foolish man,

The Kings are here now. We must hit on a plan

To change all these titles as fast as we can.

`Bouquet Imperatrice. Tut! Tut! Give

me some ink --

`Bouquet de la Reine, what do you think?

Not the same receipt?

Now, Martin, put away your conceit.

Who will ever know?

`Extract of Nobility -- excellent, since most of them are killed.

But, Monsieur Antoine --

You are self-willed,

Martin. You need a salve

For your conscience, do you?

Very well, well halve

The compliments, also the pastes and dentifrices;

Send some to the Kings, and some to the Empresses.

`Oil of Bitter Almonds -- the Empress Josephine can have that.

`Oil of Parma Violets fits the other one pat.

Rap! Rap! Bang!

What a hideous clatter!

Blaise seems determined to batter

That poor old turkey into bits,

And pound to jelly my excellent wits.

Come, come, Martin, you mustnt shirk.

`The night cometh soon -- etc. Dont jerk

Me up like that. `Essence de la Valliere --

That has a charmingly Bourbon air.

And, oh! Magnificent! Listen to this! --

`Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs. Nothing amiss

With that -- England, Austria, Russia and Prussia!

Martin, youre a wonder,

Upheavals of continents cant keep you under.

Monsieur Antoine, I am grieved indeed

At such levity. What France has gone through --

Very true, Martin, very true,

But never forget that a man must feed.

Pound! Pound! Thump!

Pound!

Look here, in another minute Blaise will drop that bird on the

ground.

Martin shrugs his shoulders. Ah, well, what then? --

Antoine, with a laugh: ll give you two sous for that

antiquated hen.

The Imperial Eagle sells for two sous,

And the lilies go up.

A man must choose!

III

Paris, April, 1814

Cold, impassive, the marble arch of the Place du Carrousel.

Haughty, contemptuous, the marble arch of the Place du Carrousel.

Like a woman raped by force, rising above her fate,

Borne up by the cold rigidity of hate,

Stands the marble arch of the Place du Carrousel.

Tap! Clink-a-tink!

Tap! Rap! Chink!

What falls to the ground like a streak of flame?

Hush! It is only a bit of bronze flashing in the sun.

What are all those soldiers? Those are not the uniforms

of France.

Alas! No! The uniforms of France, Great Imperial

France, are done.

They will rot away in chests and hang to dusty tatters in barn lofts.

These are other armies. And their name?

Hush, be still for shame;

Be still and imperturbable like the marble arch.

Another bright spark falls through the blue air.

Over the Place du Carrousel a wailing of despair.

Crowd your horses back upon the people, Uhlans and Hungarian Lancers,

They see too much.

Unfortunately, Gentlemen of the Invading Armies, what they do not

see,

they hear.

Tap! Clink-a-tink!

Tap!

Another sharp spear

Of brightness,

And a ringing of quick metal lightness

On hard stones.

Workmen are chipping off the names of Napoleons victories

From the triumphal arch of the Place du Carrousel.

Do they need so much force to quell the crowd?

An old Grenadier of the line groans aloud,

And each hammer tap points the sob of a woman.

Russia, Prussia, Austria, and the faded-white-lily Bourbon king

Think it well

To guard against tumult,

A mob is an undependable thing.

Ding! Ding!

Vienna is scattered all over the Place du Carrousel

In glittering, bent, and twisted letters.

Your betters have clattered over Vienna before,

Officer of his Imperial Majesty our Father-in-Law!

Tink! Tink!

A workmans chisel can strew you to the winds,

Munich.

Do they think

To pleasure Paris, used to the fall of cities,

By giving her a fall of letters!

It is a month too late.

One month, and our lily-white Bourbon king

Has done a colossal thing;

He has curdled love,

And soured the desires of a people.

Still the letters fall,

The workmen creep up and down their ladders like lizards on a wall.

Tap! Tap! Tink!

Clink! Clink!

Oh, merciful God, they will not touch Austerlitz!

Strike me blind, my God, my eyes can never look on that.

I would give the other leg to save it, it took one.

Curse them! Curse them! Aim at his hat.

Give me the stone. Why didnt you give it to me?

I would not have missed. Curse him!

Curse all of them! They have got the `A

Ding! Ding!

I saw the Terror, but I never saw so horrible a thing as this.

`Vive lEmpereur! Vive lEmpereur!

Dont strike him, Fritz.

The mob will rise if you do.

Just run him out to the `quai,

That will get him out of the way.

They are almost through.

Clink! Tink! Ding!

Clear as the sudden ring

Of a bell

Z strikes the pavement.

Farewell, Austerlitz, Tilsit, Presbourg;

Farewell, greatness departed.

Farewell, Imperial honours, knocked broadcast by the beating hammers

of ignorant workmen.

Straight, in the Spring moonlight,

Rises the deflowered arch.

In the silence, shining bright,

She stands naked and unsubdued.

Her marble coldness will endure the march

Of decades.

Rend her bronzes, hammers;

Cast down her inscriptions.

She is unconquerable, austere,

Cold as the moon that swims above her

When the nights are clear.

IV

Croissy, Ile-de-France, June, 1815

Whoa! Victorine.

Devil take the mare! Ive never seen so vicious a beast.

She kicked Jules the last time she was here,

Hes been lame ever since, poor chap.

Rap! Tap!

Tap-a-tap-a-tap! Tap! Tap!

d rather be lame than dead at Waterloo, Msieu Charles.

Sacre Bleu! Dont mention Waterloo, and the damned grinning

British.

We didnt run in the old days.

There wasnt any running at Jena.

Those were decent days,

And decent men, who stood up and fought.

We never got beaten, because we wouldnt be.

See!

You would have taught them, wouldnt you, Sergeant Boignet?

But to-day its everyone for himself,

And the Emperor isnt what he was.

How the Devil do you know that?

If he was beaten, the cause

Is the green geese in his army, led by traitors.

Oh, I say no names, Monsieur Charles,

You neednt hammer so loud.

If there are any spies lurking behind the bellows,

I beg they come out. Dirty fellows!

The old Sergeant seizes a red-hot poker

And advances, brandishing it, into the shadows.

The rows of horses flick

Placid tails.

Victorine gives a savage kick

As the nails

Go in. Tap! Tap!

Jules draws a horseshoe from the fire

And beats it from red to peacock-blue and black,

Purpling darker at each whack.

Ding! Dang! Dong!

Ding-a-ding-dong!

It is a long time since any one spoke.

Then the blacksmith brushes his hand over his eyes,

Well, he sighs,

Hes broke.

The Sergeant charges out from behind the bellows.

Its the green geese, I tell you,

Their hearts are all whites and yellows,

Theres no red in them. Red!

Thats what we want. Fouche should be fed

To the guillotine, and all Paris dance the carmagnole.

That would breed jolly fine lick-bloods

To lead his armies to victory.

Ancient history, Sergeant.

Hes done.

Say that again, Monsieur Charles, and Ill stun

You where you stand for a dung-eating Royalist.

The Sergeant gives the poker a savage twist;

He is as purple as the cooling horseshoes.

The air from the bellows creaks through the flues.

Tap! Tap! The blacksmith shoes Victorine,

And through the doorway a fine sheen

Of leaves flutters, with the sun between.

By a spurt of fire from the forge

You can see the Sergeant, with swollen gorge,

Puffing, and gurgling, and choking;

The bellows keep on croaking.

They wheeze,

And sneeze,

Creak! Bang! Squeeze!

And the hammer strokes fall like buzzing bees

Or pattering rain,

Or faster than these,

Like the hum of a waterfall struck by a breeze.

Clank! from the bellows-chain pulled up and down.

Clank!

And sunshine twinkles on Victorines flank,

Starting it to blue,

Dropping it to black.

Clack! Clack!

Tap-a-tap! Tap!

Lord! What galloping! Some mishap

Is making that man ride so furiously.

Francois, you!

Victorine wont be through

For another quarter of an hour. As you hope to die,

Work faster, man, the order has come.

What order? Speak out. Are you dumb?

A chaise, without arms on the panels, at the gate

In the far side-wall, and just to wait.

We must be there in half an hour with swift cattle.

Youre a stupid fool if you dont hear that rattle.

Those are German guns. Cant you guess the rest?

Nantes, Rochefort, possibly Brest.

Tap! Tap! as though the hammers were mad.

Dang! Ding! Creak! The farriers

lad

Jerks the bellows till he cracks their bones,

And the stifled air hiccoughs and groans.

The Sergeant is lying on the floor

Stone dead, and his hat with the tricolore

Cockade has rolled off into the cinders. Victorine snorts

and lays back

her ears.

What glistens on the anvil? Sweat or tears?

V

St. Helena, May, 1821

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Through the white tropic night.

Tap! Tap!

Beat the hammers,

Unwearied, indefatigable.

They are hanging dull black cloth about the dead.

Lustreless black cloth

Which chokes the radiance of the moonlight

And puts out the little moving shadows of leaves.

Tap! Tap!

The knocking makes the candles quaver,

And the long black hangings waver

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Tap! Tap!

In the ears which do not heed.

Tap! Tap!

Above the eyelids which do not flicker.

Tap! Tap!

Over the hands which do not stir.

Chiselled like a cameo of white agate against the hangings,

Struck to brilliance by the falling moonlight,

A face!

Sharp as a frozen flame,

Beautiful as an altar lamp of silver,

And still. Perfectly still.

In the next room, the men chatter

As they eat their midnight lunches.

A knife hits against a platter.

But the figure on the bed

Between the stifling black hangings

Is cold and motionless,

Played over by the moonlight from the windows

And the indistinct shadows of leaves.

Tap! Tap!

Upholsterer Darling has a fine shop in Jamestown.

Tap! Tap!

Andrew Darling has ridden hard from Longwood to see to the work

in his shop

in Jamestown.

He has a corps of men in it, toiling and swearing,

Knocking, and measuring, and planing, and squaring,

Working from a chart with figures,

Comparing with their rules,

Setting this and that part together with their tools.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Haste indeed!

So great is the need

That carpenters have been taken from the new church,

Joiners have been called from shaping pews and lecterns

To work of greater urgency.

Coffins!

Coffins is what they are making this bright Summer morning.

Coffins -- and all to measurement.

There is a tin coffin,

A deal coffin,

A lead coffin,

And Captain Bennetts best mahogany dining-table

Has been sawed up for the grand outer coffin.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Sunshine outside in the square,

But inside, only hollow coffins and the tapping upon them.

The men whistle,

And the coffins grow under their hammers

In the darkness of the shop.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Tramp of men.

Steady tramp of men.

Slit-eyed Chinese with long pigtails

Bearing oblong things upon their shoulders

March slowly along the road to Longwood.

Their feet fall softly in the dust of the road;

Sometimes they call gutturally to each other and stop to shift shoulders.

Four coffins for the little dead man,

Four fine coffins,

And one of them Captain Bennetts dining-table!

And sixteen splendid Chinamen, all strong and able

And of assured neutrality.

Ah! George of England, Lord Bathhurst Co.

Your princely munificence makes ones heart glow.

Huzza! Huzza! For the Lion of England!

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Marble likeness of an Emperor,

Dead man, who burst your heart against a world too narrow,

The hammers drum you to your last throne

Which always you shall hold alone.

Tap! Tap!

The glory of your past is faded as a sunset fire,

Your day lingers only like the tones of a wind-lyre

In a twilit room.

Here is the emptiness of your dream

Scattered about you.

Coins of yesterday,

Double napoleons stamped with Consul or Emperor,

Strange as those of Herculaneum --

And you just dead!

Not one spool of thread

Will these buy in any market-place.

Lay them over him,

They are the baubles of a crown of mist

Worn in a vision and melted away at waking.

Tap! Tap!

His heart strained at kingdoms

And now it is content with a silver dish.

Strange World! Strange Wayfarer!

Strange Destiny!

Lower it gently beside him and let it lie.

Tap! Tap! Tap!