AmyLowell:TwoTravellersinthePlaceVendome

Reign of Louis Philippe

A great tall column spearing at the sky

With a little man on top. Goodness! Tell me

why?

He looks a silly thing enough to stand up there so high.

What a strange fellow, like a soldier in a play,

Tight-fitting coat with the tails cut away,

High-crowned hat which the brims overlay.

Two-horned hat makes an outline like a bow.

Must have a sword, I can see the light glow

Between a dark line and his leg. Vertigo

I get gazing up at him, a pygmy flashed with sun.

A weathercock or scarecrow or both things in one?

As bright as a jewelled crown hung above a throne.

Say, what is the use of him if he doesnt turn?

Just put up to glitter there, like a torch to burn,

A sort of sacrificial show in a lofty urn?

But why a little soldier in an obsolete dress?

Id rather see a Goddess with a spear, I confess.

Something allegorical and fine. Why, yes --

I cannot take my eyes from him. I dont

know why at all.

Ive looked so long the whole thing swims. I feel he

ought to fall.

Foreshortened there among the clouds hes pitifully small.

What do you say? There used to be an

Emperor standing there,

With flowing robes and laurel crown. Really? Yet

I declare

Those spiral battles round the shaft dont seem just his affair.

A togaed, laurelled mans I mean. Now

this chap seems to feel

As though he owned those soldiers. Whew! How

he makes one reel,

Swinging round above his circling armies in a wheel.

Sweeping round the sky in an orbit like the suns,

Flashing sparks like cannon-balls from his own long guns.

Perhaps my sight is tired, but that figure simply stuns.

How low the houses seem, and all the people are

mere flies.

That fellow pokes his hat up till it scratches on the skies.

Impudent! Audacious! But, by Jove, he blinds

the eyes!