The Secret Splendour

Toussaint L'Ouverture

"Children at arms!" Toussaint cried out,

 "Ere you shed your bravery's bloom,

Breathe deep of hate that you may meet

The cold white visage of Deceit

With the blackest blast of doom.

"Heroes who crushed a hundred crowns

Teem in those sudden ships,

That France may fetter your proud eyes

 And lay on the back of your paradise

An eternity of whips.

"Yet we too hold the Tricolour:

Shall our grasp be that of slaves?"...

But though the battle swayed loud and long,

The invaders broke on the negro throng

In a fury of iron waves,

Pounding the desperate ranks against

The arduous hill-rock—

 When Toussaint amid the slow fierce flight

 Halted as one whose groping sight

Receives a lightning shock.

"Children at arms!" Toussaint cried out,

"Ere your veins go dry, upraise

 Through the throbbing blood of your battered mouth

 The mystic cry that burned from the South,

The flame of the Marseillaise."

His bare blade flashed like a ring of light

As he swerved to the foe again

And out of a gigantic world

To the shaken spirits around him hurled

The unconquerable strain.

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The chasing men see flying men

Turn back—a miracle

 Of murderous beauty rapture-driven,

 With sabres from a forge of heaven

In pitiless hands of hell.

A luminous storm of sudden death,

The ragged legion dips,

Roaring down catastrophic skies

With vision of victory in their eyes

And the Marseillaise on their lips.

The faces of the French grow strange

In marvelling distress:

Blinded they fall—what veteran

Can fight the song-blaze of that sun

Of rebel loveliness?

Into the heart of the enemy passed

Their own earth-scorning will,

And the fire-wind of the Marseillaise smote

Their fearful fame as its burning throat

Had blasted the Bastille.

For who shall fight with human might

The voice of Liberty?

 Broken by her immortal word

 The glory of the enslaving sword

Reeled back into the sea.

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