The Emperor's Glove

"Combien faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne pour faire un gant de cette grandeur?"A play upon the words gant, a glove, and Gand, the French for Ghent.

On St. Baron's tower, commanding
    Half of Flanders, his domain,
Charles the Emperor once was standing,
While beneath him on the landing
    Stood Duke Alva and his train.

Like a print in books of fables,
    Or a model made for show,
With its pointed roofs and gables,
Dormer windows, scrolls and labels,
    Lay the city far below.

Through its squares and streets and alleys
    Poured the populace of Ghent;
As a routed army rallies,
Or as rivers run through valleys,
    Hurrying to their homes they went

"Nest of Lutheran misbelievers!"
    Cried Duke Alva as he gazed;
"Haunt of traitors and deceivers,
Stronghold of insurgent weavers,
    Let it to the ground be razed!"

On the Emperor's cap the feather
    Nods, as laughing he replies:
"How many skins of Spanish leather,
Think you, would, if stitched together
    Make a glove of such a size?"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

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English

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The Glove and The Lions

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another;
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

De Lorge's love...

James Henry Leigh Hunt

The Glove. A Tale.

Before his lion-court,
Impatient for the sport,
King Francis sat one day;
The peers of his realm sat around,
And in balcony high from the ground
Sat the ladies in beauteous array.

And when with his finger he beckoned,
The gate opened wide in a second,
And in, with deliberate tread,
Enters a lion dread,
And looks around
Yet utters no sound;
Then long he yawns
And shakes his mane,
And, stretching each limb,
Down lies he again.

Again signs the king,
The next gate open flies,
And, lo! with a wild spring,
A tiger out hies.
When the lion he sees, loudly roars he about,
And a terrible circle his tail traces out.
Protruding his tongue, past the lion he walks,
And, snarling with rage, round him warily stalks:
Then, gr...

Friedrich Schiller

The Emperor's Return.

("Un bouffon manquait à cette fête.")

[LES BURGRAVES, Part II.]


The EMPEROR FREDERICK BARBAROSSA, believed to be dead, appearing as a beggar among the Rhenish nobility at a castle, suddenly reveals himself.

HATTO. This goodly masque but lacked a fool!
First gypsy; next a beggar; - good! Thy name?

BARBAROSSA. Frederick of Swabia, Emperor of Almain.

ALL. The Red Beard?

BARBAROSSA. Aye, Frederick, by my mountain birthright Prince
O' th' Romans, chosen king, crowned emperor,
Heaven's sword-bearer, monarch of Burgundy
And Arles - the tomb of Karl I dared profane,
But have repented me on bended knees
In penance 'midst the desert twenty years;
My drink the rain, the rocky herbs my food,
Myself a ghost the shepherds fled b...

Victor-Marie Hugo

The Glove

PETER RONSARD loquitur.


Heigho! yawned one day King Francis,
Distance all value enhances!
When a mans busy, why, leisure
Strikes him as wonderful pleasure,
Faith, and at leisure once is he?
Straightway he wants to be busy.
Here weve got peace; and aghast Im
Caught thinking war the true pastime!
Is there a reason in metre?
Give us your speech, master Peter!
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Neer am at loss with my Naso,
Sire, I replied, joys prove cloudlets:
Men are the merest Ixions,
Here the King whistled aloud, Lets
 . . Heigho . . go look at our lions!
Such are the sorrowful chances
If you talk fine to King Francis.

And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
...

Robert Browning

The Belfry Of Bruges

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered.    From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleepin...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Emperor's Bird's-Nest

Once the Emperor Charles of Spain,
    With his swarthy, grave commanders,
I forget in what campaign,
Long besieged, in mud and rain,
    Some old frontier town of Flanders.

Up and down the dreary camp,
    In great boots of Spanish leather,
Striding with a measured tramp,
These Hidalgos, dull and damp,
    Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.

Thus as to and fro they went,
    Over upland and through hollow,
Giving their impatience vent,
Perched upon the Emperor's tent,
    In her nest, they spied a swallow.

Yes, it was a swallow's nest,
    Built of clay and hair of horses,
Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest,
Found on hedge-rows east and west,
    After skirmish of the forces.

Then an old Hidalgo said,
    ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow