Esmeralda, As Told By the Poet Pierre Gringoire - With Apologies To Victor Hugo
I had been placed in chains
Where the cripples shed their canes
And the blind regained the art of seeing.
It was a robbers’ den
And as all God fearing men,
I had assets needed freeing.
Sometimes the poet’s muse
Is a bride who will refuse
All his conjugal solicitations.
He must lure to bed
Any tramp that turns his head
With unchaste alliterations:
And so it goes...
He’d lived his life alone
In a hermitage of stone
Where he rang those bells for all occasions;
Like the feasts of saints,
For the widows’ sad complaints,
And for joyous celebrations.
It's said confusion rules
At the Festival of Fools
And the scene below just seemed to prove it.
So he clambered down
And was regent of the crown
Till Claude Frollo’s hand removed it.
He smelled her perfumed hair
From across Cathedral Square
And the fragrance soothed his loss of hearing;
For her silent dance
Cast a soul ensnaring trance
Both enticing and endearing.
She was a barefoot girl
With her gypsy skirt a swirl
As the minstrels played a tarantella;
Graceful as fabric spun
From a gently setting sun,
And he pined for Esméralda.
But when the maid fell hard
For the Captain of the Guard
As a villain plotted her seduction,
His trust was put to test
On a futile, wicked quest
In abetting her abduction.
And so he bore the blame
When the warden called his name
As they bared his back to take a whipping.
He felt each lash stroke bleed,
The injustice of the deed
Set those righteous scales to tipping.
While the Archdeacon's kin,
Who was guilty of the sin,
Stalked the halls as Satan’s emissary,
A young girl’s tortured plea
Brought his fool to guarantee
Esméralda's sanctuary.
In a defiant act
When the rebel mob attacked,
He strained his crooked back to save the maiden;
And called the angels home
With the tolling of Guillaume,
Like hard currency to trade in.
He ran from wall to wall,
Hurling curses at them all,
Raining molten lead down on the rabble,
From the gargoyles’ throats
To the beggars’ ragged coats
In a symphony of babble.
But it was all in vain;
He could laugh himself insane,
Still those oaken doors were being battered,
And the dénouement
Left his ashes in the straw,
Proving love was all that mattered.
Copyright © Michael Kalavik | Year Posted 2021
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