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 King's Stairs; The Marine's 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 Majesty's 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 o'clock 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, M'sieu." "Don't touch the letters. My name stays." "Bien, M'sieu." "Just take down the eagle, and the shield with the bees." "As M'sieu 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 d'un 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? Don't turn your back And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole. I've just been taking a stroll. The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs Elysees.