The Eighth Sin/The Exile and the Rock Limpet
(Suggested by Turner's painting at the Tate Gallery, thus described in the catalogue: Blood-red sunset reflected in a shallow tidal pool on the shore at St. Helena; Napoleon stands, with arms folded, looking at the limpet.)
The dying Day lies bleeding in the west,
Stanching his ebbing anguish in the cool
Blue bosom of the Night . . .
And by the salty island shore a pool,
A shallow tidal pool, his blood reflects,
Mirrors the crimson . . .
Alone and peaceful to her evening meal
The tiny limpet goes, perchance reviewing
In the chaste closets of her virgin mind
The unambitious current of her thoughts,
Her calm desires; and from her fluted shell
She shyly looks about, bearing her eyes
Upon retractile stalks; with sheepish joy
Observes one of her kindred gastropods,
Significantly beckon from afar.
O gentle cochlea! Unwitting thou
That on the rocky promont near at hand
There stands with folded arms, with brow contort,
The Emperor . . . Ah! does he meditate
A vesper dish of plaintive homely snails
Seethed in the Corsican white wine he loves?
No, harmless mollusc, no such carnal wish.
For lo, he thinks with melancholy pangs
How much more pleasant is thy fate than his;
No ferment of regrets, no shattered hopes,
No griefs of exile (lo, thy modest home
Is ever with thee)—thus, in short, he broods.
The Emperor would gladly interchange
His lot with thine, O unambitious snail . . .
Rudyard Kipling moralizes:—
Fortune's coin is fickle: she spins both heads and tails.
Even in your glory forbear to sneer at snails!