Voltaire at Ferney

       Perfectly happy now, he looked at his estate.
       An exile making watches glanced up as he passed
       And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast,
       A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell
       Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well.
       The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great.

       Far off in Paris where his enemies
       Whispered that he was wicked, in an upright chair
       A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write,
       "Nothing is better than life". But was it? Yes, the fight
       Against the false and the unfair
       Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize.

       Cajoling, scolding, scheming, cleverest of them all,
       He'd had the other children in a holy war
       Against the unfamous grown-ups; and like a child, been sly
       And humble, when there was occasion for
       The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie,
       But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fall.

       And never doubted, like D'Alembert, he would win:
       Only Pascal was a great enemy, the rest
       Were rats already poisoned; there was much, though, to be done,
       And only himself to count upon.
       Dear Diderot was dull but did his best;
       Rousseau, he'd always known, would blubber and give in.

       Night fell and made him think of women: Lust
       Was one of the great teachers; Pascal was a fool,
       How Emilie had loved astronomy and bed;
       Pimpette had loved him too, like scandal; he was glad.
       He'd done his share of weeping for Jerusalem: As a rule,
       It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.

       Yet, like a sentinel, he could not sleep. The night was full of wrong,
       Earthquakes and executions: Soon he would be dead,
       And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses
       Itching to boil their children. Only his verses
       Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working: Overhead,
       The uncomplaining stars composed their lucid song.

       February 1939