Now when the foreign judge had been by the minister questioned
As to his people’s distress, and how long their exile had lasted,
Thus made answer the man:  “Of no recent date are our sorrows;
Since of the gathering bitter of years our people have drunken,—­
Bitterness all the more dreadful because such fair hope had been blighted. 
Who will pretend to deny that his heart swelled high in his bosom,
And that his freer breast with purer pulses was beating;
When we beheld the new sun arise in his earliest splendor,
When of the rights of men we heard, which to all should be common,
Were of a righteous equality told, and inspiriting freedom? 
Every one hoped that then he should live his own life, and the fetters,
Binding the various lands, appeared their hold to be loosing,—­
Fetters that had in the hand of sloth been held and self-seeking. 
Looked not the eyes of all nations, throughout that calamitous season,
Towards the world’s capital city, for so it had long been considered,
And of that glorious title was now, more than ever, deserving?

Were not the names of those men who first delivered the message,
Names to compare with the highest that under the heavens are spoken? 
Did not, in every man, grow courage and spirit and language? 
And, as neighbors, we, first of all, were zealously kindled. 
Thereupon followed the war, and armed bodies of Frenchmen
Pressed to us nearer; yet nothing but friendship they seemed to be bringing;
Ay, and they brought it too; for exalted the spirit within them: 
They with rejoicing the festive trees of liberty planted,
Promising every man what was his own, and to each his own ruling. 
High beat the heart of the youths, and even the aged were joyful;
Gaily the dance began about the newly raised standard. 
Thus had they speedily won, these overmastering Frenchmen,
First the spirits of men by the fire and dash of their bearing,
Then the hearts of the women with irresistible graces. 
Even the pressure of hungry war seemed to weigh on us lightly,
So before our vision did hope hang over the future,
Luring our eyes abroad into newly opening pathways. 
Oh, how joyful the time when with her belov’ed the maiden
Whirls in the dance, the longed-for day of their union awaiting! 
But more glorious that day on which to our vision the highest
Heart of man can conceive seemed near and attainable to us. 
Loosened was every tongue, and men—­the aged, the stripling—­
Spoke aloud in words that were full of high feeling and wisdom. 
Soon, however, the sky was o’ercast.  A corrupt generation
Fought for the right of dominion, unworthy the good to establish;
So that they slew one another, their new-made neighbors and brothers
Held in subjection, and then sent the self-seeking masses against us. 
Chiefs committed excesses and wholesale plunder upon us,
While those lower plundered and rioted down to the