XCVII.

   But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,
   And fatal have her Saturnalia been
   To Freedom’s cause, in every age and clime;
   Because the deadly days which we have seen,
   And vile Ambition, that built up between
   Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,
   And the base pageant last upon the scene,
   Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall
Which nips Life’s tree, and dooms man’s worst—­his second fall.

XCVIII.

   Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
   Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
   Thy trumpet-voice, though broken now and dying,
   The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;
   Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
   Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
   But the sap lasts,—­and still the seed we find
   Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

XCIX.

   There is a stern round tower of other days,
   Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
   Such as an army’s baffled strength delays,
   Standing with half its battlements alone,
   And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
   The garland of eternity, where wave
   The green leaves over all by time o’erthrown: 
   What was this tower of strength? within its cave
What treasure lay so locked, so hid?—­A woman’s grave.

C.

   But who was she, the lady of the dead,
   Tombed in a palace?  Was she chaste and fair? 
   Worthy a king’s—­or more—­a Roman’s bed? 
   What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? 
   What daughter of her beauties was the heir? 
   How lived—­how loved—­how died she?  Was she not
   So honoured—­and conspicuously there,
   Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

CI.

   Was she as those who love their lords, or they
   Who love the lords of others? such have been
   Even in the olden time, Rome’s annals say. 
   Was she a matron of Cornelia’s mien,
   Or the light air of Egypt’s graceful queen,
   Profuse of joy; or ’gainst it did she war,
   Inveterate in virtue?  Did she lean
   To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar
Love from amongst her griefs?—­for such the affections are.

CII.

   Perchance she died in youth:  it may be, bowed
   With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
   That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud
   Might gather o’er her beauty, and a gloom
   In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
   Heaven gives its favourites—­early death; yet shed
   A sunset charm around her, and illume
   With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.