Works

("O dix-huiti'me si'cle!")

[IV. vi]


O Eighteenth Century! by Heaven chastised!
Godless thou livedst, by God thy doom was fixed.
Thou in one ruin sword and sceptre mixed,...

("Vous, sire, 'coutez-moi.")

[LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act I.]


M. ST. VALLIER (an aged nobleman, from whom King Francis I. decoyed his daughter, the famous beauty, Diana of Poitiers).
...

("Mon duc, rien qu'un moment.")

[HERNANI, Act V.]


One little moment to indulge the sight
With the rich beauty of the summer's night.
The harp is hushed, and, see, the torch is dim, -...

("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.")

[Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.]


That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair,
Beseem my child, who weeps and plays:
A heavenly spirit guards her ways,...

It was a humble church, with arches low,
The church we entered there,
Where many a weary soul since long ago
Had past with plaint or prayer.

Mournful and still it was at day's decline,...

("La flamme par ton ordre, O roi!")

[XXIII., November, 1825.]


Thy will, O King, is done! Lighting but to consume,
The roar of the fierce flames drowned even the shouts and shrieks;...

("Zim-Zizimi, Soudan d''gypte.")

[Bk. XVI. i.]


Zim Zizimi - (of the Soudan of burnt Egypt,
The Commander of Believers, a Bashaw
Whose very robes were from Asia's greatest stript,...

("Si je n''tait captive.")

[IX., July, 1828.]


Oh! were I not a captive,
I should love this fair countree;
Those fields with maize abounding,
This ever-plaintive sea:...

("Si vous continuez toute p'le.")

[November, 1870.]


If you continue thus so wan and white;
If I, one day, behold
You pass from out our dull air to the light,
You, infant - I, so old:...

("Canaris! nous t'avons oubli'.")

[VIII., October, 1832.]


O Canaris! O Canaris! the poet's song
Has blameful left untold thy deeds too long!
But when the tragic actor's part is done,...

Where are the hapless shipmen? - disappeared,
Gone down, where witness none, save Night, hath been,
Ye deep, deep waves, of kneeling mothers feared,
What dismal tales know ye of things unseen?...

[Bought with the proceeds of Readings of "Les Ch'timents" during the Siege of Paris.]

[1872.]


Thou deadly crater, moulded by my muse,
Cast thou thy bronze into my bowed and wounded heart,...

[Oct. 9, 1830.]


When with gigantic hand he placed,
For throne, on vassal Europe based,
That column's lofty height -
Pillar, in whose dread majesty,
In double immortality,...