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The poetical works of the Rev. George Croly
The poetical works of the Rev George Croly Author:George Croly Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PARIS IN 1815. PART II. King of the past, proud sitter by the grave Where nations slumber; pale Antiquity ! What thousand shapes obey thy sceptre's wave ! ... more »Chieftains, with all their hosts like clouds, rush by; Sages whose thrones are bright in yonder sky; Genius with all her sons, whose thoughts were wings ; Beauty, whose glance bade empires live and die; Wild hearts that drank of passion's fiery springs, All from their shadowy world thy mighty sceptre brings. VOL. I. H Prince, warrior, priest—the crown, the helm, the hood, Ev'n on this spot, rose, sway'd, and sank away. Above that golden gate ! Napoleon stood— The curse and omen of our evil day; Gathering, like thunderclouds, his last array, That went to battle, ne'er to come again ; Their Xerxes shed no tear ! they went to slay; Vengeance awoke at last, and they were slain ! And now—above it waves the Lily's exiled vane! There stands his Arch of victory, but there Its idol stands no more—His day is done ! Close by the pile sits Austria's cuirassier, Busy and gazing groups are on it strown, A wain is at its foot, as if for one Who on that crowded scaffold came to die; And the quick murmurings there, the engine's groan, Short, deep, give semblance of a dying cry : France, on that scaffold ends thy gloomy sovereignty. For, thence must stoop the glorious Grecian steeds 2 That his fierce hand had yoked to Victory's wheel. Now following where a newer conqueror leads, To thy blue waters, Venice, bends their heel! Trophies! how oft has steel thus shiver'd steel, Since first their wanderings fix'd the doom of war ! But lives not in those fiery fronts a spell ? Were not those orb'd eyes moulded, when the air Of midnight shook and glowed with the red comet's glare ? Ye stars! bright legions that, before all time, Camp...« less