Poems. Victor Hugo

Should fall to slay most rabble,

           And save foul regicides; or strike the knell

             Of weaklings 'mid the tribunes' babble.

           A Consul then, o'er young but proud,

             With midnight poring thinned, and sallow,

           But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud,

             And round pale face and lank locks form the halo.

           And soon the Caesar, with an eye a-flame

             Whole nations' contact urging

           To gain his soldiers gold and fame

             Oh, Sun on high emerging,

           Whose dazzling lustre fired the hells

             Embosomed in grim bronze, which, free, arose

           To change five hundred thousand base-born Tells,

             Into his host of half-a-million heroes!

           What! next a captive? Yea, and caged apart.

             No weight of arms enfolded

           Can crush the turmoil in that seething heart

             Which Nature – not her journeymen – self-moulded.

           Let sordid jailers vex their prize;

             But only bends that brow to lightning,

           As gazing from the seaward rock, his sighs