His throne made a bonfire for outcasts,

And blood-sprinkled beggars lay down, And trailed through the filth of the gutter, Ermine and crown.

VIII.

They set up a King to succeed him,
King Liberty, Monarch adored;

They told him to rule as it pleased him,

And gave him for sceptre, a sword.

They throned him, and crowned him with garlands,
And knelt at his feet in the mire,

And called him the saviour of nations,
Their model, their friend, their desire.

King Liberty, drunken and frantic,
Let Anarchy loose on his slaves,

And plundered and murdered his people,

Dancing on graves.

་

IX.

And they called in their desperate anguish,
For a potent and resolute will;

For a man with a heart made of iron,
For a hand that was ready to kill;

For a master to curb and to conquer,
This pestilent Lord of the streets,
To chain him, and gag him, and scourge him,
Or ship him to tropical heats.

And losing their senses in terror,

They cried from the depths of despair,

"Oh! save us, thou man of the sabre!

Strike, do not spare!"

X.

The master they wanted was ready—
His sceptre and crown were decreed,
And vaulting aloft like a horseman,
Who knows how to govern his steed,

Come, queen! come, empress! come and wear

hair; A thousand diamonds in your

Come with your eyes more bright than they; Bring youth, health, strength, and rich array, And dazzle all the crowd that see; Kneel down!—you cannot dazzle me Here, on this pavement, bending low, I am your equal!—If not so I rise above you by my woe! By woe, by patience, and by love, Of Magdalen, sweet saint above; Who suffered, sinned, and wept as I, And pleads my pardon in the sky.

Vienna, April, 1855.

IV.

THE COLUMN OF LUXOR.

I.

On! grey-headed column of Luxor !
Oh! ancient and eloquent stone!

That standest supreme in thy sadness

'Mid splendour and glare-but alone!

They brought thee with pomp and rejoicing,
A trophy to pamper their fame;

With sound of the drum and the trumpet,
And salvos, and shouts of acclaim :

Oh! preach to this change-loving people
From depths of thy memories vast,

And, proud as they are of the present,
Tell them the past!

II.

Yet, no, it were idle to show them

The waifs and the shipwrecks of Time ;They know that the mighty have perished, Laid low in their folly or crime.

They know that the kingdoms and empires

That

in the grew

Were swept from their places, like footmarks

On sands where the ocean has rolled:

Tradition itself has forgot them,

Their deeds and their names disappear,

Or live but in falsified echoes,

Vexing the ear.

III.

They know that Sesostris and Pharaoh

Were lords of the world in their day;

That Babylon, Luxor, and Memphis

Were haughty-yet vanished away.