I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre, For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept, Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, And stifled thee, their minister. I know Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom,legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BACKGROUND AND DESIGN by KAREN SWENSON OF THE MEAN AND SURE ESTATE by THOMAS WYATT MY ORCHA'D IN LINDEN LEA by WILLIAM BARNES OH, SWEET CONTENT by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES THREE GATES [OF GOLD] by ELIZABETH DAYTON CREPUSCULE DU MATIN; SONNET by AMY LOWELL VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1885 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI |