 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
XIX. THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE AT PARIS AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
O that the people of this guilty landMight estimate themselves and it aright!
Accept yon Temple's sternly kind command
Her warning vainly whispered day and night:
To lift their glory to a loftier height
A people raised this creature of their hand:—
Teach them, huge pile, with all thy pillared might,
Humility! Do thou their boast withstand!
Bid them, in sight of angels and of men
Brow-bent and round thee kneeling, to confess
That sin whose serpent offspring, not yet dead,
Creeps round the earth and stings it! Bid them shed
Such tears as fell in the waste wilderness
On thy worn bosom, penitent Magdalen!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |