 | Poems by Two Brothers |  |
231
[Come hither, can'st thou tell me if this skull]
1
Come hither, can'st thou tell me if this skullWhich I thus handle was the bold Turenne?
Or is thine intellect so dense and dull
Thou dost not know it by its marks? What then?
2
Death levels all. The crown, the crimson'd flags,The scutcheons of the mighty rob'd in black,
Are no more in Death's eye than those poor rags
Which the wind sports with on the beggar's back.
3
When the great Henri from his tomb was rais'd,The jest of all the rabble that stood by,
He, whose bright fame so brilliantly had blaz'd,
The star, the meteor of his century,
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4
That glorious monarch, at whose nod the throneOf Empire totter'd to its base, was brought
And rear'd before the people on a stone
To work them sport (Oh! souls without a thought
5
Save the blind impulse of the brutal zealWhich urges the mad populace to vent
Upon the breathless dead that cannot feel,
The fury of their senseless chastisement).
6
There came a woman from the crowd and smoteThe corpse upon the cheek: to earth it fell,
That eye was dim, that glorious tongue was mute,
The soul had fled its cold receptacle.
A. T.
| Poems by Two Brothers | |