 | I. |
 | II. |
|
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
|
|
|
|
 | The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton |  |
222
INSERTED IN M. RIO'S WORK, “LA PETITE CHOUANNERIE.”
For honest men, of every blood and creed,
Let green La Vendée rest a sacred spot;
Be all the guilt of Quiberon forgot
In the bright memory of its martyr-deed!
And let this little book be one more seed,
Whence sympathies may spring, encumbered not
By circumstance of birth or mortal lot,
But claiming virtue's universal meed!
And as those two great languages, whose sound
Has echoed through the realms of modern time,
Feeding with thoughts and sentiments sublime
Each other and the listening world around,
Meet in these pages as on neutral ground,—
So may their nations' hearts in sweet accord be found!
Let green La Vendée rest a sacred spot;
Be all the guilt of Quiberon forgot
In the bright memory of its martyr-deed!
And let this little book be one more seed,
Whence sympathies may spring, encumbered not
By circumstance of birth or mortal lot,
But claiming virtue's universal meed!
And as those two great languages, whose sound
Has echoed through the realms of modern time,
Feeding with thoughts and sentiments sublime
Each other and the listening world around,
Meet in these pages as on neutral ground,—
So may their nations' hearts in sweet accord be found!
O France and England! on whose lofty crests
The day-spring of the Future flows so free,
Save where the cloud of your hostility
Settles between, and holy light arrests,
Shall Ye, first instruments of God's behests,
But blunt each other? Shall Barbarians see
The two fair sisters of civility
Turn a fierce wrath against each other's breasts?
No!—by our common hope and being—no!
By the expanding might and bliss of peace,
By the revealed fatuity of war,
England and France shall not be foe to foe:
For how can earth her store of good increase,
If what God loves to make man's passions still will mar?
The day-spring of the Future flows so free,
Save where the cloud of your hostility
Settles between, and holy light arrests,
Shall Ye, first instruments of God's behests,
223
The two fair sisters of civility
Turn a fierce wrath against each other's breasts?
No!—by our common hope and being—no!
By the expanding might and bliss of peace,
By the revealed fatuity of war,
England and France shall not be foe to foe:
For how can earth her store of good increase,
If what God loves to make man's passions still will mar?
| The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton | |