Sonnets on the War :: :: University of Virginia Library

He prophesied this day. His silent face
With its great calm the wildest mob could still.
With its unearthly beauty he did fill
France, till she thought it pride and highest grace
To die wherever he should point the place.
His armies broke on the disturbed Alps
A thousand years of silence. 'Neath their scalps
He smote that brittle Austria at his will.
The careless heavens left him to expire
Unwatched, untended, as a beggar's fire.
When some great poet of a nobler stock
To nobler ears his story will rehearse,
Prometheus, hanging patient on the rock,
Shall be forgotten for that grander verse.