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 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
XVII. POLAND AND RUSSIA.—2.
The Strong One with the Weak One reasons thus:‘Through sin of thine our eagle wings are clipt:
Through frost of thine our summer branch is nipt:
Thy wounds accuse: thy rags are mutinous:
The nations note thine aspect dolorous
Like some starved shape that cowers in charnel crypt,
Or landscape in eclipse perpetual dipt,
And, ignorant, cavil, not at thee but us!’
Then answer makes that worn voice, stern and slow:
‘Am I a dog the scourger's hand that licks,
And fattens? Blind reproof but spurns the pricks.
That which I am thou mad'st me! long ago
My face thou grav'dst to be a face of woe,
Fixed as the fixed face of a Crucifix.’
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |