Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams :: :: University of Virginia Library

Pleas'd was I when you told me how
In hat that buffeted the brow
And mason's loose habiliment
With masons thro' Ham's gate you went.
Heartily glad was I to see
A prisoner, though a prince, set free.

“Prince!” said I, “you've escaped two worst
Of evils.”

“I have known a first,”
Said you, “but that is only one,
Tell me the other.”

“'Tis a throne.”

I could not add what now I might,
It keeps the worthy out of sight,
Nor lets the sitter sit upright.

Can there be pleasure to keep down
In rusty chains a struggling town?
Can there be any to hear boom
Your cannon o'er the walls of Rome?
Or shows it strength to break a word
As easily as girls a cord
Of flimsy cotton, when the bell
Calls them to dinner? . . to rebel
Against rebellion in your eyes
Is criminal, to crouch is wise.
Louis! your father thought not so;

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His sceptre he disdain'd to owe
To falsehood; all his cares he bent
To make the realm he ruled content.
He proved, what many people doubt
As often as they look about,
A wonderful unheard of thing . .
An honest man may be a king.