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VIII.

Oh, France! oh, People! sleeping unabashed!
Liest thou like a hound when it was lashed?
Thou liest! thine own blood fouling both thy hands,
And on thy limbs the rust of iron bands,
And round thy wrists the cut where cords went deep.
Say did they numb thy soul, that thou didst sleep?
Alas! sad France is grown a cave for sleeping,
Which a worse night than Midnight holds in keeping,
Thou sleepest sottish–lost to life and fame–
While the stars stare on thee, and pale for shame.
Stir! rouse thee! Sit! if thou know’st not to rise;
Sit up, thou tortured sluggard! ope thine eyes!
Stretch thy brawn, Giant! Sleep is foul and vile!
Art fagged, art deaf, art dumb? art blind this while?
They lie who say so! Thou dost know and feel
The things they do to thee and thine. The heel
That scratched thy neck in passing–whose? Canst say?
Yes, yes, ’twas his, and this is his fete-day.
Oh, thou that wert of humankind–couched so–
A beast of burden on this dunghill! oh!
Bray to them, Mule! Oh, Bullock! bellow then!
Since they have made thee blind, grope in thy den!
Do something, Outcast One, that wast so grand!
Who knows if thou putt’st forth thy poor maimed hand,
There may be venging weapon within reach!
Feel with both hands–with both huge arms go stretch
Along the black wall of thy cellar. Nay,
There may be some odd thing hidden away?
Who knows–there may! Those great hands might so come
In course of ghastly fumble through the gloom,
Upon a sword–a sword! The hands once clasp
Its hilt, must wield it with a Victor’s grasp.

EDWIN ARNOLD, C.S.I.

[Footnote 1: The Battle of Mentana, so named from a village by Rome, was fought between the allied French and Papal Armies and the Volunteer Forces of Garibaldi, Nov. 3, 1867.]

[Footnote 2: Palermo was taken immediately after the Garibaldian volunteers, 1000 strong, landed at Marsala to inaugurate the rising which made Italy free.]

[Footnote 3: Both poet and his idol lived to see the French Republic for the fourth time proclaimed. When Hugo rose in the Senate, on the first occasion after his return to Paris after the expulsion of the Napoleons, and his white head was seen above that of Rouher, ex-Prime Minister of the Empire, all the house shuddered, and in a nearly unanimous voice shouted: “The judgment of God! expiation!”]