For the
Anniversary Festival of
Victor Hugo, February 26,
1880
[Strophe
1.Spring,
born in heaven
ere many a
springtime flown,
[Strophe 1.Dead spring
that sawest on
earthA babe of deathless birth,A flower of rosier flowerage than thine own,A glory of goodlier godhead; even
this day,That floods the mist of
February with
May,And strikes death dead with
sunlight, and the breathWhereby the deadly doers are done to death,They that in
day's despiteWould crown
the imperial night,And in deep hate of
insubmissive springRethrone
the royal winter for a king,This day that casts the days of darkness downLow as a broken crown,We call thee from
the gulf of deeds and days,Deathless and dead, to hear us whom we praise.
[Antistrophe
1.A light of many lights about thine head, [Antistrophe 1.Lights manifold and one,Stars
molten in a sun,A
sun of divers
beams incorporated,Compact of
confluent
aureoles, each more fairThan man, save only at highest of man, may wear,So didst thou rise, when
this our grey-grown ageHad trod two paces of his pilgrimage,Two paces through the gloomFrom his fierce father's tomb,Led by cross lights of lightnings, and the
flameThat burned in darkness round one darkling name;So didst thou rise, nor knewest thy glory, O thouRe-risen upon us now,The glory given thee for a grace to give,And take the praise of all men's hearts that live.
[Epode 1.First in the dewy ray
Note
v. 33.Odes et Ballades, 1822–1824.
[Epode 1.Ere
dawn be slain of dayThe fresh crowned lilies of discrowned kings' primeSprang splendid as of oldWith
moonlight-coloured goldAnd rays refract from the oldworld
heaven of
time;Pale with proud light of
stars decreasedIn
westward wane
reluctant from the conquering
east.
[Str. 2But even between their golden olden bloom [Str. 2Strange flowers of wildwood glory,With frost and
moonshine hoary,Thrust up the new growths of their green-leaved gloom,Red buds of
ballad blossom, where the dewBlushed as with bloodlike passion, and its hueWas as the life and love of hearts on
flame,And
fire from forth of
each live chalice came:Young sprays of elder song,Stem straight and petal strong,Bright foliage with dark frondage overlaid,And light the lovelier for its lordlier shade;And
morn and even made loud in woodland
loneWith
cheer of clarions blown,And through the tournay's clash and
clarion's cheerLaugh to laugh echoing, tear washed off by tear.
[Ant. 2Then
eastward far
past northland
lea and lawn
Note
v. 57.Les Orientales, 1829.
[Ant. 2Beneath a heavier lightOf
stormier day and nightBegan
the music of the heaven
of dawn;Bright sound of battle along
the Grecian waves,Loud light of thunder above the Median graves,New strife,
new song on
Aeschylean sea,Canaris risen above Themistocles;Old glory of warrior ghostsShed fresh on filial hosts,With dewfall redder than
the dews of day,And
earth-born lightnings
out of bloodbright spray;Then through the flushed grey gloom on shadowy
sheaves
Note
v. 69.Les Feuilles d'Automne, 1831.
Low flights of falling leaves;And
choirs of birds transfiguring as
they throng
Note
v. 71.Les Chants du Crépuscule, 1835.
All the
world's twilight and the soul's to
song.
[Ep. 2.Voices more dimly deep
Note
v. 73.Les Voix Intérieures, 1837.
[Ep. 2.Than the inmost heart of sleep,And tenderer than the rose-mouthed
morning's lips;And midmost of them heardThe viewless
water's word,The
sea's breath in the
wind's wing and the
ship's,That bids one swell and sound and smiteAnd rend that other in sunder as
with fangs by night.
[Str. 3But ah! the glory of shadow and mingling ray,
Note
v. 81.Les Rayons et les Ombres, 1840.
[Str. 3The story of morn and evenWhose tale was writ in
heavenAnd had
for scroll the night,
for scribe the day!For scribe the prophet of the morning,
farExalted over
twilight and her
star;For scroll beneath his Apollonian handThe dim twin wastes of
sea and glimmering
land.Hark, on the
hill-wind, clearFor all men's hearts to hearSound like
a stream at
nightfall from the
steepThat all
time's depths might
answer, deep to deep,With
trumpet-measures of triumphal wailFrom
windy vale to vale,The crying of one for love that strayed and sinnedWhose brain took madness of the mountain
wind.
[Ant. 3Between the birds of brighter and duskier wing, [Ant. 3What mightier-moulded formsGirt with red clouds and stormsMix their strong hearts with theirs that soar and
sing?Before the storm-blast blown of death's dark horn
Note
v. 101.Hernani, 1830.
The marriage
moonlight withers, that
the mornFor two made one may find three made by deathOne ruin at the blasting of its breath:Clothed with
heart's flame
renewed
Note
v. 105.Marion de Lorme, 1831.
And strange new maidenhood,Faith lightens on the lips that bloomed for hirePure as the lightning of love's first-born
fire:Wide-eyed and patient ever, till the curse
Note
v. 109.Le Roi s'amuse, 1832.
Find where to fall and pierce,Keen expiation whets with edge more dreadA father's wrong to smite a father's head.
[Ep. 3.Borgia, supreme from birth
Note
v. 113.Lucrèce Borgia, 1833.
[Ep. 3.As loveliest born on
earthSince
earth bore ever
women that were fair;Scarce known of her own houseIf daughter or sister or spouse;Who holds men's hearts yet helpless with her hair;The direst of divine things made,Bows down her amorous aureole half suffused with shade.
[Str. 4As red the
fire-scathed royal
northland bloom,
Note
v. 121.Marie Tudor, 1835.
[Str. 4That left our story a nameDyed through with blood and
flameEre her life shrivelled from a
fierier doomThan theirs her priests bade pass from
earth in
fireTo slake the thirst of God their Lord's desire:As keen the blast of love-enkindled fate
Note
v. 127.Angelo, Tyran de Padoue, 1835.
That burst the Paduan tyrant's guarded gate:As sad the softer moan
Note
v. 129.La Esmeralda, 1836.
Made one with
music's ownFor one whose feet made
music as they fellOn ways by loveless love made hot from hell:But higher than these and all the
song thereof
Note
v. 133.Ruy Blas, 1838.
The perfect heart of love,The heart by fraud and hate once crucified,That, dying, gave thanks, and in thanksgiving died.
[Ant. 4Above the
windy walls that
rule the Rhine
Note
v. 137.Les Burgraves, 1842.
[Ant. 4A noise of eagles' wingsAnd wintry war-time rings,With roar of ravage trampling corn and vineAnd storm of wrathful wassail dashed with
song,And under these the watch of wreakless wrong,With
fire of eyes
anhungered; and aboveThese, the light of the stricken eyes of love,The faint sweet eyes that followThe
wind-outwinging swallow,And face athirst with young wan yearning mouthTurned after toward the unseen all-golden
south,Hopeless to see the birds back ere life wane,Or the leaves born again;And still the might and
music mastering fateOf life more strong than death and love than hate.
[Ep. 4.In spectral strength biform
Note
v. 153.Cromwell, 1827: Étude sur Mirabeau, 1834
(Littérature et Philosophie mêlées, 1819–1834).
[Ep. 4.Stand the twin sons of stormTransfigured by transmission of one handThat gives the new-born
timeTheir semblance more sublimeThan once it lightened over each man's land;There Freedom's winged and wide-mouthed hound,And here our high Dictator, in his son discrowned.
[Str. 5What strong-limbed shapes of kindred throng round these
[Str. 5Before, between, behind,Sons born of one man's mind,Fed at his hands and fostered round his knees?Fear takes the spirit in thraldom at his nod,And pity makes it as the spirit of God,As his own soul that from her throne aboveSheds on all souls of men her showers of love,On all
earth's evil and painPours mercy forth as
rainAnd comfort as the
dewfall on dry land;And feeds with pity from a faultless handAll by their own fault stricken, all cast outBy all men's scorn or doubt,Or with their own hands wounded, or by fateBrought into bondage of men's fear or hate.
[Ant. 5In violence of strange visions
north and south
Note
v. 177.Han d' Islande, 1823. Bug-Jargal, 1826.
[Ant. 5Confronted,
east and west,With frozen or fiery breast,Eyes fixed or fevered, pale or bloodred mouth,Kept watch about his
dawn-enkindled dreams;But ere
high noon a light
of nearer beams
Note
v. 182.Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné, 1829: Claude
Gueux,1834.
Made his young
heaven of
manhood more benign,And love made soft his lips with spiritual wine,And left them
fired, and fedWith sacramental bread,And sweet with honey of tenderer words than tearsTo feed men's hopes and fortify men's fears,And strong to silence with benignant breathThe lips that doom to death,And swift with speech like
fire in fiery landsTo melt the steel's edge in the headsman's hands.
[Ep. 5.Higher than they rose of old,
Note
v. 193.Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831.
[Ep. 5.New builded now, behold,The live great likeness of Our Lady's towers;And round them like a doveWounded, and sick with love,One fair ghost moving, crowned with fateful flowers,Watched yet with eyes of bloodred lustAnd eyes of love's heart broken and unbroken trust.
[Str. 6But sadder always under shadowier skies, [Str. 6More pale and sad and clearWaxed always, drawn more near,The face of Duty lit with Love's own eyes;Till the awful hands that culled in rosier hours
Note
v. 205.Le Rhin, 1845.
From fairy-footed fields of wild old flowersAnd sorcerous woods of Rhineland, green and hoary,Young children's chaplets of enchanted story,The great kind hands that showedExile its homeward road,And, as man's helper made his foeman God,Of pity and mercy wrought themselves a rod,And opened for Napoleon's wandering kinFrance, and bade enter in,And threw for all the doors of refuge wide,Took to them lightning in the thunder-tide.
Note
v. 216.Napoléon le Petit, 1852. Châtiments, 1853.
Histoire d'un Crime, 1877. In this place I must take occasion
to relieve my conscience from a sense of duty unfulfilled so long as I for one
have not uttered my own poor private protest—worthless and weightless though it
may seem, if cast as a grain into the scale of public opinion—against a
projected insult at once to contemporary France and to the present only less
than to past generations of Englishmen.
On the proposed desecration of Westminster
Abbey by the erection of a monument to the son of Napoleon
III
“Let us go hence.” From the inmost shrine of graceWhere England hold the elect of her deadThere comes a word like one of old time
saidBy gods of old cast out. Here is no placeAt once for these and one of poisonous
race.Let each rise up from his dishallowed bedAnd pass forth silent. Each divine veiled
headShall speak in silence with averted face.“Scorn everlasting and eternal shameEat out the rotting record of his nameWho had the glory of all these graves in
trustAnd turned it to a hissing. His offenceMakes havoc of their desecrated dustWhose place is here no more. Let us go
hence.”
[Ant. 6For storm on
earth above had
risen from under, [Ant. 6Out of the hollow of hell,Such storm as never fellFrom darkest deeps of heaven distract with thunder;A cloud of cursing, past all shape of thought,More foul than foulest dreams, and overfraughtWith all obscene things and obscure of birthThat ever made infection of
man's earth;Having all hell for cloakWrapped round it as a smokeAnd in its womb such offspring so defiledAs
earth bare
never for her loathliest child,Rose, brooded, reddened, broke, and with its breathPut France to poisonous death;Yea, far as
heaven's red labouring eye
could glance,France was not, save in men cast forth of France.
[Ep. 6.Then,—while the plague-sore grew [Ep. 6.Two darkling decades through,And rankled in the festering
flesh of time,—Where darkness binds and freesThe wildest of wild
seasIn fierce mutations of the unslumbering clime,There, sleepless too, o'er shuddering wrongOne hand appointed shook the
reddening scourge of song.
[Str. 7And through the lightnings of the apparent word [Str. 7Dividing
shame's dense nightSounds lovelier than the lightAnd light more sweet than
song from night's
own birdMixed each their hearts with other, till the gloomWas glorious as with all the
stars in bloom,Sonorous as with all the
spheres in chimeHeard far through flowering
heaven: the
sea, sublimeOnce only with its ownOld
winds' and waters' tone,Sad only or glad with its own glory, and crownedWith its own light, and thrilled with
its own sound,Learnt now their
song, more sweet
than heaven's may be,Who pass away by
sea;The
song that takes of
old love's land farewell,With pulse of
plangent water
like a knell.
[Ant. 7And louder ever and louder and yet more loud [Ant. 7Till night be shamed of mornRings the Black Huntsman's hornThrough darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud,Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear;Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear,Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale,Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail,Till mitre and cowl bow downAnd crumble as a crown,Till Cæsar driven to lair and hounded PopeReel breathless and drop heartless out of hope,And one the uncleanest kinless beast of allLower than his fortune fall;The wolfish waif of casual empire, bornTo turn all hate and horror cold with scorn.
[Ep. 7.Yea, even at night's full noon[Ep. 7.Light's birth-song brake in tune,Spake, witnessing that with us one must be,God; naming so by nameThat priests have brought to shameThe strength whose scourge sounds on the
smitten sea;The mystery manifold of mightWhich bids the
wind give back
to night the things of
night.
[Str. 8Even God, the unknown of all time; force or thought,
[Str. 8Nature or fate or will,Clothed round with good and ill,Veiled and revealed of all things and of nought,Hooded and helmed with mystery, girt and shodWith light and darkness, unapparent God.Him the high prophet o'er his wild work bentFound indivisible ever and immanentAt hidden heart of truth,In forms of age and youthTransformed and transient ever; masked and crowned,From all bonds loosened and with all bonds bound,Diverse and one with all things; love and hate,Earth, and the
starry stateOf
heaven immeasurable,
and years that fleeAs clouds and
winds and rays
across the sea.
[Ant. 8But higher than stars and deeper than the waves
Note
v. 297.Les Contemplations, 1856
[Ant. 8Of day and night and morrowThat roll for all time, sorrowKeeps ageless watch over perpetual graves.From
dawn to morning of
the soul in flower,Through toils and dreams and visions, to that
hourWhen all the deeps were opened, and one doomTook two sweet lives to embrace them and entomb,The strong
song plies its
wingThat makes the darkness ringAnd the deep light reverberate sound as deep;Song soft as
flowers or grass more soft than sleep,Song bright as
heaven above
the mounting bird,Song like a God's
tears heardFalling, fulfilled of life and death and light,And all the
stars and all
the shadow of night.
[Ep. 8.Till, when its flight hath past [Ep. 8.Time's loftiest mark
and last,The goal where good kills evil with a kiss,And Darkness in God's sightGrows as his brother Light,And heaven and hell one heart whence all the abyssThrobs with love's music; from his tranceLove waking leads it home to her who stayed in France.
[Str. 9But now from all the world-old winds of the
air
Note
v. 321.La Légende des Siècles. Premeière série, 1859;
nouvelle série, 1877.
[Str. 9One blast of record ringsAs from time's hidden springsWith roar of rushing wings and
fires that bearToward
north and south
sonorous,
east and west,Forth of the dark wherein its records rest,The story told of the ages, writ nor
sungBy man's hand ever nor by mortal tongueTill, godlike with desire,One tongue of man took
fire,One hand laid hold upon the lightning, oneRose up to bear time witness what the
sunHad seen, and what the
moon and stars
of nightBeholding lost not light:From
dawn to dusk what
ways man wandering trodEven through the
twilight of the
gods to God.
[Ant. 9From
dawn of man and
woman twain and one [Ant.
9When the earliest dews impearledThe front of all the worldRinged with aurorean aureole of the
sun,To days that saw Christ's tears and hallowing breathPut life for love's sake in the lips of death,And
years as waves
whose brine was
fire, whose foamBlood, and the ravage of Neronian Rome;And the
eastern crescent's hornMightier awhile than morn;And knights whose lives were flights of eagles' wings,And lives like snakes' lives of engendering kings;And all the ravin of all the swords that reapLives cast as sheaves on heapFrom all the billowing harvest-fields of fight;And sounds of
love-songs
lovelier than the light.
[Ep. 9.The grim dim thrones of the east[Ep. 9.Set for death's riotous feastRound the bright board where darkling centuries wait,And servile slaughter, mute,Feeds power with fresh red fruit,Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate;And throne and cup and lamp's bright breathBear witness to their lord of only night and death.
[Str. 10Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled, [Str. 10And murder at his feetPlies lust with wine and meat,With offering of an old man and a child,With holy body and blood, inexpiableCommunion in the sacrament of hell,Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist,The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed,And empire in mid feastFall as a slaughtered beastHeadless, and ease men's hungering hearts of fearLest God were none in
heaven, to see
nor hear,And purge his own pollution with the floodPoured of his black base bloodSo first found healing, poisonous as it poured;And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword.
[Ant. 10As at the word unutterable that made [Ant. 10Of day and night division,From vision on to vision,From dream to dream, from darkness into shade,From sunshine into sunlight, moves and livesThe steersman's eye, the helming hand that givesLife to the wheels and wings that whirl alongThe immeasurable impulse of the
sphere of songThrough all the
eternal years,Beyond all
stars and spheres,Beyond the washing of the
waves of time,Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb,Beyond the darkling dust of
suns that were,Past height and depth of air;And in the abyss whence all things move that areFinds only living Love, the sovereign star.
Note
v. 392.Les Misérables, 1862.
[Ep. 10.Nor less the weight and worth [Ep. 10.Found even of love on
earthTo wash all stain of tears and sins away,On dying lips alitThat living knew not it,In the winged shape of
song with death to
play:To warm young children with its wings,And try with
fire the heart
elect for godlike things.
[Str. 11For all worst wants of all most miserable [Str. 11With divine hands to dealAll balms and herbs that heal,Among all woes whereunder poor men dwellOur Master sent his servant Love, to beOn
earth his
witness; but the strange deep
sea,Mother of life and death inextricate,What work should Love do there, to war with fate?Yet there must Love too keep
Note
v. 409.Les Travailleurs de la Mer, 1866.
At heart of the eyeless deepWatch, and wage war wide-eyed with all its wonders,Lower than the lightnings of its waves, and thundersOf
seas less monstrous
than the births they bred;Keep high there heart and head,And conquer: then for prize of all toils pastFeel the
sea close them in
again at last.
[Ant. 11A day of direr doom arisen thereafter
Note
v. 417.L'Homme qui Rit, 1869.
[Ant. 11With cloud and
fire in strifeLightens and darkens lifeRound one by man's hand masked with living laughter,A man by men bemonstered, but by love,Watched with blind eyes as of a wakeful dove,And wooed by lust, that in her rosy denAs
fire on flesh
feeds on the souls of men,To take the intense impureBurnt-offering of her lure,Divine and dark and bright and naked, strangeWith ravenous thirst of life reversed and change,As though the very
heaven should
shrivel and swellWith hunger after hell,Run mad for dear damnation, and desireTo feel its light thrilled through with stings of
fire.
[Ep. 11.Above a
windier sea,
Note
v. 433.Quatre-vingt-treize, 1874.
[Ep. 11.The glory of Ninety-threeFills
heaven with
blood-red and with rose-red beamsThat
earth beholding
growsHerself one burning roseFlagrant and fragrant with strange deeds and dreams,Dreams dyed as love's own flower, and deedsStained as with love's own life-blood, that for love's sake bleeds.
[Str. 12And deeper than all deeps of
seas and skies
Note
v. 441.William Shakespeare, 1864.
[Str. 12Wherein the shadows areCalled
sun and moon and starThat rapt conjecture metes with mounting eyes,Loud with strange waves and lustrous with new spheres,Shines, masked at once and manifest of
years,Shakespeare, a
heaven of heavenly eyes
beholden;And
forward years as backward years
grow golden
Note
v. 448.Actes et Paroles; Avant l'Exil, 1841-1851;
Pendant l'Exil, 1852-1870; Depuis l'Exil,
1870-1876.
With light of deeds and wordsAnd flight of God's fleet birds,Angels of wrath and love and truth and pity;And higher on exiled eyes their natural city
Note
v. 452.Paris, 1867.
Dawns down the depths of vision, more sublimeThan all truths born of
time;And eyes that wept above two dear sons dead
Note
v. 455.Mes Fils, 1875.
Grow saving
stars to guard
one hopeless head.
Note
v. 456.Pour un Soldat, 1875.
[Ant. 12Bright round the brows of banished age had shone
Note
v. 457.Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois, 1865.
[Ant. 12In vision flushed with truthThe rosy glory of youthOn streets and woodlands where in days long goneSweet love
sang light and
loud and deep and dear:And far the trumpets of the dreadful
year
Note
v. 462.L'Année Terrible, 1872.
Had pealed and wailed in darkness: last aroseThe
song of children,
kindling as a rose
Note
v. 464.L'Art d'être Grandpère, 1877.
At breath of
sunrise, bornOf the red flower of
mornWhose face perfumes deep
heaven with
odorous lightAnd thrills all through the wings of souls in flightClose as the press of children at His kneeWhom if the high priest see,
Note
v. 470.Le Pape, 1878.
Dreaming, as homeless on dark
earth he trod,The lips that praise him shall not know for God.
[Ep. 12.O sovereign spirit, above [Ep. 12.All offering but man's love,All praise and prayer and incense undefiled!The one thing stronger foundThan towers with iron bound;The one thing lovelier than a little child,And deeper than the
seas are deep,And tenderer than such tears of love as angels weep.
[Str. 13Dante, the seer of all things evil and good, [Str. 13Beheld two ladies, BeautyAnd high life-hallowing Duty,That strove for sway upon his mind and moodAnd held him in alternating accordFast bound at feet of either: but our lord,The seer and singer of righteousness and wrongWho stands now master of all the keys of
song,Sees both as dewdrops runTogether in the
sun,For him not twain but one thing twice divine;Even as his speech and
song are bread and
wineFor all souls hungering and all hearts athirstAt best of days and worst,And both one sacrament of Love's great givingTo feed the spirit and sense of all souls living.
[Ant. 13The
seventh day in the
wind's month,
ten years gone
Note
v. 497. “Septidi ventôse an X de la République (26
février 1802).” Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa
vie, 1863, tome 1, p. 28.
At the end of such a list so incomparable as to seem incredible, of one
great man's good works, we may be forgiven the alteration of a word even in
a verse from Aeschylus which we cannot choose but apply once more to this
leader in the advance of men made perfect through doom of trial and long
wayfaring, whose progress he furthers by example and stimulates by song:—
[Ant. 13Since
heaven-espousing earthGave the Republic birth,The mightiest soul put mortal raiment onThat came forth
singing ever in
man's earsOf all souls with us, and through all these
yearsRings yet the lordliest, waxen yet more strong,That on our souls hath shed itself in
song,Poured forth itself like rainOn souls like springing grainThat with its procreant beams and showers were fedFor living wine and sacramental bread;Given all itself as
air gives life and
light,Utterly, as of right;The goodliest gift our age hath given, to beOurs, while the
sun gives glory
to the sea.
[Ep. 13.Our Father and Master and Lord, [Ep. 13.Who hast thy
song for sword,For staff thy spirit, and our hearts for throne:As in
past years of
wrong,Take now my subject
song,To no crowned head made humble but thine own;That on thy day of worldly birthGives thanks for all thou hast given past thanks of all on
earth.
NOTES
v. 33.Odes et Ballades, 1822–1824.
v. 57.Les Orientales, 1829.
v. 69.Les Feuilles d'Automne, 1831.
v. 71.Les Chants du Crépuscule, 1835.
v. 73.Les Voix Intérieures, 1837.
v. 81.Les Rayons et les Ombres, 1840.
v. 101.Hernani, 1830.
v. 105.Marion de Lorme, 1831.
v. 109.Le Roi s'amuse, 1832.
v. 113.Lucrèce Borgia, 1833.
v. 121.Marie Tudor, 1835.
v. 127.Angelo, Tyran de Padoue, 1835.
v. 129.La Esmeralda, 1836.
v. 133.Ruy Blas, 1838.
v. 137.Les Burgraves, 1842.
v. 153.Cromwell, 1827: Étude sur Mirabeau, 1834
(Littérature et Philosophie mêlées, 1819–1834).
v. 177.Han d' Islande, 1823. Bug-Jargal, 1826.
v. 182.Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné, 1829: Claude
Gueux,1834.
v. 193.Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831.
v. 205.Le Rhin, 1845.
v. 216.Napoléon le Petit, 1852. Châtiments, 1853.
Histoire d'un Crime, 1877. In this place I must take occasion
to relieve my conscience from a sense of duty unfulfilled so long as I for one
have not uttered my own poor private protest—worthless and weightless though it
may seem, if cast as a grain into the scale of public opinion—against a
projected insult at once to contemporary France and to the present only less
than to past generations of Englishmen.
On the proposed desecration of Westminster
Abbey by the erection of a monument to the son of Napoleon
III
“Let us go hence.” From the inmost shrine of graceWhere England hold the elect of her deadThere comes a word like one of old time
saidBy gods of old cast out. Here is no placeAt once for these and one of poisonous
race.Let each rise up from his dishallowed bedAnd pass forth silent. Each divine veiled
headShall speak in silence with averted face.“Scorn everlasting and eternal shameEat out the rotting record of his nameWho had the glory of all these graves in
trustAnd turned it to a hissing. His offenceMakes havoc of their desecrated dustWhose place is here no more. Let us go
hence.”
v. 297.Les Contemplations, 1856
v. 321.La Légende des Siècles. Premeière série, 1859;
nouvelle série, 1877.
v. 392.Les Misérables, 1862.
v. 409.Les Travailleurs de la Mer, 1866.
v. 417.L'Homme qui Rit, 1869.
v. 433.Quatre-vingt-treize, 1874.
v. 441.William Shakespeare, 1864.
v. 448.Actes et Paroles; Avant l'Exil, 1841-1851;
Pendant l'Exil, 1852-1870; Depuis l'Exil,
1870-1876.
v. 452.Paris, 1867.
v. 455.Mes Fils, 1875.
v. 456.Pour un Soldat, 1875.
v. 457.Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois, 1865.
v. 462.L'Année Terrible, 1872.
v. 464.L'Art d'être Grandpère, 1877.
v. 470.Le Pape, 1878.
v. 497. “Septidi ventôse an X de la République (26
février 1802).” Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa
vie, 1863, tome 1, p. 28.
At the end of such a list so incomparable as to seem incredible, of one
great man's good works, we may be forgiven the alteration of a word even in
a verse from Aeschylus which we cannot choose but apply once more to this
leader in the advance of men made perfect through doom of trial and long
wayfaring, whose progress he furthers by example and stimulates by song:—