_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 grace Where England holds the elect of all her dead There comes a word like one of old time said By gods of old cast out. Here is no place At once for these and one of poisonous race. Let each rise up from his dishallowed bed And pass forth silent. Each divine veiled head Shall speak in silence with averted face. "Scorn everlasting and eternal shame Eat out the rotting record of his name Who had the glory of all these graves in trust And turned it to a hissing. His offence Makes havoc of their desecrated dust Whose place is here no more. Let us go hence."
321. _La Légende des Siècles_. _Première série_, 1859; _nouvelle série_, 1877.
448. _Actes et Paroles_; _Avant l'Exil_, 1841-1851; _Pendant l'Exil_, 1852-1870; _Depuis l'Exil_, 1870-1876.
457. _Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois_, 1865.
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 Æschylus 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:--
[Greek: kurios esti throein hodion kratos aision andrôn ekteleôn; eti gar theothen katapneiei peithô molpan alkai sumphutos aiôn.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode, by Algernon Charles Swinburne