Then came something of which the description we’d best give
Is, like Tennyson’s rhymes, it was “sweetly suggestive”—
A large shield, in the centre whereof was depicted
A hand lately severed,—the artist, addicted
(’Twas De Rodon himself) to pre-Raphaelite rules,
Had made the wrist “sanglant” with drops from it “gules.”
Then directly behind this agreeable affair
Came the city “Jack Ketch” with his horrid axe bare!
Then more spearmen; and then rushed the crowd out of breath,
With their eagerness all to be in at the death.