[A] The Louvre.
Where stands the armless Venus, unto whom
Poor Heine cried for help, but none received,
Since pagan culture is quite impotent
To save a soul in doubt and error spent,
Though for poor Heine none needs to be grieved,
Whose glory mingles with the maid of foam.
Great Paris, scene of most momentous deeds,
Far reaching consequences to the race;
Where monarchs died like vilest criminals,
While Anarchy did sing her bacchanals,
And trampled in the mire, what once did grace,
The highest places and most hallowed creeds.
Where great Napoleon, a demigod,
Ascended to the pinnacle of fame
And pow’r most dread, who made the monarchs quail
Before his genius, until a wail
Of anguish rose mid ruin and the shame
Of empires, struck by heav’n’s avenging rod.
But even his greatness could not have its sway
O’er equilibriums by ages fixed;
His life was like the wierd and dazzling light
Of some stray star in its erratic flight,
Or like the image where the metals mixed,
The gold and silver with ignoble clay.
The head of gold, the feet of clay, and so
The little stone of Fate the giant felled,
The star erratic into exile sent,
Its lustre in ignominy misspent,
Still it had closed an age—whose doom was spelled,
The slave is free, the tyrant, too, must go.
But this was not the France Sordino knew,
Long time before the Corsican he lived,
Ere France had lost her faith in monks and nuns,
While chiming bells were more than roaring guns,
And in their potency the land believed,
Rejoicing that their fathers’ faith was true.
His life fell in the days of Charles the Great,
When wars were pleasant pastime for the kings,
Who fought for many reasons quite terrestrial,
But sometimes, as they thought, for things celestial,
And nothing like the latter valor brings,
Inspired by bigotry and hellish hate.
When France was warring for her very life,
And Guise, the mighty lion, held at bay,
When Florence beat her foe at Marciano,
And poor Sordino lost his sweet campana,
’Twas in that age he lived and made his way
To Paris, weary from the worldly strife.
He traveled like a scholar, incognito,
And sought the company of learned men,
Disputing with them in the classic lore;
This helped him churchly places to explore,
Where might have been, perchance, a robber’s den,
Since that of old has ever had a ditto.