Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.
St. Bartholomew’s Day
By Robert Southey (1774–1843)T
The dreams of innocence;
They trust in kingly faith and kingly oaths,
They sleep,—alas! they sleep.
How hideous night can be;
Eye is not closed in those accursed walls,
Nor heart at quiet there.
He listens to the night,
And with a horrible and eager hope
Awaits the midnight bell.
God, always art thou just!
For innocence can never know such pangs
As pierce successful guilt.
Hark!—now the midnight bell
Sounds through the silence of the night alone;
And now the signal gun!
He hears the frantic shriek,
He hears the glorying yells of massacre,
And he repents too late.
He hears the groan of death;
In vain they fly,—soldiers defenceless now,
Women, old men, and babes.
For at his dying hour
Those shrieks and groans re-echoed in his ear,
He heard that murderous yell!
The phantoms of the slain,—
It preyed like poison on his powers of life,—
Righteous art thou, O God!
For freedom and for faith,
Ye saw your country bent beneath the yoke,
Her faith and freedom crushed.
Ye saw when France awoke;
Ye saw the people burst their double chain,
And ye had joy in heaven.