WHEN France with civil wars was torn, | |
| And heads, as well as crowns, were shorn | |
| From royal shoulders, | |
| One Bourbon, in unaltered plight, | |
| Hath still maintained its regal right, | 5 |
| And held its court,—a goodly sight | |
| To all beholders. | |
| |
| Thou, leafy monarch, thou alone, | |
| Hast sat uninjured on thy throne, | |
| Seeing the war range; | 10 |
| And when the great Nassaus were sent | |
| Crownless away, (a sad event!) | |
| Thou didst uphold and represent | |
| The House of Orange. | |
| |
| To tell what changes thou hast seen, | 15 |
| Each grand monarque, and king and queen, | |
| Of French extraction, | |
| Might puzzle those who don’t conceive | |
| French history, so I believe | |
| Comparing thee with ours will give | 20 |
| More satisfaction. | |
| |
| Westminster Hall, whose oaken roof | |
| The papers say (but that ’s no proof) | |
| Is nearly rotten, | |
| Existed but in stones and trees, | 25 |
| When thou wert waving in the breeze, | |
| And blossoms (what a treat for bees!) | |
| By scores hadst gotten. | |
| |
| Chaucer, so old a bard that time | |
| Has antiquated every chime, | 30 |
| And from his tomb outworn each rhyme | |
| Within the Abbey; | |
| And Gower, an older poet whom | |
| The Borough Church enshrines (his tomb, | |
| Though once restored, has lost its bloom, | 35 |
| And got quite shabby,) | |
| |
| Lived in thy time,—the first perchance | |
| Was beating monks when thou in France | |
| By monks wert beaten, | |
| Who shook beneath this very tree | 40 |
| Their reverend beards, with glutton glee, | |
| As each down-falling luxury | |
| Was caught and eaten. | |
| |
| Perchance when Henry gained the fight | |
| Of Agincourt, some Gaulish knight, | 45 |
| (His bleeding steed in woful plight, | |
| With smoking haunches,) | |
| Laid down his helmet at thy root, | |
| And, as he plucked the grateful fruit, | |
| Suffered his poor exhausted brute | 50 |
| To crop thy branches. | |
| |
| Thou wert of portly size and look, | |
| When first the Turks besieged and took | |
| Constantinople; | |
| And eagles in thy boughs might perch, | 55 |
| When, leaving Bullen in the lurch, | |
| Another Henry changed his church, | |
| And used the Pope ill. | |
| |
| What numerous namesakes hast thou seen | |
| Lounging beneath thy shady green, | 60 |
| With monks as lazy; | |
| Louis Quatorze has pressed that ground, | |
| With his six mistresses around,— | |
| A sample of the old and sound | |
| Legitimacy. | 65 |
| |
| And when despotic freaks and vices | |
| Brought on the inevitable crisis | |
| Of revolution, | |
| Thou heard’st the mob’s infuriate shriek, | |
| Who came their victim queen to seek, | 70 |
| On guiltless heads the wrath to wreak | |
| Of retribution. | |
| |
| O, of what follies, vice, and crime, | |
| Hast thou in thine eventful time | |
| Been made beholder! | 75 |
| What wars, what feuds,—the thoughts appall! | |
| Each against each, and all with all, | |
| Till races upon races fall, | |
| In earth to moulder. | |
| |
| Whilst thou, serene, unaltered, calm, | 80 |
| (Such are the constant gifts and balm | |
| Bestowed by Nature!) | |
| Hast year by year renewed thy flowers, | |
| And perfumed the surrounding bowers, | |
| And poured down grateful fruit by showers, | 85 |
| And proffered shade in summer hours | |
| To man and creature. | |
| |
| Thou green and venerable tree! | |
| Whate’er the future doom may be, | |
| By fortune given, | 90 |
| Remember that a rhymester brought | |
| From foreign shores thine umbrage sought, | |
| Recalled the blessings thou hadst wrought, | |
| And, as he thanked thee, raised his thought | |
| To heaven! | 95 |
| |
