Classic Poem

Le 14 Juillet

How the remembrance a poor captive charms!
I, still a boy, for vengeance heard the cry,
" To the Bastille! To arms! haste, haste to arms! "
Art, trade, and labor, all their hosts supply
Wife, daughter, mother, in pale groups stand round;
The cannon roar; the rolling drums resound:
Lo! the Bastille is theirs; victory the mob hath crowned!
The sun pours forth a brilliant ray,
To welcome in this glorious day

Youth and old age, rich, poor, embrace with glee;
A thousand exploits female tongues repeat;
A soldier passing, clad in blue, they see,
And him as hero, hands and voices greet.
Harsh on mine ear the kingly titles break;
Now Lafayette their darling theme they make:
France has her freedom gained; my reason is awake!
The sun pours forth a brilliant ray,
To welcome in this glorious day

An old man on the morrow, grave and wise,
Guided my steps o'er ruins vast and drear:
" My son, " quoth he, " a slavish people's cries
Enslaving despots oft have stifled here.
But they, their crowd of captives safe to keep,
Beneath each tower dug out the earth so deep
That this, their ancient fort, one shock could level sweep
The sun poured forth a brilliant ray,
To welcome in that glorious day

" Ancient and holy rebel, Freedom here,
Grasping for arms the chains our grandsires wore,
Triumphant, bids Equality appear,
Who comes, from Heaven descending as of yore.
Sisters are they: their lightnings hiss and glow;
Against the Court now thunders Mirabeau;
There would his voice to us another Bastille show!
The sun poured forth a brilliant ray,
To welcome in that glorious day.

" Each nation reaps where'er the seed we sow;
Monarchs by scores of all our movements hear!
Subjects around, of us, are whispering low;
Kings raise their hands to touch their crowns, in fear
An era teeming with the Rights of Man
Commences here, and the whole globe shall span;
God in this wreck marks out for a new world his plan
To sun poured forth a brilliant ray,
To welcome in that glorious day "

Such was the lesson from that veteran learned,
Thrown in my mind to heedless slumber by;
Now forty years are past, and lo! returned
To me, in jail, that epoch of July!
Freedom! my voice they would forbid to sing;
Yet with thy glory these dull walls shall ring:
Morning athwart my bars her brightest smiles can fling!
Still shines the sun with brilliant ray,
To welcome in this glorious day.