Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE CHILD OF FRANCE; ON THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL OF FRANCE, by JANET HAMILTON Poet's Biography First Line: Exhausted, faint, and pale Last Line: Our country, and our god! Alternate Author Name(s): Hamilton, Janet Thompson Subject(s): Birth; Courts & Courtiers; France; Inheritance & Succession; Child Birth; Midwifery; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Heirs | ||||||||
EXHAUSTED, faint, and pale, A fair young mother lies She hears her babe's first wail, And lifts her languid eyes; For he, the Imperial Sire, Her couch of suffering tends In his dark eyes the fire Of pride and triumph blends. And while his arms retain The new-born child of France, Ambition's phantom train Through brain and bosom dance? A shadowy line of kings In long prospective rise, On rush of eagle wings, They cross his dreaming eyes. A hundred cannons boom Loud vivas rend the air Ten thousand lights illume The city of the heir. The noble, brave, and fair, The palace portals throng All earth deems rich and rare, The admiring gaze prolong. The regal splendours round The wond'rous cot that holds The worshipp'd heir, late found His robes, embroider'd, folds The ermine gem and lace That drape the tiny form. Shall o'er that placid face Sweep Revolution's storm? Shall madden'd thousands swell, And rush like waves on shore, Assail with blow and yell? All this hath been before. Pale Reichstadt, where art thou? Bordeaux and Orleans, where? Dead! exileswanderers now And this is France's heir. The Sire hath rear'd a throne Perchance a funeral pyre. Beneath chained thunders groan, And glows volcanic fire; And earthquake shock may rend The hollow-heaving earth, And from the gulf ascend A newer, sterner birth! The Titans of the press The powers of speech and mind Each in his dark recess, Like Samson, shorn and blind May rise in strength and light, And, chainless, walk abroad; Their mottoHuman right, Our country, and our God! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INHERITANCE by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THE GRIEF OF AN HEIR by WILLIAM COWPER THE THREE-CORNERED LOT by NATHALIA CRANE FROM JUNE TO JUNE by NORMAN STAUNTON DIKE HAME CONTENT: A SATIRE by ROBERT FERGUSSON ROB. FERGUSSON'S LAST WILL by ROBERT FERGUSSON INHERITANCE by HORTENSE KING FLEXNER FABLES: 2ND SER. 12. PAN AND FORTUNE by JOHN GAY A BALLAD FOUNDED ON A REAL INCIDENT WHICH OCCURED IN HIGH LIFE by JANET HAMILTON |
|