POETRY.
THY HEROES, FRANCE—.
THY heroes, France, forsake thee not ; they stand,
Few braving many, in a hostile land—
Thy soldier—who, commanded to be still, To acquiesce in the established ill, In righteous pity and in righteous wrath Strode boldly on his persecuted path, For tracking guilt, himself the sentence bore, Thy martyr, France, thy soldier now no more : Thy famous penman, who in the world's ear Rang accusation none could choose but hear : Thy lawyer, whom the assassin's bullet stung, Loosed like an asp to still that eager tongue, Who from the hard street where unhelped he lay Limped nnaffrighted to renew the fray : And he, thy scapegoat, long immured from sight, His name a mere flag tossing in the fight, Who at the last won for thee, thankless France, A crowning glory of strong sufferance : For thee,—since all are thine, thine at thy need, Jew or Alsatian, of thy glorious breed; And, honouring these, in them we honour thee, And would see France what these would have her be, Humbled and not humiliated, raised Out of the slough where cowards roll disgraced, Cleansed—as by fire if needs be—young and new, To her great self, as are her heroes, true.
STEPHEN GWYNN.
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