Page:A book of the Pyrenees.djvu/117

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No more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk, of desert life for thee; No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free; Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain, Shatter against the cage the wing thou ne'er mayst spread again.

They gave him what he asked; from king to king he spake As one that plighted word and seal not knoweth how to break; 'Let me pass from out my deserts, be't mine own choice where to go, I brook no fettered life to live, a captive and a show.'

And they promised and he trusted them, and proud and calm he came, Upon his black mare riding, girt with his sword of flame: Good steed, good sword, he rendered unto the Prankish throng; He knew them false and fickle—but a Prince's word is strong.

How have they kept their promise? Turned they the vessel's prow Upon Acre, Alexandria, as they have sworn e'en now? Not so: from Oran northwards the white sails gleam and glance. And the wild hawk of the desert is borne away to France.

They have need of thee to gaze on, they have need of thee to grace The triumph of the Prince, to gild the pinch-beck of their race. Words are but wind, conditions must be construed by Guizot: Dash out thy heart, thou desert hawk, ere thou art made a show."

With the exception of the castle there is nothing of architectural interest in Pau. The churches are modern, and the predominant feature of the place is hotels, monster hotels that even dwarf the castle.

But the great glory of Pau is the view of the chain of the Pyrenees from the terrace and the park. That from the Schänzle above Berne of the giants of the Oberland is beautiful, but not comparable with the prospect from Pau. All the middle distance in the view from Berne is filled up with rolling hills, and it is over them that one catches glimpses of the snowy heads of the Alps. But from Pau one has in front the broad trough of the Gave, beyond which are the