Page:Impressions- A Book of Verse.djvu/69

 CHÂTEAU D'HAUTEFORT: THEN

NTHRONED upon thy hills in stately pride, Hautefort! in thee the past doth live again Here with his thousand armed men in train Bertrand de Born brought his fair girlish bride. Here the Black Prince in vain for victory sighed, And stormed against thy mighty walls in vain As some overmastering flood sweeps bare the plain But breaks against the steadfast rock its tide.

This was that France for which so many gave Their lives with joy, and watered with their blood The thirsty dust, from which her lilies sprung, And knight and clown served her in brotherhood! For them a foreign prison or a grave, For her the glory which her poets sung.