Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/296

 THi: I KESENTATION. 271

And have it locked for hours. See, brilliant lights

Stream from the Tuileries, and in full ranks

Its officers and servitors are ranged,

To do their nation s honors. From the walls

Gleam forth, in pictured bravery and pride,

The gallant chiefs of France. On those we gazed

With critical remark, and on the groups

That promenaded through the spacious halls,

In costume ricli, the elite of many lands.

Ere long from lip to lip the murmur spread,

&quot; The king ! the king ! &quot; and so the throng drew back,

Each foreign region ranging neath the wing

Of its own minister. Can that be he ?

So fresh in feature and of step so firm,

So little worn by time and adverse years,

So little wearied with his toils to rule

The champing war-horse of a changeful realm,

Wild on the rein ? Courteous he passes down

The extended line, with fitting phrase for all.

Methought, with freer word and favoring glance,

He scanned the natives of that western clime,

Where, in the exile of his clouded youth,

He found a wanderer s home. T was sweet to hear,

In the bright throne-room of the Tuileries,

And from the lips of Europe s oldest king,

The name of my own river, and the spot

Where I was born, coupled with kindly words,

As one tenacious of their scenery,

Through many a lustrum.

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