Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/92

92 Bid the throng Who pour'd thee incense, as Olympian Jove, And breath'd thy thunders on the battle field, Return, and rear thy monument. Those forms O'er the wide vallies of red slaughter spread, From pole to tropic, and from zone to zone, Heed not thy clarion call. But should they rise, As in the vision that the prophet saw, And each dry bone its sever'd fellow find, Piling their pillar'd dust, as erst they gave Their souls for thee, the wondering stars might deem A second time the puny pride of man Did creep by stealth upon its Babel stairs, To dwell with them. But here unwept thou art, Like a dead lion in his thicket-lair, With neither living man, nor spirit condemn'd, To write thine epitaph. Invoke the climes, Who serv'd as playthings in thy desperate game Of mad ambition, or their treasures strew'd Till meagre famine on their vitals prey'd, To pay thy reckoning. France! who gave so free Thy life-stream to his cup of wine, and saw That purple vintage shed o'er half the earth, Write the first line, if thou hast blood to spare. Thou too, whose pride did deck dead Cæsar's tomb, And chant high requiem o'er the tyrant band Who had their birth with thee, lend us thine arts Of sculpture and of classic eloquence To grace his obsequies, at whose dark frown Thine ancient spirit quail'd; and to the list