FOR France and liberty he set apart His soul at first in aspiration high. But pure thoughts wither and ideals die. And self, fed richly from ambition's mart, Swelled, triumphed with insinuating art, The hideous, monstrous, all-engrossing I, Which strangled love and France and liberty And laid its eager clutch on Europe's heart. Then Spain assailed it like an autumn gust, And England netted it with her sea-might, And Russia opened all her icy graves. The huge colossus crumbled into dust And sank forever out of human sight On a lone island 'mid the Atlantic waves. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CONFLICT by CECIL DAY LEWIS THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: PICTURE-WRITING by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ON MILTON'S PARADISE LOST by ANDREW MARVELL WALT WHITMAN by HARRISON SMITH MORRIS LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY INVITATION by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS STANZA by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON THE THING TO DO by GAMALIEL BRADFORD THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: METEMPSYCHOSIS by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |