To Beranger at Tours

O harp of France! why hang unstrung
Those poplar-waving isles among
Which thinly shade the sunny Loire?
Beranger! bid that harp once more
Resound to Seine's polluted shore,
And wake to shame thy slumbering choir.
Beauty and love and joyous feast
Become thee, but become thee least
In these dark days when none rejoice;
Yet thou hast deeper tones, and those
Can shake with terror freedom's foes:
Strike, sing; they shall not drown thy voice.
Bid France lift up her brow again,
Nor cower before the bravest men,
Remembering those her prime had borne;
Hated, distrusted, hath she been,
But never until now hath seen
So near, so dark, the scowl of scorn.
Write on the rampire of Marseilles
Here Power in Virtue's presence quails,
And warns the patr iot from the pier:
Yet the self-exiled sons of Greece %
Deposed their shatter'd limbs in peace,
With barbarous nations round them, here.
In inextinguishable flame
Write thine with Abdel-Kader's name.
On Amboise's high prison-wall:
Add, Beranger, these words below,
Defiance to the advancing foe!
Grace to the vanquisht! faith to all!