I
Claude to Eustace
What do the people say, and what does the government do?—youAsk, and I know not at all. Yet fortune will favour your hopes; andI, who avoided it all, am fated, it seems, to describe it.I, who nor meddle nor make in politics,—I who sincerelyPut not my trust in leagues nor any suffrage by ballot,Never predicted Parisian millenniums, never beheld aNew Jerusalem coming down dressed like a bride out of heavenRight on the Place de la Concorde,—I, nevertheless, let me say it,Could in my soul of souls, this day, with the Gaul at the gates shedOne true tear for thee, thou poor little Roman Republic;What, with the German restored, with Sicily safe to the Bourbon,Not leave one poor corner for native Italian exertion?France, it is foully done! and you, poor foolish England,—You, who a twelvemonth ago said nations must choose for themselves, youCould not, of course, interfere,—you, now, when a nation has chosen—Pardon this folly! The Times will, of course, have announced the occasion,Told you the news of to-day; and although it was slightly in errorWhen it proclaimed as a fact the Apollo was sold to a Yankee,You may believe when it tells you the French are at Civita Vecchia.