Years, years ago a nation, {44} Oppressed as you are oppressed, Burst her bonds and leaped out, A volcanic sea-wave of fire, Quenched at last but in blood, Though not before the red spray Dashed the Pyramids, the Escurial, Rome and your own grey Kremlin. That was the great sea-wave Of a nation that disbelieved, Of a nation that had not faith! _What shall the sea-wave be_ _Of this race of eternal belief_, _This nation of a passionate faith_? PÈRE-LA-CHAISE. {45} (_Paris_.) I stood in Père-la-Chaise. The putrid city, Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay, The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity, Flashing her bare shame to the summer’s day. Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom Hell’s wrongs unutterable had made as mad. The rifle-shots re-echoed in his tomb, The gilded scoundrel’s who had been so glad. O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race! O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that The lust in one for power, for tinsel place, Might rest; one lecher’s hungry heart grow fat,— Is it for nothing, now and evermore, O you whose sin in life had death in ease, The murder of your victims beats the door Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace? AUX TERNES. {46} (_Paris_.) SHE.—“_Up and down_, _up and down_, _From early eve to early day_. _Life is quicker in the town_; _When you’ve leisure_, _anyway_! “_Down and up_, _down and up_! _O will no one stop and speak_? _I would really like to sup_, _And my limbs are heavy and weak_. “_What’s my price_, _sir_? _I’m no Jew_. _If with me you wish to sleep_, _’Tis five francs_, _sir_. _Surely you_ _Will admit that that is cheap_?” HE.—“Christ, if you are not stone blind, Stone deaf also, you know it is Christian towns leave far behind Sodom and those other cities. “Bid your Father strike this town, Wipe it utterly away! Weary, hungry, up and down From early eve to early day? “Magdalen knew nought like this; She had food and roof above; Seven devils, too, did she possess; This poor soul had but one—love! “O my sister, take me, kill me! I am one of those who once Only cared to feast and fill me On these robbed and murdered ones. “Kill me? Nay, but love me; listen. I have too a gospel word, Fit to make still, dull eyes glisten, And, like Christ’s, it brings a sword! “No, Christ is not deaf nor blind; He’s but dust in Syrian ground, And his Father has declined To a parson’s phrase, a sound.