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| THE STATELIEST walk which man hath made— | |
| Imperial Rome no equal shows— | |
| Is that which casts a league of shade | |
| Where Seine amidst her meadows flows. | |
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| Spring clothes its cyclopean wall | 5 |
| Of living forest every year, | |
| And Autumn drapes a splendid pall | |
| For Nature as the days grow drear. | |
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| And though it was the hand of Art | |
| Which shaped and wrought the royal plan, | 10 |
| Yet Nature brought her nobler part | |
| To dignify the work of man. | |
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| It sweeps athwart the level hill, | |
| As if for giant footsteps meant; | |
| What king but here might gaze his fill, | 15 |
| And pace the mighty path content! | |
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| Yet here a kingly exile came, | |
| To brood on sorrows day by day; | |
| Of daughters who abjured his name, | |
| And three fair kingdoms passed away. | 20 |
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| A dark and melancholy soul | |
| His pictures show, as if he saw | |
| The writing of some fatal scroll, | |
| The sentence of some ruthless law; | |
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| And knew his father’s blood had made | 25 |
| A vain libation for the race, | |
| Whose last lone son should lay his head | |
| Uncrowned within the sacred place | |
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| Where nations worship, and should owe | |
| Unto the king who wore his crown, | 30 |
| Canova’s tomb of moulded snow, | |
| And words whereby his state is known. | |
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| Sad English ghost! whose line decayed | |
| On English page scarce owns a friend! | |
| With what pathetic steps ye tread | 35 |
| The lordly walk from end to end! | |
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