I

Who rises on the banks of Seine, And binds her temples with the civic wreath? What joy to read the promise of her mien! How sweet to rest her wide-spread wings beneath! But they are ever playing, And twinkling in the light, And, if a breeze be straying, That breeze she will invite; And stands on tiptoe, conscious she is fair, And calls a look of love into her face, And spreads her arms, as if the general air Alone could satisfy her wide embrace. --Melt, Principalities, before her melt! Her love ye hailed--her wrath have felt! But She through many a change of form hath gone, And stands amidst you now an armèd creature, Whose panoply is not a thing put on, But the live scales of a portentous nature; That, having forced its way from birth to birth, Stalks round-abhorred by Heaven, a terror to the Earth!