Poetry Archives

Poor, lone Carlotta, Mexico’s mad Queen,
  Babbling of him, amid thy vacant halls,
  Whose ears have long been heedless of thy calls;
Sad monument of pomp that once hath been,
Thy staring eyes mark ever the same scene
  Of levelled muskets, and a corpse which falls,
  Dabbled in blood, beneath the city walls—
Though twenty years have rolled their tides between.

Not of this world thy vengeance! They have passed,
  Traitor and victim, to the shadow-land.
Not of this world thy joy; but, when at last
  Reason returns in Paradise, its hand
Shall join the shattered links of thought again,
Save those that form this interval of pain.