Impressions: A Book of Verse/Chateau D'hautefort: Then

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

CHÂTEAU D'HAUTEFORT: THEN

ENTHRONED upon thy hills in stately pride,
Hautefort! in thee the past doth live again
Here with his thousand armed men in train
Bertrand de Born brought his fair girlish bride.
Here the Black Prince in vain for victory sighed,
And stormed against thy mighty walls in vain
As some overmastering flood sweeps bare the plain
But breaks against the steadfast rock its tide.

This was that France for which so many gave
Their lives with joy, and watered with their blood
The thirsty dust, from which her lilies sprung,
And knight and clown served her in brotherhood!
For them a foreign prison or a grave,
For her the glory which her poets sung.