Poem by Louise Imogen Guiney

On the Cenotaph of the Prince Imperial in Saint George’s Chapel

No young and exiled dust beneath is laid
In sole entail of high inheritance,
Though once compassion softly came, and made
A sleep at Windsor for the Son of France:
And sleep so long hath kept his image clear
Of pain’s pollution, and the Zulu spear,
It seems his piteous self at last that lies
In prayer’s old heart built to the island skies,
Low as the sifted snow is, and meek as Paradise.

Thus passeth all ye dream of might and grace!
Wherefore, beside the stones that cry it loud,
Let every musing spirit pause to trace
The cloud-burst of that Empire like a cloud;
And, looking on these stainless brows, proclaim
Peace unto Corsica’s portentous name,
And peace to her, who in a sculptured boy,
Mould of her martyred beauty and her joy,
Reads here the end of Helen, the end of Helen’s Troy.

1. Of Joan’s Youth
2. A Madonna of Domenico Ghirlandajo
3. Spring Nightfall
4. A Friend’s Song for Simoisius
5. Florentin

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