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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Toussaint L’Ouverture

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.

Besançon

Toussaint L’Ouverture

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

TOUSSAINT!—thou most unhappy man of men!

Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough

Within thy hearing, or thou liest now

Buried in some deep dungeon’s earless den:

O miserable chieftain!—where and when

Wilt thou find patience?—Yet die not, do thou

Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow;

Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,

Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,—

There ’s not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee: thou hast great allies.

Thy friends are exultations, agonies,

And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.