The First Black Flag

[MikeLigalig.com]

THE FIRST BLACK FLAG by Victor Hugo
     ("Avez-vous oui dire?")

     {LES BURGRAVES, Part I., March, 1843.}
       JOB. Hast thou ne'er heard men say
     That, in the Black Wood, 'twixt Cologne and Spire,
     Upon a rock flanked by the towering mountains,
     A castle stands, renowned among all castles?
     And in this fort, on piles of lava built,
     A burgrave dwells, among all burgraves famed?
     Hast heard of this wild man who laughs at lawsâ€"
     Charged with a thousand crimesâ€"for warlike deeds
     Renownedâ€"and placed under the Empire's ban
     By the Diet of Frankfort; by the Council
     Of Pisa banished from the Holy Church;
     Reprobate, isolated, cursedâ€"yet still
     Unconquered 'mid his mountains and in will;
     The bitter foe of the Count Palatine
     And Treves' proud archbishop; who has spurned
     For sixty years the ladder which the Empire
     Upreared to scale his walls? Hast heard that he
     Shelters the braveâ€"the flaunting rich man stripsâ€"
     Of master makes a slave? That here, above
     All dukes, aye, kings, eke emperorsâ€"in the eyes
     Of Germany to their fierce strife a prey,
     He rears upon his tower, in stern defiance,
     A signal of appeal to the crushed people,
     A banner vast, of Sorrow's sable hue,
     Snapped by the tempest in its whirlwind wrath,
     So that kings quiver as the jades at whips?
     Hast heard, he touches now his hundredth yearâ€"
     And that, defying fate, in face of heaven,
     On his invincible peak, no force of war
     Uprooting other holdsâ€"nor powerful Cæsarâ€"
     Nor Romeâ€"nor age, that bows the pride of manâ€"
     Nor aught on earthâ€"hath vanquished, or subdued,
     Or bent this ancient Titan of the Rhine,
     The excommunicated Job?

     Democratic Review.

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