⁠What shall this year do that hath lived to see
⁠The piteous and unpitied end of thee?
What moan, what cry, what clamour shall it make,
Seeing as a reed breaks all thine empire break,
⁠And all thy great strength as a rotten tree,
⁠Whose branches made broad night from sea to sea,
And the world shuddered when a leaf would shake?
From the unknown deep wherein those prayers were heard,
From the dark height of time there sounds a word,
⁠Crying, Comfort; though death ride on this red hour,
⁠Hope waits with eyes that make the morning dim,
⁠Till liberty, reclothed with love and power,
⁠Shall pass and know not if she tread on him.