sown,
     Ran venom of what nourishment
     Her dark sustainer subterrene
     Supplied her, stretched supine on the rack,
     Alive in the shrewd nerves, the seething brains,
     Under derisive revels, prone
     As one clamped fast, with the interminable senseless blent.

     VI

     Now was her face white waves in the tempest’s sharp flame-blink;
     Her skies shot black. 
     Now was it visioned infamy to drink
     Of earth’s cool dew, and through the vines
     Frolic in pearly laughter with her young,
     Watching the healthful, natural, happy signs
     Where hands of lads and maids like tendrils clung,
     After their sly shy ventures from the leaf,
     And promised bunches.  Now it seemed
     The world was one malarious mire,
     Crying for purification:  chief
     This land of France.  It seemed
     A duteous desire
     To drink of life’s hot flood, and the crimson streamed.

     VII

     She drank what makes man demon at the draught. 
     Her skies lowered black,
     Her lover flew,
     There swept a shudder over men. 
     Her heavenly lover fled her, and she laughed,
     For laughter was her spirit’s weapon then. 
     The Infernal rose uncalled, he with his crew.

     VIII

     As mighty thews burst manacles, she went mad: 
     Her heart a flaring torch usurped her wits. 
     Such enemies of her next-drawn breath she had! 
     To tread her down in her live grave beneath
     Their dancing floor sunned blind by the Royal wreath,
     They ringed her steps with crafty prison pits. 
     Without they girdled her, made nest within. 
     There ramped the lion, here entrailed the snake. 
     They forced the cup to her lips when she drank blood;
     Believing it, in the mother’s mind at strain,
     In the mother’s fears, and in young Liberty’s wail
     Alarmed, for her encompassed children’s sake,
     The sole sure way to save her priceless bud. 
     Wherewith, when power had gifted her to prevail,
     Vengeance appeared as logically akin. 
     Insanely rational they; she rationally insane;
     And in compute of sin, was hers the appealing sin.

     IX

     Amid the plash of scarlet mud
     Stained at the mouth, drunk with our common air,
     Not lack of love was her defect;
     The Fury mourned and raged and bled for France
     Breathing from exultation to despair
     At every wild-winged hope struck by mischance
     Soaring at each faint gleam o’er her abyss. 
     Heard still, to be heard while France shall stand erect,
     The frontier march she piped her sons, for where
     Her crouching outer enemy camped,
     Attendant on the deadlier inner’s hiss. 
     She piped her sons the frontier march, the wine