To mortal source, this alien of his kind;
     Creator, slayer, conjuror, Solon-Mars,
     The cataract of the abyss, the star of stars;
     Whose arts to lay the senses under spell
     Aroused an insurrectionary mind.

     IX

     He, did he love her?  France was his weapon, shrewd
     At edge, a wind in onset:  he loved well
     His tempered weapon, with the which he hewed
     Clean to the ground impediments, or hacked,
     Sure of the blade that served the great man-miracle. 
     He raised her, robed her, gemmed her for his bride,
     Did but her blood in blindness given exact. 
     Her blood she gave, was blind to him as guide: 
     She quivered at his word, and at his touch
     Was hound or steed for any mark he espied. 
     He loved her more than little, less than much. 
     The fair subservient of Imperial Fact
     Next to his consanguineous was placed
     In ranked esteem; above the diurnal meal,
     Vexatious carnal appetites above,
     Above his hoards, while she Imperial Fact embraced,
     And rose but at command from under heel. 
     The love devolvent, the ascension love,
     Receptive or profuse, were fires he lacked,
     Whose marrow had expelled their wasteful sparks;
     Whose mind, the vast machine of endless haste,
     Took up but solids for its glowing seal. 
     The hungry love, that fish-like creatures feel,
     Impelled for prize of hooks, for prey of sharks,
     His night’s first quarter sicklied to distaste,
     In warm enjoyment barely might distract. 
     A head that held an Europe half devoured
     Taste in the blood’s conceit of pleasure soured. 
     Nought save his rounding aim, the means he plied,
     Death for his cause, to him could point appeal. 
     His mistress was the thing of uses tried. 
     Frigid the netting smile on whom he wooed,
     But on his Policy his eye was lewd. 
     That sharp long zig-zag into distance brooked
     No foot across; a shade his ire provoked. 
     The blunder or the cruelty of a deed
     His Policy imperative could plead. 
     He deemed nought other precious, nor knew he
     Legitimate outside his Policy. 
     Men’s lives and works were due, from their birth’s date,
     To the State’s shield and sword, himself the State. 
     He thought for them in mass, as Titan may;
     For their pronounced well-being bade obey;
     O’er each obstructive thicket thunderclapped,
     And straight their easy road to market mapped. 
     Watched Argus to survey the huge preserves
     He held or coveted; Mars was armed alert
     At sign of motion; yet his brows were murk,
     His gorge would surge, to see the butcher’s work,
     The Reaper’s field; a sensitive in nerves. 
     He rode not over men to do them hurt. 
     As one who claimed to have for paramour
     Earth’s fairest form, he dealt the cancelling blow;
     Impassioned, still impersonal; to ensure
     Possession; free of rivals, not their foe.