Feelings of a French Royalist,[172]
by William Wordsworth — a poem card from Justes Mots
A Petrarchan sonnet on the disinterment of the Duke d'Enghien, a royalist victim of Napoleonic execution. Wordsworth uses the reburial as occasion to condemn both the crime and the blind political worship that enabled it, calling for justice and moral awakening. Suitable for commemorating the wrongfully executed or victims of political violence.
Dear Reliques! from a pit of vilest mould
Uprisen—to lodge among ancestral kings;
And to inflict shame's salutary stings
On the remorseless hearts of men grown old
In a blind worship; men perversely bold
Even to this hour,—yet, some shall now forsake
Their monstrous Idol if the dead e'er spake,
To warn the living; if truth were ever told…