ON THE PORTRAITS

By Philip Morin Freneau

Discharg'd by France, no more the royal pair

Claim from a nation's love a nation's care:

Their splendid race no more a palace holds,—

While Louis frets, Antonietta scolds;

Folly's sad victims, fortune's bitter sport,

They take their stand among the “common sort,”

Doom'd through the world, in sad reverse, to roam,

Perhaps — without a shelter or a home!

To shew our pity for their short-liv'd reign

What shall we do, or how express our pain?

Since for their persons no relief is found

But cruel mobs degrade them to the ground,

To shew how deeply we regret their fall

We hang their portraits in our Senate Hall!