VICTOR HUGO IN 1877

Above the spring-tide sundawn of the year,

A sunlike star, not born of day or night,

Filled the fair heaven of spring with heavenlier light,

Made of all ages orbed in one sole sphere

Whose light was as a Titan's smile or tear;

Then rose a ray more flowerlike, starry white,

Like a child's eye grown lovelier with delight,

Sweet as a child's heart-lightening laugh to hear;

And last a fire from heaven, a fiery rain

As of God's wrath on the unclean cities, fell

And lit the shuddering shades of half-seen hell

That shrank before it and were cloven in twain;

A beacon fired by lightning, whence all time

Sees red the bare black ruins of a crime.