Poem by Robert Southey

For a Monument at Taunton

THEY suffered here whom Jeffreys doomed to death
In mockery of all justice, when the judge
Unjust, subservient to a cruel king,
Performed his work of blood. They suffered here,
The victims of that judge and of that king;
In mockery of all justice, here they bled,
Unheard. But not unpitied, nor of God
Unseen, the innocent suffered; not unheard
The innocent blood cried vengeance; for at length
The indignant nation in its power arose,
Resistless. Then that wicked judge took flight,
Disguised in vain: not always is the Lord
Slow to revenge. A miserable man,
He fell beneath the people’s rage, and still
The children curse his memory. From the throne
The obdurate bigot who commissioned him,
Inhuman James, was driven. He lived to drag
Long years of frustrate hope; he lived to load
More blood upon his soul. Let tell the Boyne,
Let Londonderry tell, his guilt and shame;
And that immortal day when on thy shores,
La Hogue, the purple ocean dashed the dead!

1. For the Cenotaph at Ermenonville
2. St. Bartholomew’s Day
3. For a Tablet at Penshurst
4. Stanzas Written in Lady Lonsdale’s Album, at Lowther Castle
5. For a Tablet at Silbury Hill

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