On the Place de la Concorde,Born in 1769 in Norwich, writer Ameila Opie was perhaps best known for her prose work but also published a number of individual poems and collections during her lifetime. She was brought up in a reasonably affluent family, her father was a physician and her cousin a prominent judge in the region. She was a fervently political individual at a time when this was not fashionable and inherited her radical views from her father.
On the Place de la Concorde by Amelia Opie
On the Place de la Concorde
Revolution, where the perpetual guillotine stood.]Proud Seine, along thy winding tide
Fair smiles yon plain expanding wide,
And, deckt with art and nature’s pride,
There splendid domes attention seize,
There, proudly towering, spreading trees
Arise in beauteous rivalry:….But there’s a place amidst that plain
Which bids its beauties beam in vain;
And prompts the throb of agony.That place by day, lo! numbers fly,
And, shuddering, start to see it nigh;
Who there at midnight breathe the sigh
Of faithful, suffering, loyalty.While, blending with those loyal sighs,
Oft times the patriot’s murmurs rise,
To mourn the sons of liberty.Lo! as amidst that plain I stray,
Methinks strange sadness shrouds the day,
And clothed in slaughter’s red array
Appears the scene of gayety.
For once that spot was dark with blood,
There death’s destroying engine stood,
There streamed, alas! the vital flood
Of all that graced humanity.
Ah! since this fair domain ye chose,
Dread ruffians, for your murderous blows,
Could not the smiling scene unclose
Your hearts to love and charity!
No….horrid contrast! on that scene
The murderer reared his poniard keen;
There proudly stalked with hideous mien
The blood-stained sons of anarchy.
Nor, Gallia, shall thy varied mirth,
Thy store of all that graces earth,
Ere give a kind oblivion birth
To thy recorded cruelty.
In all thy pomp of charms and power,
Earth can, alas! forget no more
The awful guilt that stains thy shore
With dies of sanguine tyranny,
Than they who see blue lightnings beam
Can ere forget, though fair they seem,
That danger lurks in every gleam,
And death’s appalling agency.
