Apparent Failure

We shall soon lose a celebrated building.     - Paris Newspaper. I.     No, for I ll save it! Seven years since,     I passed through Paris, stopped a day     To see the baptism of your Prince;     Saw, made my bow, and went my way     Walking the heat and headache off,     I took the Seine-side, you surmise,     Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,     Cavours appeal and Buols replies,     So sauntered till what met my eyes? II.     Only the Doric little Morgue!     The dead-house where you show your drowned     Petrarchs Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,     Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.     One pays ones debt in such a case;     I plucked up heart and entered, stalked,     Keeping a tolerable face     Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked     Let them! No Britons to be baulked! III.     First came the silent gazers; next,     A screen of glass, were thankful for;     Last, the sights self, the sermons text,     The three men who did most abhor     Their life in Paris yesterday,     So killed themselves: and now, enthroned     Each on his copper couch, they lay     Fronting me, waiting to be owned.     I thought, and think, their sins atoned. IV.     Poor men, God made, and all for that!     The reverence struck me; oer each head     Religiously was hung its hat,     Each coat dripped by the owners bed,     Sacred from touch: each had his berth,     His bounds, his proper place of rest,     Who last night tenanted on earth     Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,     Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. V.     How did it happen, my poor boy?     You wanted to be Buonaparte     And have the Tuileries for toy,     And could not, so it broke your heart?     You, old one by his side, I judge,     Were red as blood, a socialist.     A leveller! Does the Empire grudge     Youve gained what no Republic missed?     Be quiet, and unclench your fist! VI.     And this why, he was red in vain,     Or black, poor fellow that is blue!     What fancy was it turned your brain?     Oh, women were the prize for you!     Money gets women, cards and dice     Get money, and ill-luck gets just     The copper couch and one clear nice     Cool squirt of water oer your bust,     The right thing to extinguish lust! VII.     Its wiser being good than bad;     Its safer being meek than fierce:     Its fitter being sane than mad.     My own hope is, a sun will pierce     The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;     That, after Last, returns the First,     Though a wide compass round be fetched;     That what began best, cant end worst,     Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.