116
PRIZE POEMS.
Though Kings and Courts stood gazing on thy fate,
The bad, to scoff,—the better, to debate,
Here, where the soul of youth remembers yet
The smiles and tears which manhood must forget,
In a far land, the honest and the free
Had lips to pray, and hearts to feel, for thee!
The bad, to scoff,—the better, to debate,
Here, where the soul of youth remembers yet
The smiles and tears which manhood must forget,
In a far land, the honest and the free
Had lips to pray, and hearts to feel, for thee!
NOTE.
Several images in the early part of the poem are selected from passages in the Greek Tragedians,—particularly from the two well known Choruses in the Œdipus Coloneus and the Medea.
The death of Lord Byron took place after the day appointed for the sending in of the exercises; and the allusion to it has, of course, been introduced subsequent to the adjudication of the prize.
