Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/222

Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are;
And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre.

Thomas B. Macaulay.

The Glove and the Lions.

"The Glove and the Lions" was one of my early reading-lessons. It is an incisive thrust at the vanity of "fair" women. A woman should be a "true knight" as well as a man. Leigh Hunt (1784-1859).

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And 'mong them sat the Count de Lorge with one for whom he sighed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valour, and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramp'd and roar'd the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,

Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;