A Song

Victor Marie Hugo 1802 (Besançon) – 1885 (Paris)



Sitting at His table one day,
God and the devil a game did play;
Hated humanity was at stake;
Well, the first picked Bonaparte;
The other drew, and for his part,
'Twas Mastai that he did take.

Impoverished abbey, thin as a sprite!
Petty prince, small and filled with spite,
Truly a thoughtless brat!
Oh what a worthless pot!
'Twas God that had the losing lot
So the devil won them both at that.

God the Father cried, 'Take them you!
You will not know what to do
With them'; the devil laughed; 'Good sir-
That's where you're wrong,' the devil said,
And of the one a pope he made,
And of the other an emperor.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
99

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABCCB DDEFFE GGHXXH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 598
Words 119
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6

Victor Marie Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831. Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He was buried in the Panthéon. more…

All Victor Marie Hugo poems | Victor Marie Hugo Books

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