A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XII

Dear royal France! I fix the happy year
At forty--seven, because that Christmas--tide
There passed through Pau the Duke of Montpensier,
Fresh from his nuptials with his Spanish bride;
And because I, unwilling, shared their pride,
As youngest of the English children there,
By offering flowers to the fair glorified
Daughter of Bourbon standing on the stair--
A point in history. When we came at last
To this gay Paris I was doomed to love,
There were already rumours of the blast
That swept the Orleans songsters from their grove
In flight to London, after Polignac
And the true king, at their King Bourgeois' back.