NOT ALL disgraced, in that Italian town, <br />The imperial German cowered beneath thine hand, <br />Alone indeed imperial Hildebrand, <br />And felt thy foot and Rome’s, and felt her frown <br />And thine, more strong and sovereign than his crown, <br />Though iron forged its blood-encrusted band. <br />But now the princely wielder of his land, <br />For hatred’s sake toward freedom, so bows down, <br />No strength is in the foot to spurn: its tread <br />Can bruise not now the proud submitted head: <br />But how much more abased, much lower brought low, <br />And more intolerably humiliated, <br />The neck submissive of the prosperous foe, <br />Than his whom scorn saw shuddering in the snow!<br /><br />Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bismarck-at-canossa-sonnets/
