Verse > Anthologies > James and Mary Ford, eds. > Every Day in the Year
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James and Mary Ford, eds.  Every Day in the Year.  1902.
 
November 5
Gunpowder Plot
By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
 
          A conspiracy of malcontents, having for its object the destruction of James I and the Lords and Commons in the Parliament House. It was discovered on Nov. 5, 1605.

FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree
To plague her beating heart: and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
With things that were not, yet were meant to be
Aghast within its gloomy cavity        5
That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe
Of an assembled Senate unredeemed
From subterraneous Treason’s darkling power:        10
Merciless act of sorrow infinite,
Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower
The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.
 
 
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