Explore "The Emperor's Glove" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Combien faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne pour faire un gant de cette grandeur? " A play upon the words gant, a glove, and Gand, the French for Ghent.
On St. Baron's tower, commanding / Half of Flanders, his domain, / Charles the Emperor once was standing, / While beneath him on the landing / Stood Duke Alva and his train.
Like a print in books of fables, / Or a model made for show, / With its pointed roofs and gables, / Dormer windows, scrolls and labels, / Lay the city far below.
Through its squares and streets and alleys / Poured the populace of Ghent; / As a routed army rallies, / Or as rivers run through valleys, / Hurrying to their homes they went
"Nest of Lutheran misbelievers! " / Cried Duke Alva as he gazed; / "Haunt of traitors and deceivers, / Stronghold of insurgent weavers, / Let it to the ground be razed!"
On the Emperor's cap the feather / Nods, as laughing he replies: / "How many skins of Spanish leather, / Think you, would, if stitched together / Make a glove of such a size? "