Her royal hands were stained

With the life of a King and Queen;

And darker than that with the blood

Of the nameless brave and good

Whose blood in witness clings

More damning than Queens' and Kings'.

Has she not paid it dearly?

Chained, watching her chosen nation

Grinding late and early

In the mills of usurpation?

Have not her holy tears

Flowing through shameful years,

Washed the stains from her tortured hands?

We thought so when God's fresh breeze,

Blowing over the sleeping lands,

In 'Forty-Eight waked the world,

And the best of the kings was hurled

From that palace behind the trees.

As Freedom with eyes aglow

Smiled glad through her childbirth pain,

How was the mother to know

That her woe and travail were vain?

A smirking servant smiled

When she gave him her child to keep;

Did she know he would strangle the child

As it lay in his arms asleep?

Liberty's cruellest shame!

She is stunned and speechless yet.

In her grief and bloody sweat

Shall we make her trust her blame?

The treasure of 'Forty-Eight

A lurking jail-bird stole,

She can but watch and wait

As the swift sure seasons roll.

And when in God's good hour

Comes the time of the brave and true,

Freedom again shall rise

With a blaze in her awful eyes

That shall wither this robber-power

As the sun now dries the dew.

This Place shall roar with the voice

Of the glad triumphant people,

And the heavens be gay with the chimes

Ringing with jubilant noise

From every clamorous steeple

The coming of better times.

And the dawn of Freedom waking

Shall fling its splendors far

Like the day which now is breaking

On the great pale Arch of the Star,

And back o'er the town shall fly, While the joy-bells wild are ringing,

To crown the Glory springing

From the Column of July!

Observed, as they turned to go,

"No wonder He likes that sort of thing,He's a Sphinx himself, you know."

I thought as I walked where the garden glowed

In the sunset's level fire,

Of the Charlatan whom the Frenchmen loathe

And the Cockneys all admire.