The Ascent of Man. Mathilde Blind

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      Seed that's sown upon the wanton wind

      Shall be harvested in whirlwind rages,

      For revenge and hate bring forth their kind,

      And black crime must ever be the wages

      Of a nation's crime

      Time transmits to time,

      Till the score of years

      Is wiped out in floods of staunchless tears.

      Yea, the anguish in a people's life

      May have eaten out its heart of pity,

      Bred in scenes of scarlet sin and strife,

      Heartless splendours of a haughty city;

      Dark with lowering fate,

      At the massive gate

      Of its kings it may

      Stand and knock with tragic hand one day.

      For the living tomb gives up its dead,

      Bastilles yawn, and chains are rent asunder,

      Little children now and hoary head,

      Man and maiden, meet in joy and wonder;

      Throng on radiant throng,

      Brave and blithe and strong,

      Gay with pine and palm,

      Fill fair France with freedom's thunder-psalm.

      Free and equal – rid of king and priest —

      The rapt nation bids each neighbour nation

      To partake the sacramental feast

      And communion of the Federation:

      And electrified

      Masses, far and wide,

      Thrill to hope and start

      Vibrating as with one common heart.

      From the perfumed South of amorous France

      With her wreath of orange bloom and myrtle,

      From old wizard woods of lost Romance

      Soft with wail of wind and voice of turtle,

      From the roaring sea

      Of grey Normandy,

      And the rich champaigns

      Where the vine gads o'er Burgundian plains;

      From the banks of the blue arrowy Rhone,

      And from many a Western promontory,

      From volcanic crags of cloven stone

      Crowned with castles ivy-green in story;

      From gay Gascon coasts

      March fraternal hosts,

      Equal hosts and free,

      Pilgrims to the shrine of liberty.

      But king calls on king in wild alarms,

      Troops march threatening through the vales and passes,

      Barefoot Faubourgs at the cry to arms

      On the frontier hurl their desperate masses:

      The deep tocsin's boom

      Fills the streets with gloom,

      And with iron hand

      The red Terror guillotines the land.

      For the Furies of the sanguine past

      Chase fair Freedom, struggling torn and baffled,

      Till infuriate – turned to bay at last —

      Rolled promiscuous on the common scaffold,

      Vengeful she shall smite

      A Queen's head bleached white,

      And a courtesan's

      Whose light hands once held the reins of France.

      She shall smite and spare not – yea, her own,

      Her fair sons so pure from all pollution,

      With their guiltless life-blood must atone

      To the goddess of the Revolution;

      Dying with a song

      On their lips, her young

      Ardent children end,

      Meeting death even as one meets a friend.

      And her daughter, in heroic shame,

      Turned to Freedom's Moloch statue, crying:

      "Liberty, what crimes done in thy name!"

      Spake, and with her Freedom's self seemed dying

      As she bleeding lay

      'Neath Napoleon's sway:

      Europe heard her knell

      When on Waterloo the Empire fell.