France,

Part of the cluster SONGS OF INSURRECTION.

FRANCE,

The 18th Year of These States.

1

¹A GREAT year and place; A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to
touch the mother's heart closer than any yet. ²I walk'd the shores of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wail-
ing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts,
crash of falling buildings; [ begin page 366 ]

ppp.00270.368.jpg Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running
—nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps,
nor those borne away in the tumbrils; Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not
so shock'd at the repeated fusillades of the guns.

2

³Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-
accrued retribution? Could I wish humanity different? Could I wish the people made of wood and stone? Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

3

⁴O Liberty! O mate for me! Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in re-
serve, to fetch them out in case of need; Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd; Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic; Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

4

⁵Hence I sign this salute over the sea, And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and
wait with perfect trust, no matter how long; And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the be-
queath'd cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my love, And I guess some chansonniers there will understand
them, For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods
of it; O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they will
soon be drowning all that would interrupt them; O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free
march, It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness, I will run transpose it in words, to justify it, I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME.

Part of the cluster SONGS OF INSURRECTION.