(A FALSIFIED PROPHECY)
November 1872
ONCE more she sits upon her ancient throne,
The fair Republic of our steadfast vows;
A Phrygian bonnet binds her ivory brows,
About her neck her knotted hair is blown:
A hundred cities nestle in her lap,
Girt round their stately locks with mural crowns;
The folds of her imperial robe enwrap
A thousand lesser towns.
But by her side in crownless state sits one
Who in her darkest days with noble trust
Raised up her fallen beauty from the dust,
And battled in her cause, her eldest son:
Faithful alone through many a faithless hour,
And proved by stern adversity of old;
Tried in the fiery crucible of power,
And found of truest gold.
When on her neck the despot’s heel was pressed,
His eloquent voice alone rang loud and free
To raise the trumpet cry of liberty
And speed her watchword on from east to west:
And when, like some fierce whirlwind, through the land
The wrathful Teuton swept, he only dared
To hope and act when every heart and hand,
But his alone, despaired.
A poet’s scorn for all the ill that is;
A prophet’s yearning for the distant weal;
A fervent tongue; a heart of fiery zeal
Tempered with fine discretion, these are his:
The earliest herald of that dawning day,
When plans of weighty counsel shall arrange
The younger world, while haste and slow delay
Give place to gentle change.
He first among our chiefs had skill to wrench
The iron pike from Revolution’s hand,
Pluck from her furious clutch the blazing brand,
And wrest the angry axe her fingers clench:
His was the task to raise our slighted laws
Without the murderous arm of anarchy,
Winning at one bold stroke for freedom’s cause
A bloodless victory.
And now, when all our land is calm once more,
Like some fierce Ætna lulled a while to rest,
The fiery waves within whose torrent breast
Surge up to flood afresh the Rhenish shore;
By timid friends and open foes begirt,
We find in him alone of all our men
One man too earnest-minded to desert
One brother citizen.
He still shall guide us toward the distant goal,
Calm with unerring tact our weak alarms,
Train all our youth in skill of manly arms,
And knit our sires in unity of soul,
Till bursting iron bars and gates of brass
Our own Republic stretch her arm again
To raise the weeping daughters of Alsace,
And lead thee home, Lorraine.