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ANARCHY; PARIS, FEBRUARY 5, 1894, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The night is blinded with rain
Last Line: "that they killed marie antoinette."
Subject(s): Anarchism And Anarchists; French Revolution (1789)


PARIS, FEBRUARY 5, 1894.

THE night is blinded with rain,
No light in the casements is seen;
Thro' the blank streets, long before dawn,
Rolls the van with the guillotine.

Save the quick stroke of hammers alone,
With their petulant hurry of sound,
There is scarcely a murmur that comes
From the sullen groups lingering round;

For the sombre toilers who go
To their task, ere the day has risen,
Tarry silently on their way
Before the grim walls of the prison.

Till at last all is ready, and see!
The black scaffold frowning on high,
Where before the sun rises to-day
On the fair town, a felon shall die.

All is silent, till sudden there bursts
On the stillness a roystering crowd,
Reeling forth from their dens of the night,
With coarse jests and with blasphemies loud.

Gay masquers of Carnival-time,
Ghastly - cheeked, crimson - lipped, hollow-eyed,
Roughed harlots, mock-Churchmen, a swarm
Of the reckless on every side.

But as to the scaffold they press,
Something strikes that lewd populace dumb,
As swift from the gates of the gaol
They behold the fierce criminal come.

Very pale and erect, unafraid,
With firm paces and regular breath,
This priest of a murderous creed
Goes calm as a martyr to death.

"Long live Anarchy! Death to the State!
And you bourgeois!" No penitent word.
But a deep silence broods o'er the crowd;
Not a cry, scarce a murmur is heard.

Then the masquers go wearily home,
And the corpse to the surgeons. And yet
A voice cries, "'Twas a century since
That they killed Marie Antoinette."





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