Sunrise in the Place De La Concorde. (Paris, August 1865.)

I stand at the break of dayIn the Champs Elysees.The tremulous shafts of dawning,As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early,Strike Luxor's cold grey spire,And wild in the light of the morningWith their marble manes on fire,Ramp the white Horses of Marly.

But the Place of Concord liesDead hushed 'neath the ashy skies.And the Cities sit in councilWith sleep in their wide stone eyes.I see the mystic plainWhere the army of spectres slainIn the Emperor's life-long warMarch on with unsounding treadTo trumpets whose voice is dead.Their spectral chief still leads them,--The ghostly flash of his swordLike a comet through mist shines far,--And the noiseless host is poured,For the gendarme never heeds them,Up the long dim road where thunderedThe army of Italy onwardThrough the great pale Arch of the Star!

The spectre army fadesFar up the glimmering hill,But, vaguely lingering still,A group of shuddering shadesInfects the pallid air,Growing dimmer as day invadesThe hush of the dusky square.There is one that seems a King,As if the ghost of a CrownStill shadowed his jail-bleached hair;I can hear the guillotine ring,As its regicide note rang there,When he laid his tired life downAnd grew brave in his last despair.And a woman frail and fairWho weeps at leaving a worldOf love and revel and sinIn the vast Unknown to be hurled;(For life was wicked and sweetWith kings at her small white feet!)And one, every inch a Queen,In life and in death a Queen,Whose blood baptized the place,In the days of madness and fear,--Her shade has never a peerIn majesty and grace.

Murdered and murderers swarm;Slayers that slew and were slain,Till the drenched place smoked with the rainThat poured in a torrent warm,--Till red as the Riders of EdomWere splashed the white garments of FreedomWith the wash of the horrible storm!

And Liberty's hands were not cleanIn the day of her pride unchained,Her royal hands were stainedWith the life of a King and Queen;And darker than that with the bloodOf the nameless brave and goodWhose blood in witness clingsMore damning than Queens' and Kings'.

Has she not paid it dearly?Chained, watching her chosen nationGrinding late and earlyIn 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 Burgher-King was hurledFrom that palace behind the trees.

As Freedom with eyes aglowSmiled glad through her childbirth pain,How was the mother to knowThat her woe and travail were vain?A smirking servant smiledWhen she gave him her child to keep;Did she know he would strangle the childAs it lay in his arms asleep?

Liberty's cruellest shame!She is stunned and speechless yet,In her grief and bloody sweatShall we make her trust her blame?The treasure of 'Forty-EightA lurking jail-bird stole,She can but watch and waitAs the swift sure seasons roll.

And when in God's good hourComes the time of the brave and true,Freedom again shall riseWith a blaze in her awful eyesThat shall wither this robber-powerAs the sun now dries the dew.This Place shall roar with the voiceOf the glad triumphant people,And the heavens be gay with the chimesRinging with jubilant noiseFrom every clamorous steepleThe coming of better times.And the dawn of Freedom wakingShall fling its splendours farLike the day which now is breakingOn 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 springingFrom the Column of July!