To Czolgosz

And thou hast reached thy limit’s bound,
     Ferocious, fated fool!
By ruthless iron walled around,
     Ambition’s broken tool!
To fiend the coward in thee turned,
So well the lesson thou hast learned,
     In crime’s accursed school;
Ah, who in all the teeming world,
Would to thy awful depths be hurled?

The fame that thou didst seek is sunk
     In infamy so dark,
No miscreant alive, though drunk,
     Thy name for praise would mark.
A deluge cold of scorn and hate.
As fitting portion of thy fate,
     Finds thee beyond the ark;
Like noxious mist from some morass,
We feel thy reeking record pass.

Thou art no martyr hero—no!
     The hero has a cause;
No crank—the crank at least can show
     Respect for human laws;
Thou art an impulse driven curse,
A nightmare of the universe,
     To earn hell’s own applause;
A maniac in open risk,
In walks of men a basilisk!

Assassin! Yes, that cursed name
     To thee we must apply;
The Goldman she-wolf shares the blame,
     And with thee she should die!
Too long the nation has been blind
To these and all thy dastard kind,
     Asps of the evil eye!
No more our Presidents shall bleed—
We swear to crush with thee thy creed.

Like lightning from a zenith clear
     Thy heinous deed flashed out,
In such a tranquil atmosphere,
     The world first heard in doubt; [140][141]
He whom the deadly lead assailed
Had so contended, so prevailed,
     His name inspired a shout:
Oblivion’s dark recesses ache
For all thy kind, thou human snake!