September 6, 1901

’Tis not the President alone
     Who, stricken by that bullet fell,
The assassin’s shot that laid him prone
     Pierced a great nation’s heart as well;
And when the baleful tidings sped,
     From lip to lip throughout the crowd,
Then, as they deemed their ruler dead,
     ’Twas Liberty that cried aloud.

Ay, Liberty! for where the foam
     Of oceans twain marks out the coast,
’Tis there, in Freedom’s very home,
     That Anarchy has maimed its host;
There ’tis that is has turned to bite
     The hand that fed it; there repaid
A country’s welcome with black spite;
     There, Judas like, that land betrayed.

For ’tis no despot that’s laid low,
     But a free nation’s chosen chief;
A free man, stricken by a blow
     Base, dastardly, past all belief.
And Tyranny exulting hears
     The tidings flashed across the sea;
While stern Repression hugs her fears,
     And mouths them in a harsh decree.

Meanwhile the cloud, though black as death,
     Is lined with hopes, hopes light as life,
And liberty that, scant of breath,
     Had watched the issue of the strife,
Fills the glad air with grateful cries
     To find the sun no more obscured,
And with new yearnings in her eyes
     Climbs to her watch-tower—reassured.