The air was filled with music, every heart
Throbbed its thanksgiving for
the season’s wealth,
With splendors piled appeared the magic mart
Whose arches gave their echoes
for thy health.
The train made entrance on the brilliant scene
Like the fair galley of a victor
crowned;
While Nature smiled, propitious and serene,
Thine and the Nation’s heart the
death blow found.
Dark grow the skies, the sounds of joy are hushed.
Reason can scarce attest the sudden
change;
When did the flower of hope, so fully flushed,
So swiftly fail, with portent
sad and strange?
Thine was the glory of successful rule,
Thine, in thy manly youth, the
warrior’s wreath.
For what of thy good service might a fool
Aim at thy breast, unarmed, the
stroke of death?
The garlands hung on thy triumphal way
Shall now be heaped thy mournful
bier above,
Yet with best conquest ends thy noble day,
Resigning life, but keeping faith
and love.
