Publication information
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Source: Atlanta Constitution
Source type: newspaper
Document type: poem
Document title: “Buffalo, September 6”
Author(s): Howe, Julia Ward
City of publication: Atlanta, Georgia
Date of publication: 22 September 1901
Volume number: 34
Issue number: none
Part/Section: 1
Pagination: 7

 
Citation
Howe, Julia Ward. “Buffalo, September 6.” Atlanta Constitution 22 Sept. 1901 v34: part 1, p. 7.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
McKinley assassination (poetry); Pan-American Exposition (poetry).
 
Named persons
none.
 
Document

 

Buffalo, September 6

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.

 

 


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