A Nation in mourning, a Nation in sorrow,
America mourns her illustrious dead,
With tears for today, and with shame for the morrow;
A blight on our Nation’s escutcheon is shed
By traitorous Anarchist, faithless to honor,
A foreigner, false to our National trust,
With murderous bullet, has woe brought upon her—
Columbia, bowed in her grief, to the dust.
Our President, noble and christianlike, standing,
True Statesman and soldier, a stranger to fear,
Himself to the hearts of his people close banding
With clasp of his hand, and a smile of good cheer
Is shot down to death, by a villainous craven,
Whose heart never flinched when the swift bullet sped,
His crime, in its awfulness, deeply is graven
On hearts of our nation, bewailing her dead.
A Nation of honor, of power and glory,
The birthplace of freedom, the land of the brave,
Has thrice in its record retold the sad story
Since liberty came to the bondmen and slave.
We mourn for our Lincoln, with sorrow unhealing,
We grieve for our Garfield, by murderer slain,
But who can portray the deep anger and feeling
The death of McKinley has wakened again.
Our President, noble in motive, and manner
Discharging with wisdom the vast public trust;
Well may we half mast our bright Star Spangled Banner,
Lamenting the death of a President just.
Ye men of America, rise in your power,
And sweep from our Country the Anarchist band,
As vengeance, in part, for the grief of this hour,
The stain that now darkens our fair native land.
