All
the flags half mast are flying,
And
deep down our hearts are crying;
(God keep the wife who sorrows at his bier!)
For
the public pulse that’s throbbing
Checks
its beats with silent sobbing.
(Each woman’s heart is mother to a tear.—
For
the depth of woman’s woe
Is
a thing no man may know.
Smiling
lips was Judas wearing,
But
his heart was hard, unsparing.
(He shot at HER—the miscreant!—nor missed.)
With
the ruddy blood that clotted
There
went out a life unspotted.
(She lives to think of him she once had kissed.—
Thus
much harder is her part.
Dead
in life now beats her heart.)
In
the days that followed after
Gone
were thoughts of joy and laughter.
(“I must be brave,” the little woman said.)
Once
he from Death’s gate retreated,
Then
bravely he old Charon greeted.
(In vain she tried to hold him. He was dead.—
Knowing
Death had victory won
She
echoed his “Thy will be done!”)
Life
is but a short probation,
Yet
his death grieved all the nation.
(Her heart is dead—what room is there for grief?)
When
he from Death’s portals drifted
Briefly
were our hearts uplifted.
’Twas gall to tincture hopeful unbelief.—
Some
day they’ll meet—We have the Word!
So;
maybe, ’tis but Hope deferred.)
He
was patriot and true man,
Loved
of every man and woman.
(He was knightly, he was courteous and kind.)
He
was soldier, statesman, scholar;
Optimistic,
foe to dolor.
(His words of cheer she tries to bring to mind.—
Why
was she spared her feeble breath?
Mayhap
to comfort him in death!)
“Vengeance!”
cries an angry people,
Reverberate
from spire and steeple.
(She sorrowing cries, “Will vengeance give him life?”)
“Give
to fiends anarchistic
Death
with trimmings most artistic.”
(She, apathetic, says, “I was his wife.—
“Will
vengeance give to me the love
“I
lost when soared his soul above?”)
Most
infamously Czolgosz acted.
Can
he pay the debt contracted
With the paltry little life he calls his own?
Killed,
for fancied fault detected,
Man
by million men elected.
Such conceit as this of his is seldom known.
Soon,
Czolgosz, too, will be no more,
And
God will even up the score.
Now
and ever does the nation
Give
its deep commiseration
To the wife who lives and suffers all alone.
God
give her strength to bear it.
(She
knows the people share it.)
And for our faults God help us to atone.
God
help us to do right and then,
“Thy
will be done, O Lord. Amen.”