France, the 18th year of These States

1A GREAT year and place;A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closerthanany yet.5

I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea,Heard over the waves the little voice,Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon,curses,shouts, crash of falling buildings;10Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running⁠—nor from the single corpses,northose in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;Was not so desperate at the battues of death⁠—was not so shock’d at the repeatedfusillades of the guns.15

2Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?Could I wish humanity different?Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?20

3O Liberty! O mate for me!Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch them out in case ofneed;Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy’d;25Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

4Hence I sign this salute over the sea,And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,30But remember the little voice that I heard wailing⁠—and wait with perfect trust, nomatterhow long;And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath’d cause, as for all lands,And I send these words to Paris with my love,35And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,For I guess there is latent music yet in France⁠—floods of it;O I hear already the bustle of instruments⁠—they will soon be drowning all that wouldinterrupt them;O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,40It reaches hither⁠—it swells me to joyful madness,I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME.