Page:Florence Earle Coates Poems 1898 126.jpg

 TO FRANCE

(1894)

of Freedom! Mother and fond nurse!

Who, from thy mighty loins, with awful throes

And cries of anguish bore her! what new woes

Encompass thee? What long-forgotten curse

Revives to chill thy soul and dull its seeing?

Veiled are thy falcon-glances, as in death:

Thou bleedest, France! and, sobbing, drawest breath,

Sore smitten by the thing thou gavest being!

Is this thine offspring—once so nobly fair

That at her look were riven human chains,

And all men blessed thee for thy travail pains?

Behold! with serpents writhing in her hair

She stands, Medusa-like, the world appalling!

Her bloodless cheeks bespeak the vampire's lust;

Her victims fall before her in the dust;

Yet, unappeased, she still would see them falling.

Is this blest Liberty, this treacherous thing

That hides its venom 'neath a mask of flowers,

That smites its own defenders, and devours 126