Page:Poems for Workers - ed. Manuel Gomez (1925).djvu/12

 A Woman's Execution.

By.

Written after the fall of the Paris Commune of 1871, when the Communards were being slaughtered by black reaction. The author was an American journalist who lived from 1848 to 1896.

Sweet-breathed and young,

The people's daughter,

No nerves unstrung,

Going to slaughter.

"Good morning, friends,

You'll love us better—

Make us amends:

We've burst your fetter!

"How the sun gleams!

(Women are snarling):

Give me your beams,

Liberty's darling!

"Marie's my name;

Christ's mother bore it.

The badge? No shame:

Glad that I wore it!"

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