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38 Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died, For public hope grew pale and dim In an altered time and tide, And in its wasting withered him, As a summer flower that blows too soon Droops in the smile of the waning moon, When it scatters through an April night The frozen dews of wrinkling blight. None now hoped more. Grey Power was seated Safely on her ancestral throne; And Faith, the Python, undefeated, Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on Her foul and wounded train, and men Were trampled and deceived again, And words and shews again could bind The wailing tribes of human kind In scorn and famine. Fire and blood Raged round the raging multitude, To fields remote by tyrants sent To be the scorned instrument With which they drag from mines of gore The chains their slaves yet ever wore: