Poems for Workers (Gomez 1925)/A Woman's Execution
A Woman's Execution.
By Edward King.
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!"
(Hair to the waist,
Limbs like a Venus):
Robes are displaced:
"Soldiers, please screen us!
"He at the front?
That is my lover:
Stood all the brunt;—
Now—the fight's over.
"Powder and bread
Gave out together:
Droll to be dead
In this bright weather!
"Jean, boy, we might
Have married in June!
This is the wall? Right!
VIVE LA COMMUNE!"