Classic Poem

On the Murders committed by the Jacobin Faction in the early Period of the French Revolution.

When heads by guillotines all ghastly fell,
As, mad for gore, o'er Gaul a faction hung;
Then giant Terror toll'd his nightly knell,
Wide on the winds the sounds of murder flung!

With agonizing shrieks each prison rung —
Nor yet the tocsin ceas'd its louder roar,
But every time it undulating swung,
Cold horror froze through every shivering pore,
For victims doom'd to view the dawn no more.

Those blood-stain'd Jacobins in turn shall fall,
Murd'rers of millions under freedom's name!
But not the blood that delug'd frantic Gaul,
In calm Columbia quenches reason's flame,
Or blots with bloody slur our fair Republic's fame.