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The Deserted Barricade

Red with innocent blood,
Black with guilty powder stains,
The barricade stands forlorn.
Its brave defenders are gone,
Only hollow shells stand now.
The attack is over.
The treacherous multitudes
Have abandoned this place of hope.
Great leaders slain, for peace, love,
The Future. The people care not.
The Guard returns to the scene of the crime.
Eight schoolboys, a child, several men:
The victims of this revolution.
All are thrown in a common grave.
One woman, strangely smiling: the Guard
Puzzled by her, keeps her body apart.
Beautiful in death, she is given a pauper's grave.
Alone in life; alone in death.
Two men slain together, friends at last,
Shall spend eternity linked by their common tomb.
One prisoner is returned to his brothers,
The other to his cold mother.
One survivor mourns these children,
Perhaps a mother weeps; no one else sees
The treachery of the government,
The Guard as mercenaries,
The death of hope.

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